iacobusm Lent and Easter

Legions of Angels, the Adulteress, and Christ’s Sacrifice

                    Christ and the Adulterous Woman, by Nicholas Poussin, 1653

“Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matthew 46: 53-54)

 Legions of Angels 

     Many Years ago I taught in a (more or less) Catholic high school. One day a certain student wanted to know how many soldiers were in a Roman legion. Around 6,000, I answered.  “Well,” he offered, “Jesus said that if he asked, his Father would send him twelve legions of angels.”  I acknowledged that he had (see Matthew, 26:53).  The student’s face then broke into a huge grin as he blurted out, “That’s a whole lot of angels!”

     I wasn’t sure at the time, and I’m unsure still more than two decades later, what my student was getting at.  Was he making a joke of some sort?  Did he really admire Christ’s power to command the hosts of Heaven? I do know that Jesus was serious. His point wasn’t the exact number of angels he could summon.  Now, I’m sure that the number twelve is meant to correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve apostles, etc., but that’s secondary. Christ’s immediate point was that he had all the power he could want.  He had the power to save Himself . . . if he chose.

 

 How Then Should The Scriptures Be Fulfilled ?

The Arrest of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, studio of Giuseppe Cesari, c.1600

     It will be helpful to look at the context for the comment about legions of angels.  Jesus’ affirmation of his authority over angelic armies comes during Matthew’s Passion Narrative.  He is in the Garden of Gethsemane with his Apostles. At that moment Judas arrives, “and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people” (Matthew 26:47). Judas identifies Jesus with a kiss,

 

Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matthew 46: 50-54)

 

     Jesus surrenders willingly to the violent mob, not because he can’t free himself, but because he chooses to surrender. He allows the crowd to take him, knowing that it means an agonizing death by crucifixion.

 

 The Passiontide 

     This is a good time to talk about the Passion of Jesus, by the way, because we are now in that part of the Liturgical Year that we call the Passiontide. This is the last two weeks of Lent, when we focus our Lenten observance more explicitly on the suffering and death of Jesus.  The transition to Passiontide, unfortunately, is no longer as obvious as it was when we called the Fifth Sunday Passion Sunday. The TLM still follows the the traditional practice; in the ordinary form, however, Passion Sunday has now moved one week later to combine with Palm Sunday.

     While it may not be as obvious as in the traditional arrangement, the liturgy is still pointing us more directly in the direction of events of the Triduum. Consider the Gospel reading for this past Sunday, the Woman Caught in Adultery from John’s Gospel (John 8:1-11).  As in the Passion narrative we have a violent mob, eager for blood. The difference is, here Jesus does frustrate the crowd’s murderous designs, and he does it without so much as a single cohort of angels.

   

 The Guilty And The Innocent 

King of Sorrows, by William Burton Shakespeare, 1897

     That’s not the only difference between the two passages.  Isn’t it interesting that the woman Jesus saves really is guilty: she was caught in the act.  Jesus himself, on the other hand, is totally without sin, and yet he allows himself to be taken.  In fact, it is because of her sin (and mine, and yours) that Jesus surrenders his own life.

     That doesn’t make sense, without the eyes of faith.  But of course, “the wisdom of this world is folly with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19). And in fact, that surrender of his own innocent life is an act of power greater than anything the “wisdom” of this world can imagine.  All the legions of angels together can’t match its power.  For the sake of sinners such as the adulteress (and me, and you), Jesus Christ conquered Death.

     Yes, Christ has freed us from death.  The freedom he purchased for us by his own free choice, however, has a purpose.   After he tells the woman, “Nor do I condemn you” Jesus adds, “Go and sin no more.”  Our liberty in Christ isn’t license.  He didn’t suffer and die on the cross in order to enable us to continue our lives of sin.  He gave us freedom so that we, too, might freely choose the good. It’s an awesome gift, and an awesome responsibility.

     This coming Sunday we will celebrate Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday.  Over the week that follows we will relive the events of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. Let’s remember that, if he chooses, Jesus can ask his Father for twelve legions of angels.  Instead, Jesus chooses to suffer and die: not because he’s guilty, but because we are.

 

 

iacobusm Faith and Sin, Lent and Easter, Sacred scripture

Confession, Jonah, and the Prodigal’s Sons

    There are many things for which I should be more grateful, and one of the greatest is the forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Confession. One of the graces of the season of Lent is that there are many things to remind my stubborn, sluggish brain of that fact.  For instance, this past Sunday father dedicated a large part of his homily to explaining how a detailed examination of conscience can help us make a good confession, and illustrated with a model based on the Ten Commandments .  He also very helpfully directed our attention to the stained glass window closest to the confessional, which happened to be a depiction of the Prodigal Son. That reminded me of a Lenten penance I received at confession a few years ago, an assignment which got me thinking . . . and led to the meditation on the Prodigal Son, the Book of Jonah, and the Power of Forgiveness that I have reposted below.

