On what seems to have been a very long time ago, actually it was Ash Wednesday, Jesus warned us about the hypocrisy of “false Lenten fasts” which focus upon appearances—a veneer of our faith—not rending the heart and returning to God—the hardwood of our faith. The season of Lent is that annual time of year the Church sets aside to challenge each of us to engage in the DYI refinishing project of “woodworking”—stripping away the inauthentic veneer of faith and sanding down the glue and any appliqués to expose the hardwood of faith in its original glory.
At this midpoint in this year’s season of Lent—“Latarae (“Rejoice”) Sunday”—the scripture readings remind us this DYI refinishing project requires stripping away an attitude: The way we seek to justify ourselves before God by complying with the five precepts of the Church.
We all know the drill as that’s identified in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
- to attend Mass on Sundays and other holy days of obligation and to refrain from work and activities which could impede the sanctification of those days;
- to confess one’s sins, receiving the sacrament of Penance at least once annually;
- to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist at least during the Easter season;
- to abstain from eating meat and observe the days of fasting established by the Church; and,
- to help to provide for the material needs of the Church, each according to his ability. These are the minimum requirements to self-identify as a “practicing Catholic.”
Yet, as these five precepts pertain to the attitude we need to strip away and sand down in order to get to the hardwood of an authentic Catholic faith, it’s important to recall that fulfilling these minimums in no way “justifies” us before God. As St. Paul addressed this matter in today’s Epistle, he wrote:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it’s God’s gift; it’s not from your works, so no one may boast.
This DYI project is designed to teach us our justification consists not in the degree to which we comply with those precepts. No, it’s degree to which our whole mind, heart, and soul consent to that which originally gave rise to those precepts: The basics required to begin demonstrating authentic love of God and neighbor.
That’s the hardwood we’re working to expose this Lent by stripping away the false veneer—the pretentions of being good Catholics simply by complying with the minimum requirements—and realizing our powerlessness to justify ourselves before God…for the reason that none of us was immaculately conceived—Yes, believe it or not!—and all of us have sinned by loving ourselves more than we love either God or neighbor.
Similar to the Israelites chronicled in today’s first reading, we’ve also heaped infidelity upon infidelity and practiced all the abominations characterizing the people who live in, of, and for this world. Moreover, we’ve polluted the Lord’s temple—not a building but our minds, hearts, and souls.
Where’s that gotten us? Today, we live in captivity—refugees in a Babylon of our own making—perhaps, again in a way that’s similar to the Israelites, living in the darkness of sin for two generations, that is, forty years, and perhaps for some of us, even more.
Estranged from God and ourselves, doesn’t that contradict the second precept of the Church?
Sojourning in the darkness of sin for years on end was also true of Nicodemus. A pious Pharisee, Nicodemus meticulously followed the precepts of the Jewish faith and, in doing so, believed he was justifying himself before God. Yet, approaching Jesus in the darkness of night—the darkness of his sin—Nicodemus was interested in learning what Jesus may have meant by calling people to live in the light. The irony is that Nicodemus sincerely believed he was already doing that—complying with God’s law and to wit: The veneer of his Jewish faith sure looked good!
Yet, what attracted Nicodemus—what cut through all of his rationalizations—was Jesus’ teaching concerning “living in the light”—changing the attitudes underlying his sin. This teaching struck Nicodemus like a bolt of lightning in the middle of a moonless night because this new life required not simply complying with God’s law but fully consenting to it with his whole mind, whole heart, and whole soul—the hardwood of the Jewish faith underlying all of those ritual laws.
This teaching startled Nicodemus because it required being baptized not by water—an external ritual to wash away past sins—but in the Holy Spirit—an interior transformation changing the attitudes begetting those sins—by opening himself to God’s transcendence, becoming once again “at one” with God—from which we derive the word “atonement.” While Nicodemus knew being “born again” would require more than simply complying with the minimums, he was unclear about what it would mean to live an entirely new life where God’s Holy Spirit would guide Nicodemus as he navigated his way through the challenges each day would present. No longer could he rely upon his efforts to justify himself before God but would have to accept his complete dependence upon God’s grace…to the point of getting out of bed in the morning and making it back into bed in the evening!
No one knows with any certitude what happened to Nicodemus. But, he next appears in the gospels on Good Friday when he and Joseph of Arimathea removed Jesus’ corpse from the Cross and Nicodemus and placed the corpse of the one who saved him into Mary’s arms—the image inspiring Michelangelo to carve the “Pieta.” Then, along with Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus fulfilled the letter of the law by washing the corpse, wrapping it in strips prepared with myrrh and perfume, and placing the corpse into the grave. Having performed this corporal work of mercy—“to bury the dead”—the retinue turned their backs on the grave and journeyed back home. That’s the last we hear and know of Nicodemus.
