Killer crises call us to God. Which is your God?
Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
– The Gospel of Luke, 23:39-43
WHICH of the two criminals are you? Hardly anyone would see himself as one of the condemned thieves with our Lord on Calvary in the above episode from the November 27 Sunday Mass Gospel reading from Saint Luke.
Yet all of us face the same fate as the two criminals crucified with Jesus, traditionally known as Hestas and Dimas. And we shall all have to decide how we would regard Christ — with disdain and disbelief like the former or faith and fealty like the latter.
All of us. And this same dismal fate and fateful decision are coming worldwide in our time of conflict, contagion, calamity and other earth-shaking crises. If you don’t think so, answer a few questions.
Will all of us, like the two thieves, fall victim to sin and death?
Like them, do we face predicaments we have no power over?
Is the world in the same boat, with pandemic, economic, catastrophic and geopolitical crises leading to apocalyptic decimation and destruction?
And in these struggles, whether personal or global, the question of countless millions, even nonbelievers, is not unlike Hestas’ challenge for Jesus to show he was the Messiah by saving all three of them: If God exists, He must end suffering and evil.
Earlier in the reading, Jewish leaders also taunted Jesus to “save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God,” while Roman soldiers mocked him: “If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.”
Thankfully, that is not the only way humanity responds to distress and death. The good thief Dimas rebuked Hestas and believed in Jesus despite their hopeless, hapless state. And our Lord rewarded Dimas’ faith by assuring him of heaven — the first saint declared by the Church, indeed by Christ himself.
Well and good, except that for many, if not most people, the promise of Paradise after death, even from God Himself, doesn’t really clinch the deal. Instead, most of humanity still prefers salvation in this life, not the next. And to get what we want now, most of us turn to power, wealth and know-how.
The Word vs the World
From Adam and Eve eating the apple instead of heeding the Word, to today’s nations nesting with nukes, billionaires banking on billions and techies trusting in tech, the world seeks salvation in worldly wherewithal — making bread from stone, flying above the earth and ruling all earth — the devil’s lures rejected by Jesus in the desert.
Humanity, however, has succumbed to those very temptations of power, wealth and know-how, and that has unleashed killer scourges symbolized by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from Chapter 6 of the Book of Revelation (Rev 6:1-8).
The quest for power has spawned the two scourges threatening to plunge the world into nuclear Armageddon. First is superpower rivalry, symbolized by the first rider straddling a white steed and bearing a sword, labeled by many scholars as Conquest, the drive to dominate other potentates.
Its latest iteration in our time is the rivalry between West and “East,” that is, Russia and China. In its new National Security Strategy 2022, the United States cited as its first global priority “Out-Competing China and Constraining Russia.” And in his report to the ruling Communist Party of China, President Xi Jinping declared that the leadership shall “further increase China’s international standing and influence [and] enable China to play a greater role in global governance.”
Right after white Conquest marches the red steed of war or Conflict, whose idolizers seek security not from dialogue, disarmament and peace-building, but from more and more fearsome weaponry. And the resulting arms race only escalates threats and makes conflict more likely, if not inevitable.
Last year, world military expenditures exceeded $2 trillion for the first time, and nuclear weapons spending began rising again after decades of decline. Meanwhile, the world’s destitute face mass starvation with the surge in food and fuel prices, driven in large part by the Ukraine war.
Along with power and weaponry, humanity seeks security in immense wealth, even if billions of dollars did not save Apple founder Steve Jobs from cancer. So we have the third horseman on a black mount, apropos for the Commerce it symbolizes, with its
financial drive to constantly be hugely in the black.
“A quart of wheat for a day’s pay, and three quarts of barley for a day’s pay,” intoned the third rider, demanding money even for life-and-death needs. Those who cannot pay, including an estimated 100 million people unable to procure daily food needs, are allowed to starve. Or denied vaccines hogged by rich nations, even African medical workers defenseless in daily exposure to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
The last rider on a pale horse is Death, with another deathly figure, Hades. They symbolize calamities and disease, including Covid spawned by human culture, and superstorms, floods and fires brought by global warming.
And while people blame heaven for these catastrophes, it is earthly excesses that are behind many disasters. Plus: society’s neglect, corruption and lack of caring lead to preventable loss of countless lives and livelihoods.
In the burgeoning burdens and body count from growing conflict, calamity, contagion and commercial excess, the world now faces the Calvary choice: seek succor from state, corporate and technology power or hold fast to the Word and His call for unyielding faith, hope and charity.
Most will turn to the world. But only the Word can bring life eternal.