Immortality or Decision Making Sunday
Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24; 2 Corinthians 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mark 5:21-43
A woman lost her only child to death. She was weeping uncontrollably. She wouldn’t allow the corpse of her child to be buried. The only condition for burying her child was for both of them to be buried, she said. It took strong men to restrain her, while the body of her child was being buried. She broke free of the men restraining her and ran to the grave. Arriving at the grave, everyone expected her to jump into the grave to join the lifeless body of her child, but she jumped over the hole of the grave: then, everybody realized that everyone else is afraid of death!
Although death is a painful occurrence, but it remains a part of our daily life. The drama of the woman, in our story, is an example of how difficult it is to accept death. With the covid-19 pandemic and the death it breeds, two challenges confront humanity: (1) death is beyond the mastery of science, and (2) religious people too die in a pandemic. Given these problems of death, what is the role of religion in human life, why go to Church?
Our first reading, from the book of Wisdom, tells us that similar questions were asked in the past: why death? Who is responsible for death? Who can stop people from dying? Two answers are provided in our first ready: (1) death is not from God (“God did not create death”); the devil created death. And, (2) death is as a consequence of the devil’s jealousy of human beings. God, human beings and the devil form a triangle in our first reading. God is the Creator of immortality. The devil is the creator of mortality. The human person experiences both mortality and immortality—immortality from God and mortality from the devil.
There is a solution to death and mortality! In the present circumstances, this Sunday is DECISION MAKING SUNDAY! The human person has a choice to make between mortality and immortality. “Immortality” is to be on the side of God—the practice of justice: “for justice is undying”, says our first reading. “Mortality” is to be consumed by jealousy (a vice) like the devil: “But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who belong to his company experience it”, says our first reading.
Those who are on the side of God are immortal, while those who are for the devil are mortal. To defeat mortality or the devil, according to our second reading, Jesus brought immortality back to human beings. It suffices to ask the question: what is the riches that Christ gives to human beings, in our second reading? The simple answer is IMMORTALITY: “For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich”. You and I are rich in immortality, thanks to Jesus Christ!
Just look at the life of Jesus Christ, what happened to him, the only human being who died and rose again to live immortally. God restores human immortality in Jesus Christ as a proof of what he will do in you and me. If the book of Wisdom shows us the origin of death, Paul tells us how to conquer death in Jesus Christ. No wonder we talk about “Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando. Dux Vitae mortuus, regnat vivus”. In Jesus Christ, “Life and death were in a duel [a battle]”, life conquered death in Jesus Christ. For those who live like Jesus Christ and with God, immortality will be theirs.
In the two miracles of today’s gospel, Jesus demonstrates God’s power over sickness and death. Sickness is a sign of mortality, whatever threatens life. One solution is proposed against death and sickness, in today’s gospel: faith in God or the presence of God. The woman suffering from bleeding touched Jesus and her bleeding stopped. No one could stop her bleeding, but Jesus’ presence did. Her faith only became active, when she touched Jesus Christ: it was the presence of God—Jesus Christ—that healed her. The little girl that was ill died, because Jesus was absent. When Jesus arrived at her bedside, she returned to life—mortality gave way to immortality.
No matter how much tears we shed, physical death is not going away. In this life, life and death still continue their duel. The covid-19 is a palpable evidence of this duel. But beyond covid-19’s death sentence, there are the many miraculous stories of survival; those whom covid-19 couldn’t kill. Covid-19 is not God’s death sentence upon humanity, but a reminder that humanity is in a constant duel between immortality and mortality. In Jesus Christ, however, immortality is restored and guaranteed! Remember that this Sunday is DECISION SUNDAY!
The choice is yours and mine to make, whether to be immortal like God by accepting immortality from Jesus Christ or to side with the devil and accept mortality. This is a decision making Sunday! Lest we forget, “death” is separation from God; it is NOT the absence of the breath of life in a body. Jesus returned the breath of life into the lifeless body of the little girl of today’s gospel to exemplify resurrection and living with God. Jesus himself had his dead body or lifeless body buried, but he rose up on the THIRD DAY. In reality, “death” is the impossibility of returning to life with God. This impossibility is the result of the human choice to side with the devil!
Actually, the battle of life, whether life will remain immortal, despite the mortality introduced by the devil, depends on the practice of virtue or lack thereof. In other words, immortality is the choice to be like God by practicing “justice”; and, mortality is to practice vices like the envy of the devil.
Assignment for the Week:
Find out someone you have been unjust to and make it up to him/her: an apology over the telephone is good enough!