Sin and Death - and fear
A fascinating homily yesterday by Fr. Michael Dunbar, a local priest serving for us while our priest was away for his daughter's wedding in Alaska. It centered around the intricate and intertwining relationship between sin and death...and even the potential of seeing the two as being so intertwined that you could view one's pre-existance to the other as being akin to asking: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I think what struck me most was the notion that fear of death is the ultimate motivation to propel us toward sin. One example he offered was that in times of famine the very first thing people begin to do is to stop sharing...for fear of death. Similarly, hording of material goods (and non-material as well) is stemming from the exact same, though less overt, motivation.
It is from THIS, that Christ has set us free. Where O Death is your Sting?
More than just comfort for the bereaved, these words of St. Paul tell us that we are ALL now raised with Christ. To us, who are in the tombs, Christ is bestowing life - having trampled down death by death.
So what are we afraid of? Fr. Dunbar reminded us: We have nothing to fear, but fear itself. For as many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ!
It is a decidedly different way to view my everyday temptations and impulses: What am I afraid of? Death. But death is dead, fool. Wake up!
You often hear people ask: If you hade a day to live, what would you do with your last 24 hours? I am inclined to ask a different question: If we truly believed that death is dead...how would we live differently?
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"Yeah, but...ohhhhhhh," I said (more or less).
Good homily. Christ is risen! ¡Cristo ha resucitado!
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he [Jesus] also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death - that is, the devil - and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Hb 2.14-15)
Here the author of Hebrews clearly says that what gives original sin its power - what keeps us in its thrall - is the fear of death. Not an Augustinian "transmission" of sin and guilt from parent to child, nor a change in our human nature from essentially good to essentially evil (as mistaught by the NIV's execrable translation of sarx as "sinful nature"), but through fear of death.
Recently I went through an extended period of unemployment, in which it was far from clear where the money to pay the mortgage and put food on the table was going to come from. It didn't take me long to realize that what gave me anxiety when I was out of work was the same thing that had motivated much of my behavior when I was working: the unspoken fear that, without the money a job provides, I would die. Truly, the fear of death is the engine of the passions, that robs us of trust in God and hinders us from walking the path to salvation.