LIBERATION FROM THE RESULTS OF SIN: The approach to political liberation opens up for us unforeseen vistas on the problems of sin. Indeed, an unjust situation does not happen by chance; it is not something branded by a fatal destiny: there is human responsibility behind it. The prophets knew how to put it clearly and we are rediscovering their words now, where a “situation of sin” is seen as a “rejection of the Lord.” This characterization not only criticizes the individual abuses on the part of those who enjoy great power in this social order; it calls into question their uses of power. In the liberation approach, sin is not considered merely an individual or private matter which does not challenge the order in which we live, but as a social, historical fact, the absence of fellowship and love in relationships among persons, the breach of friendship with God and other persons, and therefore, an interior fracture-a personal one. Sin is found in oppressive structures, in the exploitation of humans by humans, in the domination and slavery of peoples, races and social classes. Sin is the root of a situation of injustice. It cannot be encountered in itself, but only in concrete situations, in particular alienations. Sin requires a radical liberation, but this necessarily includes a political liberation. This liberation is the gift which Christ offers us. By his death and resurrection, he redeems us from sin and all its consequences, from all forms of slavery to which sin has subjected humans: ignorance, hunger, misery and oppression, in a word, that injustice and hatred which have their origin in human selfishness. Because Christ demands that we establish communion with God and others, in a continuous search for the fullness of solidarity, that he conquers sin and all its consequences.

LENT TAKES A TURN: After the mid-point of Great Lent, the church focuses on Our Lord’s final journey to Jerusalem and the related preparation of his disciples for what was to happen there. Jesus certainly was aware of what lay in store for him. Teaching and preaching in Galilee, he had aroused so much opposition from both the Pharisees and scribes, and from Antipas’ circle as well, that he had been obliged to abandon his ministry there. And now he proposed to carry the same message to Jerusalem—where the hostility was certain to be a great deal stronger. Already in Galilee there had been Jewish plots to silence his voice, plots against his very life. And certain of them, it was said, had originated farther south, in Jerusalem and the surrounding country of Judea. Once he got to Jerusalem, the center of his enemies’ power, there was no possibility that he would survive. Jesus know this was so. And yet, far from evading death, he went on to Jerusalem. His belief in his duty to carry out God’s purpose was so powerful that he would persevere with it even at the cost of his life. Scriptural backing was available. “It is unthinkable for a prophet to meet his death anywhere but in Jerusalem” (Lk. 13:33), so it was there that he must die. Jesus reconciled himself to this fate because he saw in it, as in all his life’s work, a providential purpose. If he foretold disaster, he also looked forward to ultimate vindication. For since he believed that the divine Kingdom he was inaugurating would shortly achieve complete fulfillment, Jesus was also convinced that his death would precipitate this consummation, and introduce the final glorious crisis of history. For one thing, the example his fate would set to men and women must lead them to experience the complete repentance, change of heart, which was needed for their admission to the Kingdom. What his preaching had failed to accomplish for many listeners, his death would achieve. But his suffering would also bring about redemption in another, more subtle way. Jesus, like any other spiritually minded Jew, fortified his thoughts and emotions by scriptural sanction: and he needed this most of all while preparing for death. Moreover, he found it set down in the book of one of the greatest of all prophets, Isaiah. Writing, perhaps, among his fellow-exiles in Babylonia in the sixth century BC, he had stirringly proclaimed their imminent return to a restored Jerusalem, under the guidance of the one and only God. And, in particular, Isaiah envisaged a dramatic personage, the Suffering Servant, who was chosen by God to preside over this destined salvation (Is. 52:13-53:12). Although the precise nature of this influential Suffering Servant in Isaiah remains shrouded in mystery, it seems to represent a future individual who would bring God’s purpose to completion. Amid all the hardships that preceded his time, “in all their affliction he was afflicted” (Is. 63:9), the sufferings of his co-religionists would be equaled and indeed exceeded by this servant’s own. To this prototype of the Suffering Servant, Jesus now begins to conform more and more, as he approaches the days of his passion and death. (This theme will be continued next week, as we approach the sacred time of Passion Week.)