No Mulligans for Mardi Gras
Genesis 6:5-6
When the LORD saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth,
and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he
regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved.
Do you
ever wish life had a “reset button”?
Sometimes our plans and projects “go south” and fail miserably – maybe
our whole life project has been thwarted by divorce or death – and we’d love to
hit a universal “reset button” and start gain.
In golf we have a reset button it’s called a “mulligan” where you hit
the same shot over without a penalty. Of
course it would be an Irish golfer who came up with a free extra shot – what a
bunch of blarney! Or, if you’re Taylor
Swift, you don’t need a reset button, you just “Shake it off.” Have you heard her catchy song? She sings: “Cause the players gonna play,
play, play; And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate. But I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake. Shake
it off. Shake it off.” In other words, you don’t need a reset button
when life gets lousy, you just need good music to forget and fix your problems;
you just need to “get down to this, sick, beat.”
In the first reading today, God
wishes he had a reset button, or at least a good Taylor Swift song to dance to,
to forget his troubles. His glorious
creation has been wrecked by man’s sins, and Genesis records, “When the Lord
saw how great was man’s wickedness on the earth, he regretted that he had made
man on the earth, and his heart was grieved.”
God’s heart was broken. But even
though God knew, like T. Swift, that “heartbreakers gonna break, break, break,”
he didn’t reach for the reset button. He
preserved Noah, his family, and enough creatures, to continue his original
creation. You see, you cannot just shake
off sin; sin is only forgiven through sacrifice, and that’s what the Flood
was. Hebrews 9:22 reads, “without the
shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.”
Today is
Mardi Gras, which is French for “Fat Tuesday.”
And I’m afraid many people will behave today no better than the people
did in the time of Noah, and once again break God’s heart. Because “heartbreakers gonna break, break,
break.” You know, we all commit sins
sooner or later, but the real question is: what are we going to do about
it? For sins there is no “reset button,”
or “mulligan,” or magical songs to make them disappear; there is only
sacrifice, the sacrifice of Jesus. And
we receive that sacrificial salve each time we go to confession. Archbishop Fulton Sheen had this graphic
description of confession, saying, “Every priest’s hand raised in absolution is
dripping with the blood of Jesus.” As
Hebrews said: “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.”
So, this
Mardi Gras have fun: wear the gold and purple bead necklaces, eat and drink
whatever you’ll give up during Lent, and enjoy some King Cake. But don’t break the King’s heart with your
sins. Because you see, our sins actually
do break the King’s heart. And he can’t
just “shake it off.”
Praised be Jesus Christ!
No comments:
Post a Comment