When I was a child, we had a record player in our family room along with some albums from my parents’ younger days. One of my favorite albums was the soundtrack from the film version of West Side Story. I loved listening to Riff and Bernardo, to Tony and Maria. One day, though, when flipping from the A-side to the B-side (bring on “Gee, Officer Krupke”), I fumbled the needle and dredged a deep gouge in the vinyl. The whole A-side was ruined. “The Jet Song,” “America,” “Tonight”… all gone.
Immediately, I was possessed by the thought, I have to make this right! I wanted to find something that both replaced the damaged record and showed my parents how much I cared. I wanted the original, but the original in better condition: the vinyl glossier, the sleeve crisper. I wanted to find something somehow exactly the same and infinitely better, both the perfect replacement and a perfect gesture of love. But try as I might, I came up empty.
In the end, I think I bought a copy of the original Broadway recording plus a compilation album with some songs from the film version. I wrapped up my purchases and gave them to my mom. Of course, she graciously thanked me. At some level, though, I was never satisfied with my effort. I couldn’t shake the desire to make things better than better, and I always suspected that I had failed.
Maybe that’s a lot of crying over scratched wax, but it reflects a basic human instinct. Truth be told, we’ve all experienced something like it at the deepest level. At our creation, God entrusted us with the greatest imaginable possessions. Not only did he bestow upon us our very own nature, but, with grace, he also afforded us a share in his. In order to enjoy our nature and his grace, we just had to use them as intended—with gratitude to the giver. Instead, we seized them roughly and turned them to our own selfish purposes, only to wound our nature and forfeit his grace.
Amidst the wreckage of our sin, we longed to repair the relationship. But what could be done? How could creatures repay their Creator or make an adequate gesture of love? All our efforts proved woefully lacking. And so it goes down through history. At one point, the prophet Micah, giving voice to all mankind, laments: With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my crime, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (Mic 6:6-7).
The heart of the Gospel message is that God himself has supplied a satisfactory and superabundant offering: his Only Begotten Son. In our Lord Jesus Christ, God gives a gift which both restores our original possessions and somehow surpasses them with a new revelation and grace. In giving himself, Christ heals and grows us into a deeper relationship with God. What is more, he accomplishes this saving work as one of us, thus making the gift genuinely ours to offer. In the mysteries of his life in the flesh, Christ offers himself (as man) to himself (as God) in union with us and on our behalf.
Most wonderfully, Christ leaves us his sacrifice to offer day in and day out at every Mass. By the uniting of our sacrifices with his, both in the Mass and beyond, the gouge left by sin is smoothed over and the song of our lives is renewed with a yet more glorious harmony.
