1st Sunday of Lent, B February 21, 2021
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
Good versus evil. This concept is part of nearly every story ever told and central to all the best ones. Some people may talk about these two forces as a necessary part of the balance of the universe, the yin and yang or, to borrow an idea from Star Wars, the dark and light sides of the force. But even then, no sane person actually wants evil to be equal to good. The Jedi talk about balance, but strive continually to defeat the Sith, not find balance with them. Ask any person if they’d choose to let a tyrant continue to rule in order to “balance” some other good leader, or if they’d let a murderer go free to “balance” all the doctors and nurses who save lives instead of taking them.
There are legitimate insights to fostering diversity of opinion and balancing power structures, but we all know that real “balance” is in fact the victory of good over evil. And it is our vested interest in this victory that lay at the heart of our Catholic faith. As promised last week, we’re going to use this Lenten season to journey through the fundamentals of our faith, starting with the very beginning: Good vs Evil.
So we see that reality front and center in the temptation of Jesus in the desert. God vs. the Devil, Jesus vs. Satan. And we know that Christ wins. But what does it take to get there? A long journey, and one that is not finished. The start of that journey is here in the Gospel, though not in an obvious way. You may notice a strange detail that Jesus was “among wild beasts” while in the desert. True, this points out the reality of being in the wilderness, but it is also a symbolic echo of the very beginning, of the first man, Adam, who was alone with the beasts.
The battle of good vs. evil begins there, where Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan. We don’t see this here, but we know that Satan was not always evil himself. Called Lucifer, or “light-bearer” he was the highest of the angels, but still second to God. In his pride, he wanted to be first, to be free to rule without answering to God. So he was cast out and began that primordial conflict of good vs. evil. As soon as God introduced other free creatures into the universe – human beings – Satan sought to draw them over to his side instead of God’s.
At first, humanity did not know evil. They knew of the possibility of evil, but it was abstract, unreal to them. Something they couldn’t truly imagine because they had not yet experienced it. And, thanks to God’s gift, they were immune to sickness and death, protected from various forms of harm that we might call evil. But Satan knew evil well, so he tempted them to try to compete with God, to try to be independent from him, to try to decide for themselves what was good and what was evil.
Thus evil entered the human heart and, through it, the rest of the world. Angels are different than us. When they make a decision, it is permanent. For angels like Lucifer, there is no change of mind, no such thing as repentance. After that first rebellion, every angel is either permanently on the side of good or forever on the side of evil. We, however, can repent, change our minds. We often shift from one side to the other but, eventually, our many decisions will add up to one ultimate choice in favor of good or evil eternally.
As we journey through the story of Scripture – the story of good vs. evil – we gradually learn more and more about God. Noah’s story, seen in our first reading, reveals how fully God is opposed to evil because He is always and forever good. This is a problem for fallen humanity, so often on the side of evil, because it pits us against God. God washes away evil and, sadly, most of humanity with it.
But Noah’s choice to be on the side of good – his faith in God – saves him, his family, and the future of humanity. Having proven that He is serious about destroying evil, God then promises Noah that his battle will never again use a flood to wipe away human beings. But he does not say he won’t use water to defeat evil. As we see in the second reading, God does use water to wipe away evil through a sacred baptism that washes away sin. Thus, the real life story of Noah is also a symbolic lesson on who God is and how he defeats evil.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The symbolic reminder of God’s promise to defeat evil without destroying humanity is the rainbow. We’ve heard and seen this symbol so much that we often overlook it’s meaning. God calls it his “bow” as in his “bow and arrow.” It is a symbol of a weapon, of God’s power to destroy. So he sets it down in the clouds. And think about which way the bow is pointing… as if it were hung up on a hook and harmless. Or perhaps, if you consider it more closely, you could say the bow is now aimed at heaven, at God himself. This is foreshadowing, a subtle message that God’s battle against evil will involve aiming destruction at himself.
The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the fulfillment of that foreshadowing and he comes saying as much, “This is the time of fulfillment… Repent and believe in the Gospel.” The Gospel, the good news of God’s kingdom is the news that good has and will conquer evil. But accepting this good news requires us to understand the bad news. It requires us to recognize that, in this primordial struggle, our fallen nature defaults us to the side of evil.
Do I have to convince you that the world is broken? That human beings have something wrong with them? Yet, as obvious as it is, one of the most misunderstood or ignored fundamentals of our faith is this reality of Original Sin. Why do human beings do so much evil? Original Sin made susceptible to temptation. Why do seemingly good people suffer from natural causes? Original Sin means we lost the protection of God that would have spared us. Why is our world so confusing, so full of evil? Why is the battle of good vs evil so complicated? Original Sin made it harder for us to see clearly what is genuinely good.
But Original Sin does not mean there is no battle. It does not mean we cannot win. It only means that we cannot win without God because to try to be without God is to choose evil. God designed the universe to be good, to be balanced, not with evil, but with itself in the way you balance a building, a painting, a song. The bad news is that evil wrecks that balance. The good news is that God has a plan to restore it in an even greater way. Repent, and believe in that good news.