     I was given an interesting penance when I went to confession recently. I was to meditate on the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).  My confessor emphasized that the father in Jesus’ story, who extravagantly welcomes back his wastrel son, is the true “prodigal”.  In the context of the Sacrament of Confession we can see a clear identification between this father and the loving and forgiving God, with ourselves as the erring son who, having wasted his father’s generosity, returns home chastened and knowing that any  kindness he receives will be more than he deserves. “Father”, he says, “I have sinned against Heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Luke 15:18).

“The Return of the Prodigal Son” (1782) by Jean Germain Drouais (angry son at right)

     There is another son in the story, however, the “Good” Son, who remained faithfully at home and, as he tells his father, “ ‘Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command” (Luke 15:29).  Angry that his erring brother is receiving a huge “welcome back” party, while his father “never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends” (Luke 15:29), the obedient son stubbornly refuses to come in and join the celebration.  He is, in fact, still obstinately standing outside the house at the end of Jesus’ parable, and the last thing we see is his father pleading with him “to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32).

     Thinking about this second son, I was reminded of the story of Jonah.  I had never before considered how closely Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son parallels the last two chapters of the book of Jonah, but the comparison is striking.  In the Old Testament book Jonah is sent to warn the people of Nineveh to repent their sins, or face the wrath of God. The Ninevites listen to the words of the prophet: like the Prodigal Son himself, they whole-heartedly repent, and in turn receive God’s whole-hearted forgiveness.  Who could object to that?  As it turns out, Jonah could, and does, object:

 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the LORD and said, “I pray thee, LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repentest of evil.  Therefore now, O LORD, take my life from me, I beseech thee, for it is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:1-3).

“Jonah, Seated Under the Gourd, Contemplates the City” (1566) by Maerten van Heemskerck

Jonah is determined not to give up his anger.  God tries to soften his heart, first with kindness, by growing a large plant to shield him from the sun. He then takes a harsher approach, in which he kills the plant and exposes the sulking prophet to the ravages of sun and wind.  Jonah’s heart is unchanged: “I do well to be angry,” he says, “ angry enough to die” (Jonah 4:9).  The story ends, as does Jesus’ parable, with the voice of the Father explaining to his still fuming son why it is better to show compassion for those who were lost in sin, but have found their way back:

“You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night, and perished in a night.  And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:10-11)

In both places, it is left unsaid whether the Father’s kindly words eventually pierce the heart of his stubborn son. We leave both Jonah and the unforgiving son still brimming with anger and resentment.

     Which brings us back to Luke’s Gospel. The parable of the Prodigal Son is the culmination of a series of parables illustrating that, as Jesus says, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7).  He is addressing a group of  Scribes and Pharisees who were grumbling about Jesus, saying “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2).  The angry son in the parable is obviously intended to represent Christ’s hard-hearted critics.  

     Scripture, of course, always works on numerous levels, and we can see other meanings in the unforgiving brother as well.  As I meditated on this passage I could see myself in this unlovely figure; as much as I can identify with the erring but repentant son, I can also be the judging, unyielding son who refuses to share his Father’s joy in the redemption of those who had previously fallen. Sometimes, amazingly, I can be both at once.

      In his way, the angry son is the worse sinner.  There can be no doubt that the first son has indulged in serious and destructive wrongdoing, but because it’s so obvious, and the consequences so inescapable, he knows he needs to repent.  The second son appears to be doing all the right things, and in fact he is . . . on the outside.  He is really like (again) the scribes and pharisees, whom Jesus says “are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27).  The appearance of probity keeps him from seeing his own sinful heart, and he willingly removes himself from his father’s house.  Jesus makes the same point with a different parable in Matthew’s Gospel:

A man had two sons; and he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he repented and went. And he went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” (Matthew 21:28-31)

     This is, I think, a good point to consider as we draw nearer to Holy Week.  It may be that the inspired author of Jonah, and Jesus himself with his parable, finish with a open-ended question, because we, in the person of the (self)righteous son, are being invited to give up our stubbornness and embrace the Father’s compassion. All of us need to throw ourselves on the mercy of God, Who in his prodigal love for us gave His only Son to suffer and die for our sins.  What are our little resentments compared to that?

An earlier version of this Throwback Post was first published 21 March 2016.