Why the resurrection is so important for this election

Rembrandt's Resurrection

So why should the resurrection bring us hope in our modern world?  If we think about it, the greatest miracle in human history has occurred over 2000 years ago, so what bearing should it have on us today in our postmodern world?  Simply put, the resurrection teaches us where to place our hope. The world places its hope in those things that perish.  Many nations have placed their hope in leaders, and every time, this has lead to downfall.  Just look at the Germans, after World War I, the Germans were in financial ruin, so they placed all their hope in a certain leader, which helped their economy become strong once again, but this also lead to World War II, and it eventually lead to nothing but disappointment (to say the least) when WWII ended.  In more contemporary times, the campaign slogan “hope and change” was used.  There have been many changes, but I don’t know if people are more hopeful.  And now with the current election, people have seem to lost hope in all the candidates.  People no longer vote for the candidate they like, rather they vote for a candidate who they think will do the least amount of  damage to the country.

A nation  placing their hope in a political leader  is nothing new, going back to the old testament the Israelites wanted a king to lead them (1 Sam 8:5).  God warned them that they would be oppressed if they chose to have a king (1 Sam 8:10-18), but of course the Israelites didn’t listen, and as a result we see the divided kingdom, and eventually the Babylonian exile.  In the new testament, not much has changed, in Christ’s trial before pilate, we see the crowd choosing Caesar over Christ.

So what can we learn from all this, to place our hope in someone other than God to lead us, is a hope that will only disappoint.  To place our hope in political leaders, money, power, success,  or anything else that this world can give, will only lead to disappointment, because the hope that we have is a hope that is meant to last an eternity, a hope that will never end.  As a results our hearts are torn between the temporal and the eternal.

When we place our hope in the temporal, at some point we will only become  disappointed.  This is why our political system is so broken, because we have placed our hope in political figureheads who have become gods to our modern culture. They have become false gods, who we, the people, expect to fix all our problems. They make false promises that are impossible to keep, because they are only human like the rest of us.  The culture expects leaders to fix the impossible, and so leaders promise the impossible.  Leaders are simply the reflection of the culture. Case in point, the crowd chose Barabbas over Christ, because Barabbas was a reflection of the crowd turning ugly. The reason why many leaders have become like Barabbas is because the people want Barabbas, and those leaders who try to be like Christ, have had their reputation crucified in the public square.  The crowd chose Caesar to be their king over Christ’s kingship, only to be destroyed by Caesar in 70 A.D. with the fall of the temple. Caesar betrayed the crowd years later when the destruction of the temple occurred, because the crowd betrayed Christ during Christ's trial.  The more our culture and society betrays Christ, the more our leaders will betray us.

There is only one leader who will never disappoint us, and that of course, is Jesus Christ.  Every time the crowds wanted to make Jesus some kind of political leader, he fled (Jn 6:15). Although he fled, he never disappointed.  How come Jesus never disappoints? Because he not only promises the impossible, but he also fulfills and keeps all of his impossible promises, including rising from the dead. How many leaders are able to rise from the dead to keep their promises (and I am not talking about their political careers). Christ is the only leader in history who was able to fulfill his promises, and he was able to give everyone (not just certain groups)  what they truly needed, which is eternal life. Jesus Christ is the only leader in history who was able to keep his promise to the poor, and gave the poor something more than a check, Christ gave the poor a whole kingdom, “Blessed are the poor in spirit the kingdom of heaven is theirs”(Mt 5:3).

The resurrection of Christ offers us certain hope, by ‘certain’ I mean ‘absolute’, that is, you can be absolutely sure that Christ will fulfill all of his promises, even those promises that seem impossible, like rising from the dead.

An integral part of hope, is that, it is a desire for something in the future, either real or illusionary. The more permanent something is, the more real it is. People often have hope in winning the lottery, but once the numbers are drawn, that hope turns to disappointment, because it was only temporary, and therefore an illusionary or false hope. It was a hope that only lasted until the numbers were drawn. On the other hand, Christ is most real because he is most permanent, he is eternal in his divine nature.   Heaven is most real because it is most permanent. So what better person is there to place our hope in, than in Jesus Christ, because  Christ will never cease to exist and therefore he will never disappoint, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Mt 24:35). To put our hope in a future good such as Jesus Christ and heaven will never disappoint us, because they are both eternal, they are permanent, and therefore this becomes a real genuine hope. To say we have hope in the resurrection means we have certainty that neither the devil, sin nor death can prevent  Christ’s promises to us.  

The resurrection fulfills Christ’s impossible promises, and bearing us a genuine hope, a hope that no other leader can or will ever fulfill. So vote for Jesus, you won’t be disappointed. I can guarantee he’ll keep his promises, even if it means rising from the dead.

Let the stones cry out

At the very end of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, the Pharisees are angry with some of Jesus' disciples for worshiping Jesus as the Messiah.  When this is brought to Jesus' attention, his response is, "I tell you, if they were silent the very stones would cry out" (Lk 19:40).  What this means is that truth cannot be silenced!  As much as the Pharisees wanted Christ's disciples to shut their mouths in proclaiming the truth of Christ' messiahship, the Pharisees couldn't.   Even if the Pharisees were somehow able to silence the disciples, the stones would cry out the truth about Christ's messiahship.

