So we begin in the Old Testament where we meet Susanna, a beautiful woman and a very pure woman. A woman who is devout to the laws of the Moses and Jewish faith. She is a woman who is married and has children and just by the description found in Scripture, our judgement can only be that she is a very wonderful woman and a woman who would never go against the laws of the Tradition. We see that there are elder judges who also "Follow the laws" of the Jewish faith as well. The story goes that Susanna is bathing in the garden and the elders are filled with lust and try to get her to sleep with them, but Susanna would rather die than sin against her God, so she refuses and screams to alert others that there is trouble. The elders falsely accuse her of sleeping with another man, but Daniel is stirred by the Holy Spirit, given wisdom to make right judgement and as the story goes on, the elders are found to be lying and they receive the punishment of death they originally gave to Susanna. As we look into the Gospel, the line that screams out to me today is where Jesus says, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."We all of things in our life that pull us away from God. It could be lust, drugs, alcohol, anger, the need to steal, gossip, sarcasm, in ability to be chaste (Not only in a sexual sense), greed, jealousy, and I could go on and on with this list. The point is that we are very much like the two elders in the story found in Daniel. We find ourselves with a temptation to see something or to have something that will hurt our relationship with God. Now let me say that the initial temptation is not a sin or a bad thing. It is simply a thought or desire, and let us face it, we all have desires and thoughts that we can not control all the time from popping into our minds. The sin comes in and came in for the elders, when they decided to act upon their desire to have Susanna. This action is what I think lead to the spiritual blindness in which they decided to cover up their failure with another sin, which in this case would have meant to kill an innocent person. In their blindness, they were super selfish and that is where it has it's roots.
Every sin we commit is a selfish act. We do not care who it hurts or who it effects because we are doing only what we want. The crazy thing is that we are blind to the fact that anyone else gets hurt and that we ourselves actually get hurt from it. We are all selfish and we all fail to be perfect, but this does not mean that we can be blind and act like the elders. In fact, just like the elders, who got caught, we will have our sins catch up to us. Now you may not get your just punishment here on earth, but God will be just in the next life. This is where Jesus comes into play. We suck at being perfect, but God has given us the light to follow, we simply have to get out of our own selfish sinful blindness and see the light. We are told Jesus is the light of the world and that if we follow Him we will have the light of life. We will have LIFE! The elders where stuck in their blindness and perished in death, but if we follow the teachings of Jesus and we follow the light that He has given to us from the Cross; we will live in the light forever!
So today, let us look at our own wrong doings and ask God for mercy, love and forgiveness. Let us shoot to go to confession this weekend before Holy Week and prepare ourselves to truly see the joy and the light that will shine forth from the cross next Friday when darkness was and is so dense here in this world. Let us focus not on our own selfish desires and wants, but focus on the main goal of life, which is getting into heaven with our Lord and God. Take off the blindfold of sin today and look at the light of life in Jesus.
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