From seeking out Jesus in the darkness of sin, tenderly caring for the corpse of the one who saved him from the veneer of faith, and knew his Savior in the darkness of death before he rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, what are we to make of Nicodemus?
Perhaps the most important less is his courage. Seeking out Jesus in the darkness of his sin, Nicodemus took a risk to venture beyond the minimum of making sin offerings at the Temple by listening to the Word of God and allowing it to transcend his mind and enter into his heart and soul. This was quite a risky venture, of course, because it required Nicodemus to change how he thought all of his life about religion and its practice: Nicodemus would have to admit his sinful attitude whereby he justified himself before God because he had only fulfilled the minimum prescriptions of the law and never really loved God or neighbor...seeking to save himself.
Previous to his conversion, Nicodemus believed that meticulously complying with the minimum requirements of the Jewish faith to justify himself before God. Encountering the Word or God, however, Nicodemus realized that nothing he could do would ever achieve that objective. Why? It would subject the Creator to the creature. He now understood how his inauthentic faith functioned more like an insurance policy—God owed Nicodemus salvation for complying with the law—when authentic faith required Nicodemus to entrust his entire self—his mind, heart, and soul—to God because God had created Nicodemus and owed everything to God, not vice-versa. In short, when it came to living his faith authentically, Nicodemus had everything backward.
Imagine how earth-shaking that must have been for this diligent Jew and for every diligent Catholic, too!
Then, too, on the very day the entire community of self-identifying Jews who scrupulously fulfilled the minimum prescriptions of the law—the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the members of the Sanhedrin—were agitating for Jesus to be crucified for blasphemy, Nicodemus had the courage to climb the Cross and bring the corpse back down to Earth, handing Jesus over to his mother.
Here’s the irony: Jewish law forbade touching a corpse. That was all the proof those people needed to justify themselves: Nicodemus was a sinner! “Yes,” they surely thought, “like attracts like!”
Pope Francis oftentimes speaks about “the blindness of our illusions” which so influence how we view things that we’re blind to the truth. Yet, believing we live in the light, the Pope observes, we spend our days not only living in darkness but preferring it to the light. “Justification through the law,” St. Paul taught, is “slavery.”
Yes, it’s true: Like the Israelites who lived an inauthentic faith for two-plus generations, sometimes we need more than a DYI woodworking project...a “spiritual remodel job” similar to the kitchen remodel job that ended up being a whole house remodel job that I watched this past week on TV. Like Nicodemus, the owners of the house knew something had to be done because they were aware that something was awry: Strange and foul odors were emanating from behind the kitchen sink and wall separating the kitchen from the den. After debating what to do, they finally decided to bring in a contractor who said he couldn’t tell them what all would be necessary until he could take a look behind the walls—to shed some light upon the darkness. Once hired, the contractor proceeded to remove some of the kitchen cabinets and gyp board, discovering rodent and birds’ nests, their feces, animal corpses with maggots feasting on their carcasses, and the like. Now aware of what the light exposed hidden in darkness—the sin—and to restore their home to its original state, his repair and finishing work made it possible for those folks to live once again in the light—the Spirit of God.
As we consider our Lenten DYI woodworking project at this midpoint in the season, Scripture is challenging us to consider how courageous we really in living an authentic Catholic faith, one that’s the “real deal”—not the veneer but the actual hardwood. The question being asked: Like Nicodemus, living in the darkness of the sin, do I listen to the Word of God, allow it to transcend my mind and enter into my heart and soul, change how I think about my faith and its practice so I turn away from justifying myself before God because I’ve fulfilled the minimum prescriptions of the law?
For most of us, the answer quite likely is “No.”
That represents our challenge from Scripture for this fourth week of Lent: To fast from the darkness and to feast upon the light of truth. Leaving behind the fear of admitting our sin—that we live in darkness—and allowing the light of God’s Word to enlighten the darkness, we will change our attitude and learn to rejoice in God’s love to the point that, like Nicodemus, we will courageously do what’s necessary to fulfill the spirit of the law no matter what the intolerant people in the crowd may demand. Like the Jewish people, heeding those voices only adds infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the Lord’s temple, mistakenly believing that the Lord’s temple is not a building but our soul, the dwelling place of God’s Holy Spirit.
Consenting to God’s Word, we will no longer live in fear, complying with the voices of this world but in consenting to live the truth.
In this way, the story of Nicodemus—a wonderful ending to a story of how people live an inauthentic faith—becomes our story as listening to the Word of God which will lead us forward alongside Jesus to journey with him to Jerusalem, enter into his death for our sins, to know him as our personal Savior, and experience the light of his resurrected life in our minds, hearts, and souls.
As St. John reminded us:
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him….And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil….whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.
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