Son Rise | January 14, 2016

January 14, 2016

The strangest meditation presented itself to me several months ago by an even stranger messenger. I had spent a week in Hawaii on the windward side of Oahu. The side of the island where the sun rises! So I made the worthwhile effort to watch the sunrise as many days as I could. For my last sunrise, I decided to drive down the coast a bit to see if I could get even closer to the rising sun and experience it in a whole new light. I chose Makapu’u Beach which is a feisty little inlet with a mighty shore break, surrounded by classic black lava rock, and a view of a silhouetted working light house standing precariously close to the edge of its shaggy cliff.

I parked my car facing east and stayed inside because well, it was still dark outside. I sat back in my seat ready to relax to the stellar playlist that I made for the occasion. Everything was black except for the blue glow of the stereo system. I felt safe, I felt ready, I felt inspired, and I felt excited in a totally chill kind of way. After about ten minutes in my peaceful cave something caught the corner of my eye. I quickly tracked it down and was horrified because what caught my eye was cockroaches! Not one but several cockroaches that were emerging from the air conditioning vents of my rental car like an evil mist in a dystopian novel meant to poison every last human on earth.

It would be inappropriate to share the words that came out of my peaceful, inspired, ready for the sunrise mouth, so let’s just leave it at exclamations happened! I had nowhere to run, however, and nowhere to hide. My exclamations and the decibels of those exclamations did not disturb the malevolent little creatures whatsoever. They were crawling all over the dashboard like the mafia scouting the joint for the Godfather who is of course still inside their hide-out stroking his shifty cat! I grabbed whatever I could find and began pounding the dashboard with all my might while screaming as if I was on a roller coaster. That seemed to get the message across and the mafia cockroaches retreated to from where they came.

There went my peaceful easy feeling right? And isn’t that the nature of sin? It creeps in just when we let our guards down. It waits for a dark and lonely moment to strike. It is not bothered by our admonishments a lot of times. It’s always lurking and scouting the joint for an opportunity. Like little minions, sin multiplies itself and like cockroaches, sin has stood the test of time. When we least expect it, it jumps out of the dark and catches us off guard when we have nowhere to run or hide. The cockroach is an excellent metaphor for sin.

What happened next in this cautionary tale? Well, the sun rose, of course. A few little cockroaches can’t even come close to the sun resurrecting over the horizon and lighting up the sky with wonder and awe. Every cloud soaked up the light and turned into a spectacular sun catcher of grace and I stood on top of those lava rocks as the waves crashed against them with the mist of eternity kissing my cheek rather than the sneaky mist of doom. Yes, sin is always lurking but the Son also rises without delay on our dark and lonely world. We just have to look up and out and bathe in the glory of it. And every now and then we need to pound the hell out of the cockroaches in our life (screaming helps too!!).

The best way to combat sin AND cockroaches is with the Son Rise.

Today's gospel is about a leper that came to Jesus for healing and forgiveness. Whenever a leper is involved, we must think of sin because that is how the ancient people identified leprosy, as a result of sin. The psalm today reminds us that mercy is God's greatest gift to us: Redeem us, Lord, because of your mercy. And he has already redeemed us, but somehow it is so easy for us to forget that because our own sin and the effects of our sin have clouded our hearts, our eyes, and our ability to receive his mercy. The leper approached Jesus on his knees and begged for healing. Raise your hand if you have ever done the same thing. Well guess what? He responds to us the same way every time, "I do will it. Be made clean.” Like the leper, we are called to go and show how we have been changed because of God's mercy. It is mercy that rehabilitates our soul, it is mercy that restores our wings to fly, it is mercy that teaches us to sing again, it is mercy that saves us from despair, it is mercy that lifts our eyes to heaven, it is mercy that tells our hearts to beat again.