(Was a) Deacon's Blog

Abram put his faith in the LORD,
who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.

Unfortunately, the world does not view Abram in the same way. Abram’s faith, Abram’s commitment to live in accord with God’s promise is seen as foolishness. The world credits Abram with an act of foolishness.

Well, Abram had more than just a promise; Abram had God’s contract.

In Abram’s time people didn’t enter into contracts like we do. No one got a lawyer, drew up papers, got an insurance rider, and signed-off in front of a notary. Paper, or papyrus at the time, was for the Pharaoh, not a wandering shepherd from Ur of Chaldeans.

To make a contract people performed a sacrifice. They took an animal, slaughtered it, cut it in two, laid the two halves across from each other, and walked between the two halves.

Listen to what Abram did at God’s command:

Abram brought him all these, split them in two,
and placed each half opposite the other;

Then something amazing happened.

When the sun had set and it was dark,
there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch,
which passed between those pieces.

So we have all that is necessary for a contract. What’s missing?

In case you missed it, only God passed through the halves of the slaughtered animals. He passed through them as —a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch.— God made a contract, not with Abram, but with Himself. He promised, by His very self, to fulfill His pledge to Abram.

It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram

So Abram had proof in the form of a contract.

We come to this church each week in faith. Because of our faith God credits us with righteousness. But we too have more than faith. We have a new covenant with God, sealed in the blood of His Son on the cross. God sealed the new covenant in His own blood. He swore again, by Himself, this time to save us. He gave us more than the land “from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.” He gave us eternal life.

Besides this new contract with God we have the witness of the Church, starting with the Apostles and disciples. They proclaimed the truth of these events, and sealed them in the blood of martyrdom.

Brethren,

Tonight, Hollywood will attempt to credit our faith as foolishness. Hollywood will drag out the bones of Jesus, son of Joseph, along with Mary.

They will drop their tombs on a table, dramatize their findings, analyze and dissect their bones, test the dust from their tombs, and make awe inspiring pronouncements.

Faith is foolish. The resurrection is a sham.

St. Paul reminds us:

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Brothers and sisters,

I’m not going to waste your time or mine in debating this show, the publicity stunt that’s about to occur. What I want to point out is this:

I feel sorry for Jesus, son of Joseph, Joseph, Mary, the other Mary, Matthew, and the others whose tombs are being trafficked like cheap drugs.

That, my friends, is the real sin, the true outrage.

As Christians, as people whose faith tells us that all will rise again, as people who are blessed because Jesus said:

—Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

…we have an obligation to be outraged at what is being done.

Faith and the Church’s witness tell us that our mortal bodies will rise again. Therefore, the desecration of any person’s remains, whether it be for archeology or for profit, as in the present case, is a sin.

The Catholic faith and the Jewish faith both consider the burial of the dead to be an obligation. The faithful are to treat the remains of the deceased with proper dignity and accord. This is essential, because the wholeness of the person, their entirety, will stand before God on the last day. The body is not just a shell or a husk, something to be tossed in the dumpster when we’re done with it, it is the temple in which the soul lived, and will live again.

Those bodies will rise again, called to glory in the heavenly kingdom. Therefore, Jesus, son of Joseph and the approximately thirty-five others buried there deserve our respect. They deserve dignity. They deserve better than Hollywood.

Of course, if a person has no faith, if a person simply thinks that at death existence stops, none of this matters. But to Christians who proclaim the resurrection, this matters a great deal. To us, we simply listen to the Father in faith and we believe in accord with St. Paul who tells us:

our citizenship is in heaven,
and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will change our lowly body
to conform with his glorified body