Friday March 2, 2007

Friday of the First Week of Lent

March 2, 2007

“You say, 'The Lord’s way is not fair!'”

Ezekiel 18:25

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“Life’s not fair!” We have heard that before or said that before or maybe we are saying in right now in our lives. If you want to see what is not fair, look at Jesus’ body on the cross. The Almighty God, The King of Kings and Ruler of all from whom all and blessings flow, crucified on a cross. The sinless one dying a most excruciating death because he was falsely accused as a sinner. Mortal man killing our immortal God. Talk about unfair! Could life get more unfair than Jesus dead on the cross?

Maybe it is all about how we measure fairness. If we just think about our short breathe on this mortal coil, then life can seem very unfair. Innocent people dying from war, starvation, AIDS, cancer, accidents, etc. Good fortune for the people who commit evil and those who are doing the good having bad fortune. However, if our focus is limited to this life alone, we are severely limiting ourselves. We might be thinking small and the greatest idea that we have about our lives is that we should all get eighty years to fulfill our dreams down here. That is small thinking because all of our dreams will not be fulfilled down here.

St. Paul says we are the most pitiable of all people if our hope in God is limited to this life alone. Our hope is for our unseen God and we are desperate for that day to happen. Again, if we limit our thinking of the unfairness of life on earth, we look to Jesus as our leader in the faith. He lived the most unfair life ever lived! Perfect love came to offer his life for our salvation and we cut his life way short by murdering him on a cross at age thirty-three. And the one on the cross said to you and me, “Pick up your cross daily and follow me.”

We think as humans beings think and not as God thinks. Jesus teaches us that this life is not what it is all about. He says that we will suffer, we will have our crosses and life will be unfair. He wants us to leave the small thinking that life is all about our short breathe on earth and how unfair it can be to the big thinking about eternity. Eternity is fair! It is the most fair thing anyone of us can have.

I do not want to make light of the unfairness in this life because I know we have powerful emotions and feelings when life is unfair. But, I do want us to focus on what is fair instead of giving our time and energy to what is unfair. Yes, the sooner we learn that life on earth is unfair, the better. But what is fair in all this unfairness? Is eternal life with Jesus and all the friends of God fair? Is it fair that God is good- all the time? How fair is it that Jesus forgives us 70x7 times, that is, infinitely? Is it fair that the worst sinner can be saved by Jesus with their last dying breath? Is it fair that the God-man will never stop loving his enemies, no matter what they do to him? Is Jesus fair?

Live the confronted life!

+Fr. John