Humanity, in the past
two decades or so, has acquired an immunity and desensitization to much of the
violence, gore, sex, horror and whatnot that gets presented to us in media.
Think about all the music, movies, TV, games and everything
else that literally puts us in the midst of so much horrible things and scenes.
We have become a people who don’t look away, gasp, get repulsed or sick at
seeing these images.
Don’t get me wrong; I am a media junkie. I love so many
genres of music, movies and television and many that presents much of this
stuff. I love a good movie of war, violence, horror, etc. Who doesn’t?
My point is not to demonize anything media related. I only
mean to point out and make us aware of the reality that we have in so many ways
become immune and desensitized to nearly everything put forth in our favorite
media. It is something interesting to think about and realize. I think that
part of taking ownership of ourselves is knowing ourselves and recognizing the
blind spots in our lives, and I think this is one blind spot that all of us
have.
There is another blind spot we need to acknowledge that
predates R rated films by millennia, that is the magnitude of the effects of
sin in our lives.
Two episodes of the mercy towards the sinfulness of humanity
are shown to us.
Isaiah shows us of God essentially telling the people “I
know your sins. I know how weak and vulnerable you are. But you know what, I
love you. I love you and I forgive you. Let’s move on”. In the Gospel, Christ
is presented with a man lowered through the roof of his house! What is telling
about this encounter is that instead of healing his paralysis, Christ forgives
him of his sin.
The Gospel gives us no indication of disappointment on the
man’s part, but I think many of us feel it inside when we really think about
it. If we came to Christ and wanted some physical ailment healed and, instead,
He forgave us of our sins, would we be disappointed?
Sin has stripped something out of the core of our souls. It
has left an emptiness and yearning inside of us the we have become all too
often immune to in it affects. Because there is a hollowness inside of us, we
naturally try to fill it up and it often gets filled with sin. Because that
hole appears and feels filled, we don’t realize it is even there or the hazards
of it. So we go days, weeks, months or years without really thinking about sin.
We live in the midst and stench of that sin and we don’t even recognize it. We don’t
feel sorrowful , shameful, embarrassed, or guilty. We essentially numb
ourselves to sins effects because we have fooled ourselves into thinking that
we aren’t hurting ourselves or others and we end up justifying our actions.
We are desensitized to sin!
But God does see this and He desires nothing more than to
fill that hole with His love, mercy and the intimacy of a relationship with
Him. This healing is essential to our salvation and our coming to know and
experience God and the beauty of life.
When Christ says, “Your sins are forgiven”, He is performing
a greater miracle than the physical healing of the man’s paralysis by saying
“Rise, pick up your mat and walk”.
When a priest utters, “I absolve you of your sins” in the
sacrament of Confession, he too is performing that awesome and essential
miracle: the forgiveness of sins.
This is our last Sunday of Ordinary Time for a couple months. We
enter the season of Lent this Wednesday when we will dive deep into the reality
of sin and death before we immerse ourselves in the mystery of life and
resurrection at Easter.
We need to not only acknowledge blind spots in our lives
like our immunity to violence in film and TV, but also the effects of sin in
our lives. We need to start yearning for those words of forgiveness, mercy,
intimacy and love.
We need to start recognizing our need for those words of
Christ “Child, your sins are forgiven”.
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