Christ Church Rockville Lenten Devotion
Jer. 25:8-17
Rom. 10:1-13
John 9:18-41
In a recent episode of his online series, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld compared himself to a woodchuck. Woodchucks, he said, have to chuck as much wood as possible during their lives. Chucking wood is what woodchucks do. Similarly, he feels compelled to produce as much comedy as possible during his life.
Like Seinfeld and woodchucks, the Pharisees apparently felt driven, too. In John 9:18-41, they grilled a once-blind young man about his healing at the hands of Jesus. They wanted to pass judgment on the fellow, and anyone else they could get their hands on who claimed Jesus is the Messiah.
A few of the Pharisees in this encounter actually tried to be funny: “What? Are we blind too?” (Ba dump bump, clang.) But Jesus shot them down: “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” Ouch.
I can’t poke too much fun at the Pharisees. Like them, I’m a hypocrite: I sin as I breathe—envy, lust, anger, pride, sloth, whatever. It never stops. Sometimes I can say I'm sorry during confession, and mean it, but experience says I’ll quickly revert to well-worn patterns.
Jesus is no fool. He knows that I fear being converted like a woodchuck fears being trapped. He knows I can’t seem to imagine why or how he could possibly love us so much as to suffer and die for us, then forgive his tormenters—and forgive us.
Such love is beyond me. Lent is a time when that gap between God’s love and my daily desire to scurry away feels widest. It's a scary space, yet one I cannot escape.
