UNDOING THINGS

 
This will be a dense essay—appropriate for the end of Lent and your penance!  Please don’t give up on it—it has a “happy ending.”
 
During my last Bible study, one person (a friend, a professor at Spring Hill College) took exception with the entire idea of “substitutionary atonement,” the belief that the punishment we deserve for our sins was embraced by Jesus on the Cross—He, suffering what we should have suffered.  And since the theme of my presentation was, in large part, the “Suffering Servant” passage of Isaiah 52:13—53:12, it’s not a surprise that at least some comment would have been expected.  CS Lewis, shortly before he became a Christian, asked a similar question of his Christian friends, Hugo Dyson (an Anglican) and JRR Tolkien (a Catholic).  In a letter to his long-time friend, Arthur Greeves, Lewis said that his difficulty was that he could not see “how the life and death of Someone Else (whoever he was) 2000 years ago could help us here and now.”  
 
In the course of the conversation during that Bible study, I suggested that one example of “substitutionary atonement” (or vicarious suffering on behalf of another) might be the death of Fr Maximilian Kolbe, who took the place of a married man in a Nazi death chamber during World War II.  But it’s not quite the same thing…
 
 St Paul was very clear that Christ died for our sins (I Corinthians 15:3, surely alluding, among other passages, to Isaiah 53).  And Lewis acknowledged that the New Testament didn’t have the problem he had—they were happy to use terms like “propitiation” or “sacrifice.”  It’s hard to think that there was a “price” (beyond our ability) that had to be paid to satisfy the Father (I think of John Donne’s sonnet “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God”—not anyone I would want to worship!).  It goes against the image Jesus presents of a Father longing to forgive, welcome, heal.  I wonder if there might not be a better way to look at the effects of the events of Calvary.  Here is a “trial balloon,” as they say.
 
No doubt, the human race is sinful—I am sinful!  But why is that?  I think it’s because, as humanity and as individual human beings, we are broken.  I am verging into the area of “Original Sin” here, and if I am not necessarily convinced of the historicity of the story in Genesis 2-3, I am sure of the fact of our situation.  Catholic theology tells us that Baptism removes this “sin,” but a tendency to sinfulness (called “concupiscence”) remains in us—in other words, the Sacrament is a temporary fix, a bandage until we can get to the Doctor (in the Kingdom).  [Footnote:  purgatory is the process by which this final healing takes place.]  So we have the beginnings of healing here and the promise of perfect healing in the Kingdom, and it is all thanks to the power of Jesus’ self-offering for us.  
 
 Here is a weak analogy, but it’s the best I can do.  While helping my Mother wash the dishes, I drop one and break it.  I try to put it back together with Elmer’s glue; it’s a disaster! My own efforts, by themselves, are simply inadequate.  Mom (aka, the Sacrament of Baptism) comes along with “Gorilla glue,” and the job is SO much better.  But the plate is still broken.  The touch of Jesus, on the other hand, is able to make the plate whole again.  He is the “best of all possible glues” that actually undoes the break.
 
Let me end with the insight of one of my favorite spiritual writers, Mother Julian of Norwich, slightly paraphrased:  Sin was lamentable, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and everything shall be well. …I want you to know that I shall make good all wrongs of whatever degree.”  And to end this essay with Mother Julian’s own sign-off:  May Jesus grant this.  Amen.