One of the places to hurt someone is in the wallet. Sanctions, interest rates, price of fuel. Although we say that money is the root of all evil, we can’t get very far without it.
When Jesus went into the Temple and drove out the money changers, overturned the tables with the animals for sacrifices and told the people to stop making His Father’s house a marketplace He made a lot of enemies. The encounter in the Temple marked the day when thing’s went south for Jesus. He upset the whole economic system in one swoop! Not only was the sacrificing of animals an economic matter, more importantly the sacrificing of animals was how people paid for their sins. The gravity of the sin determined the size and type of animal. Lying, cheating or making fun of your mother-in-law could be taken care of by a small goat. Adultery, much more serious, demanded a cow, a bull or an ox. Boy, did people talk! Everybody was watching—looking to see what folks were having to kill to keep God happy. The priests were not starving either. They were privileged to keep certain parts of the animal to eat. Because sins were abundant, there was plenty of business. Historians comment on how blood from the sacrifices would flow down the streets in Jerusalem during the time that Jesus walked the earth. Like a vicious cycle, the endless sacrificing of animals was repeated and so were the chronic offenses against God’s Commandments. Until the day that Jesus walked into the Temple and said, “Stop!” “This is not what God wants. You have misinterpreted the Scriptures! Stop!”
Didn’t happen overnight. A long-standing tradition doesn’t just stop from one moment to the next. Naturally, there was much opposition to change, especially a major change relating to the forgiveness of sins. Jesus had a better idea than killing animals. An idea that would cost Him His life. The One to whom people were sacrificing, became the sacrifice. Only God could stop the senseless fear that God needed to be appeased. People concluded. “God does not like us. God is angry with us because we have offended Him. Therefore, we must somehow keep God happy.” Although the sacrificing of animals has stopped, the fear that God is angry with us has not stopped. When bad things happen, that’s the first thing that comes to mind, “God is punishing us.” Hurricanes, earthquakes, pandemics: God is punishing us. If our relationship with God is based on fear, we will never trust Him. We will keep God at a distance, approach with caution and always be suspicious. Paranoia at its best.
Alongside paranoia is the kissing cousin named guilt—Wasted emotions that will not help us to grow spiritually. If God were out to get us, to get even with us, to be vengeful, none of us would be here. There would be nothing left! We never get what we deserve! We are not treated according to our sins because we wouldn’t stand a chance. We know that we are guilty, but we have been acquitted. The bill has been paid. That’s why most of our life should be a prayer of thanksgiving, not beating our breasts. On any given day the challenge is to look for what we are doing well rather than how we are messing up. Anybody can tell us our faults and we can do the same in the mirror. Takes a person of faith to see the good that we can do—our potential. Jesus sees our potential because He is the One who gave us our goodness. We are all a chunk of God walking around trying to make the world a better place. The Lord has given us the recipe. “Forgive as you have been forgiven.” There are certainly plenty of opportunities to practice. We need to say, “I’m sorry” every day, particularly the people with whom we live. The closer that we are to someone, the more we can offend them. Forgiveness is what makes us look more like God, since He is so willing to forgive us.
Lent means new life. Life is best experienced when we can free ourselves from our past offenses. There’s much reason to celebrate!