A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. The women hurried away from the tomb, half overjoyed, half fearful, and ran to carry the good news of the empty tomb to Christ's disciples. Suddenly, without warning, Jesus stood before them and said, peace. The women came up and embraced his feet and did him homage. At this, Jesus said to them, do not be afraid.
Go and carry the news to my brothers that they are to go into Galilee where they will see me. As the women were returning, some of the guard went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. They in turn convened with the elders and worked out their strategy, that is to explain the empty tomb. Giving the soldiers a large bribe with these instructions. That is the soldiers who were sent there to guard the tomb, and they were Roman soldiers, remember.
So they gave the soldiers a large amount of money as a bribe and said to the soldiers, you are to say his disciples came during the night and stole the body while we were asleep. If any word of this gets to the procurator, we will straighten it out with him and keep you out of trouble. The soldiers took the money and did as they had been instructed. And this is the story that circulates among the Jews to this very day. In other words, that the body was stolen while they were asleep.
And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit, amen. Of course, it's a little difficult to understand how someone who was asleep during some kind of an event would be a good witness to the event. If they were asleep, how did they know what was happening? And so the testimony of the soldiers as regards the an explanation of how the body disappeared from the tomb is scarcely adequate.
And, of course, this has been pointed out down the centuries. I did not discover it. This morning, I wanna bring up a little point that was very much brought out yesterday, or at least it should have been. If we paid any attention to what we were doing, that is in the renewal of the baptismal vows as we call it. We spoke of being freed or something like that from the glamour of sin.
The glamour of sin. Now that is perfectly correct. For some reason oh, I know I know some of them. But the point is this, we so often think of sin as something reprehensible. It is reprehensible.
We think of it as ugly. In a sense, it is ugly. We speak of sin and evil as something that we should try to avoid, and we should. We we speak of it and try to think of it, that is sin, as something that is repulsive, and it is. Now here's my question.
If sin is ugly and repulsive and repellent, why do we do it? If it's repellent, why are we attracted? Or are we attracted to sin? See, are we attracted to sin? Now this is not a play on words.
Because if you say I'm attracted to sin, you are in a hopeless absurdity. Because at one time at one minute from one side of your mouth you're saying sin is repulsive and repellent, and at the same time you're saying I can't overcome my attraction to it. Now how do you put that together? You cannot put it together. Now once you admit that sin of course, is moral evil.
Now once you admit that sin is that sin or moral evil is something real and something existent, you are hopelessly lost. Hopelessly lost. Because if it's real and existent, where did it come from? It came either from itself or from god. Can god make evil?
The good, benevolent god? If it came from itself, then we have a a self existent being, and we have two gods. Do you like to be polytheist with a great benevolent God here who's good, and on the other hand, a great malevolent God who's a devil personified. Remember, the devil's not all evil. Where did the devil come from?
God. Devil's not all evil. The devil is not the personification of evil. Evil. So you see this is a very serious question, and it's not a matter of words.
It's a matter of straight honest to god thinking. Now let's all admit, the reason we commit what we call sin is that we're attracted to what? To sin? Not at all. A young husband and father needs a thousand dollars, and he needs it.
No question about it. If he has a bank account, he goes down and he draws it out. If he doesn't, he goes in and helps himself. The bank has plenty of money, so he goes in and takes it out of the till. Is there anything wrong with a thousand dollars?
Is there anything wrong in him wanting the thousand dollars? What what attracts him? The thousand dollars attracts him money. Is there anything wrong with money? Of course not.
So where then what you see, he is pulled to he is pulled to commit what we say the sin of thievery, not because he is attracted to the sin, he's attracted to the money, which is perfectly good. The only thing is it's not his. He has no right to it. See how we get now involved in bury? Because you're in other words, the the the essence of the sin isn't in his taking the money at in in the physical act.
Is the the the whole essence of the situation is he is taking something that is not his. Did you catch the word not there? Not his. Look at the very word injustice. Is that a positive term?
Injustice? That word in is a not. So the only definition we can give of injustice is to negate or contradict justice, which leaves you with a negation, which leaves you with this fact that the essence of sin is the privation of good, not the presence of anything. In itself, it doesn't exist. This is a very important point, believe me, extremely important.
There is nothing so disturbing in people's lives as this as a false conception of evil, which means they have a false conception of the good. And if you have a false conception of the good plus a false conception of evil, how can you pursue the good and avoid the evil if you don't know what in the world they are? Or you have a very erroneous idea about them. And so remember, we are attracted to god's creatures. Everything which is is good because if it is, it came from god.
Everything, and I mean everything, every reality is good. There's no such thing as an evil thing. Because just ask yourself, if there is an evil thing, where did it come from? And so, therefore, if there is moral evil that's what I'm talking about, which is the only actually the real evil. If there is moral evil, it is in a fallacious will.
In other words, that in our actions, there is a lack of due order, lack of due order, and that another word for that is privation. So let us let us take to heart what the church says there, that we pray to be freed from the glamour of evil. Glamour. Glamour means something that's effulgent, luminous, attractive, gives us hope. You know, glamour is quite a word.
And we pray to be freed from that. Well, you don't pray to be freed from an unreality unless you're a little bit wacky. And so that prayer that we said yesterday, that we be freed from the glamour now remember, the main way we can be freed from the glamour is to see reality. So that when we see that thousand dollars, which belongs to somebody else, no matter how what my need may be, then I have to see beyond the glamour of the thousand dollars. What do I see?
There is the issue. What do I see beyond that? Do I see god and his law which says if this is not yours, not yours, it's a negative. And if you take it, you're taking something good which is not yours, and therefore you are putting a barrier. You are separating yourself from me, the omnipotent God.
That's what takes the glamour out of it. So let us repeat that prayer of yesterday that we do pray indeed to be freed of the glamour of sin. In the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit. Amen.