To Believe in the Good News

Television  has become very much a part of our lives. It’s hard to find a household without a TV set these days. We can see TV aerial antennae even in slum areas. The wealthy people have TV sets in each room. Little children learn to watch TV before they start going to school.Why do we spend so much time watching TV? Most of us watch it as a  form of relaxation, and also as a rich  source of information  –ABS-CBN, GMA, CNN, BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, etc. We watch the news, special reports, basketball games and other sports. But of course, television also provides us with another  notable source of information: advertisement.

Studies indicate that more media time is devoted to advertising than ever before – just count the number of channels  advertising all sorts of useless products. With the increased bombardment of our senses by all kinds of information, advertisers have to work harder and harder to get our attention.

Many  hour-long TV programs  include  18 minutes of advertising  – more than a quarter of the viewing time! Moreover,  advertisers pay enormously  for their television ads. For example, some Super Bowl ads aired in the U.S. television cost between  2 to 3 million dollars apiece.

What are these commercial messages that we are receiving by way of the media?

Advertisers provide us with  one type of beauty. We are bombarded with  highly stylized images of  beautiful healthy young people, with  sunshine bright colors, and  attractive landscapes. Advertisers also  give us countless promises. If we buy this car, we’ll be  most attractive to the opposite sex. If we buy this cosmetic, we’ll  feel younger. If we buy this insurance policy,  we’ll feel secure. If we drink this beer or this gin,  we’ll be macho –  “tunay na lalake.” If we buy this furniture, our homes will be more elegant. We’ll be with the  “in-crowd.” If you smoke this cigarette,  you’ll be sexier  – never mind the cancer.

We know many of these promises  turn out to be utterly empty. Cars don’t make us attractive to the opposite sex, beauty products don’t make us any younger, and drinking beer does not make us more macho –  only give us a pot-belly. Advertisers dish out  seductive images  of a  happiness we’ll never attain.

In many ways these images  prompt us to buy products,which simply render us  more unhappy and miserable. We can never measure up to the images of the smiles, laughter,and satisfaction that we see on the TV screen.

Where do we find  sources of information that provide us with  new ideas and fresh visions of life without making us feel that we’ll never fully measure up to it? It is embodied in a simple message from Jesus that we hear today,  “Believe in the good news.”

What is this good news? We know that it is ultimately the fact that Jesus himself,  the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, has come to be one of us to redeem all of God’s creation. It is God’s ultimate promise – a promise that  has already been fulfilled in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

It presents us with an  ideal of happiness, which is both  true and attainable. It does so by presenting us with  who we really are, and  ought to become. It is  available to all of us who are ready to partake in his community of discipleship. And what is the image of who we truly are to become?

It is really  becoming like Jesus himself.  Jesus is the word of God. He himself is  the way to the Father. He himself is  the way, the truth, and the life. So, how do we partake in his life, his way? Today’s gospel gives us some hints.

Jesus was announced by his cousin John. John’s sole purpose  was  to prepare the way for Jesus; John rejected any glory for himself.

He preached a  conversion,  in preparation for Jesus. And he preached  humility; of him it could be said, “Like a bridegroom’s friend, who wants all eyes focused on the bridegroom.” As disciples, we fix our attention on Jesus.

But after his baptism by John,  Jesus had to face temptations. The longer accounts in Luke and Matthew tell us that he was tempted in three ways.

First,  to ignore spiritual longings  by  feeding only his bodily hunger. Second, to  take on the power for its own sake, to be  independent from God  and honored by others. Third, to be  freed from all vulnerability, symbolized byhaving the angels support him as he falls from the parapet of the temple.

In refusing to give in to these temptations, Jesus reveals for us  what our true humanity is. We are to look beyond the present need to act for the greater good. The  call to resist temptation  goes hand in hand with  our Lenten call to penance.

On  Ash  Wednesday  we heard Jesus’ instruction on the penitential practices of prayer and fasting. But in some ways it’s not clear why we should do penance. Why would we want to deny ourselves good things, things that contribute to our health and well-being? Things that we rightfully enjoy without going to excess? Our meditation on Jesus’ temptations can help us to see that penance is not denial for denial’s sake, but  a kind of discipline.

Penance makes us  more open to God’s word. By disciplining our bodies and spirits,we can draw in God’s power to transform us in new ways beyond the ordinary.

The purpose of Lenten practices, ultimately, is to deepen our belief in the good news. It often seems that the command to  “believe in the good news” is easy to follow. Anyone can simply believe in something. It is often thought that the “good works” part of our faith  is more difficult. But in many ways,  belief is the more difficult challenge.

What concretely do we have to believe in order to believe in the good news? St. Augustine  tells us that  our God can bring good out of any evil we might face. He can  bring good even out of the most “ordinary forms of evil,” such as our tendency to give up on our spiritual goals, to strive only for wealth and worldly success, or to despair that God is with us as we feel the bodily and spiritual weakness of aging or sickness.

To believe in the good news is  to believe that God is Father to every person  – and that  He created each person in His image and likeness. To believe in the good news is to believe that  we have an eternal destiny.

But we must always realize that this radical capacity to believe  is itself a gift. We can pray for it, but ultimately, it is God’s gift.We can rejoice in it, because as God’s gift it reveals much of  who He is. And it  reveals His love for us.

We share in God’s life, then,  when we share in the many grace-filled gifts He gives us: our life, our commitments, our marriages, our families, our jobs, and our friendships. All of these small communities of human love mirror God’s love for us.

This Lent we take up the penances by which we can both appreciate and deepen the good news even more. And we can begin or continue that  transformation  of ourselves and of others that has  Jesus as its model.

There is a story of a stockbroker, who finds a magic lamp, rubs it, and shhhhh… there appears a genie, who offers him one wish – whatever he would like. After considering this opportunity carefully, he finally makes his one request: he asks the genie for a copy of the newspaper dated one year from today.

Thinking the request strange, the genie asks why he would ask for a newspaper of the future. “Because if I can see what the stock market trading is  one year from now, I’ll be able to invest in the high growth stocks now and clean up.”

So the genie grants the request and – Pop! – the stockbroker is holding a copy of the newspaper of one year into the future. He quickly goes to the stock market pages. He takes note of the stocks that are doing well.

As he was scanning the stock listing, he drops part of the newspaper. As it lands on the floor, the section flips open to the obituary page. And there, to his horror, the stockbroker sees his picture.

In the temple precincts of our lives are “money changers” and exploiters – fears, ambitions, addictions, selfishness, prejudices – that distort the meaning of our lives and debase our relationships with God and with one another.

What Jesus does in the temple we must do in our lives: drive out the “money changers,” who shortchange us on the time and attention we give to family and friends.

Drive out the useless, meaningless, and the destructive elements that desecrate the sacred places within us where God should dwell. Drive out  whatever makes our lives less than what God created us to be.