Christ's kingship cannot be suppressed or avoided, no matter how hard people try.  Just like the Pharisees,  many leaders of nations try to suppress the kingship of Christ, by imprisioning or martyring Christians, they will only fail, becuase truth cannot be suppressed or wiped out.    

Truth by its very nature needs to be proclaimed, because truth is the langauge of love, truth is the activity of love expressed in words. Truth and love are the same full reality, a dvine reality that became man for the salvation of souls, whose name is Jesus Christ 

Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space. In the truth, charity reflects the personal yet public dimension of faith in the God of the Bible, who is both Agápe and Lógos: Charity and Truth, Love and Word. (Caritas in veritate 3)

To suppress the truth is to suppress charity, and where this is the lack of the gospel truth there is oppression.  This is why it is so important to go and baptise all nations, because those nations without the gospel, will become, or are already, oppressed. This is why political correctness is an illusionary form of charity, because it is not bound in truth. 

Are you having a mid Lent crisis?

So as we are entering into the fourth week of Lent we are well underway through our own personal spiritual deserts. I’m sure by now you are craving those things you may have given up for Lent, or like some people, you may have already broken those Lenten fasts. But why is fasting so important? Because fasting is where we get to, “put our money where our mouth is”, meaning that we putting our prayers into action. Without fasting and almsgiving, we are simply giving the Lord empty “lip service” which he condemned: “Not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father” (Mt 7:21). Praying alone is not enough to enter the kingdom of heaven, but fasting helps put that prayer into action. It shows Christ that we are serious about what we are praying for. Simply put, fasting is the physical sign of our prayers, or better yet, fasting is the sacramental sign of our prayers. When we fast it shows that me mean what we pray, and pray what we mean. 

Fasting also helps us acquire self-knowledge, which all of the great spiritual writers have said is the first step towards holiness. It’s rather interesting that going through a whole day without eating meat is easy for us at any other time of the year, but the minute we are required to give up meat on days of abstinence, it somehow becomes more difficult. At times my day goes by so quickly that I won’t have time to eat until late in the evening, and I don’t even give it a second thought. But on Ash Wednesday, when I am required to limit myself to only one meal, the day seems like an eternity. So what does this reveal about myself? It reveals to me that I am not as holy as I think I am. It is easy to be charitable when all our needs are being meet, but through fasting we realize that we are still called to be charitable even when our needs are not being meet: 

“When a man is not troubled it is not hard for him to be fervent and devout, but if he bears up patiently in time of adversity, there is hope for great progress...My child, you are right, yet My wish is not that you seek that peace which is free from temptation or meets no opposition, but rather that you consider yourself as having found peace when you have been tormented with many tribulations and tried with many advertises” - Thomas A’ Kempis Imitation of Christ

Fasting is meant to put us in adversity, so that we can make great spiritual progress. Fasting is the practice of finding peace in the midst of temptation, and if we can find peace in the midst of little temptations, such as giving up food, we can find peace in the midst of big temptations. When we fast, temptation shows up at the doorstep of our souls, and we are given the opportunity to choose Christ over the world

Often times it has been said we should, give up “sin” for Lent; the reality is that we should give up sin 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We do not give up sin for Lent as if somehow it is okay to go back into that sin when Lent is over. That’s like the Israelites in the desert, wanting to go back to Egypt as slaves. Sin is something we are called to avoid all the time, and to never look back upon. Rather, when we give something up for Lent, it should be something good for something better. Food is good for the body, but holiness is better for the soul. Thus we give up food so that we may grow in holiness, for what does it profit a man if he should have all the filet mignon he can eat, but he loses his soul. Filet mignon is a good thing (I’m starting to get hungry now, and it’s Friday), but you can’t take it with you to heaven. In short, fasting helps us remember that we are only pilgrims here on earth and our true home is heaven. If you can’t give up food, then I challenge you to eat something you dislike as a penance (red meat still excluded on Fridays of course). I know for me, it would be a greater penance to eat brussel sprouts then to eat nothing. In fact, St. Francis used to put ashes in his food before he ate it as a penance (don’t worry you are not required to do this).

Consequently, if you are going through a mid-Lent crisis, and are tempted to break your lenten fast, do not give up, for “he who perseveres to the end will be saved” (Mt 24:13). If you find yourself struggling with temptation more and more, do not despair but rejoice, it means that you are growing in holiness. If the fasting you are doing causes you to grow irritable and uncharitable, do not stop fasting which is the easy way out, but rather humble yourself before the Lord and ask for his help, and learn to be charitable in the midst of suffering, like the saints. If you have broken your fast, then start over again, the only time we fail is when we give up. If you find that your lenten fast seems to be rather easy, then do not be afraid to go deeper and make greater sacrifices. Remember, anyone can be charitable when they are comfortable, but only saints can be charitable in the midst of suffering, and we are all called to be saints, yes even you, so do not be afraid if you are going through a mid-Lent crisis.