Part 1: What Does It Mean to “Miss the Mark”?

Do you want to be happy? Of course you do. And here’s something important: God wants you to be happy too. Not just temporarily happy. Not just comfortable. He wants you to be deeply, eternally happy with Him. But there’s a problem. We’re fallen humans. We’re weak. And there’s this reality called sin. We’ve all heard the Gospel from when Jesus says “you’ve heard it say, you shall not commit murder or adultery or swear an oath” (see Matthew 5:17-37). Most of us are not committing murder or adultery or perjury, so we don’t think of ourselves as “big sinners.” But in that Gospel story, Jesus calls us to something deeper. If we want to take our Christian walk towards eternal happiness with God seriously, we need to deepen our understanding of sin. In the Bible, the word for sin in both Hebrew and Greek is the same word that is used in archery, meaning “to miss the mark.” Picture an archer aiming at a target. The goal is the bull’s-eye. If the arrow misses, even slightly, it has missed the mark. That is a really good image for sin: Missing the mark. The problem is, most of the time we don’t even know we’re aiming to hit a mark and we don’t know what the bull’s-eye is. So what is the "mark" in our lives? The mark is happiness with God. The bull’s-eye is union with Him. The goal is saying “yes” to God. Sin is not just breaking rules. Sin is saying “no” to God. It’s choosing something apart from Him. Every decision we make, especially the important ones, is either moving us closer to God or further away. In that sense, we are constantly saying either “yes” or “no.” And this is where it gets subtle. We’re not just talking about dramatic moral failures. We’re talking about the quiet choices: the times we stop thinking about God, the moments we act as if He’s not part of the picture. When we try to build happiness without Him, we miss the mark. That is sin. That’s why sometimes thinking about sin is not enough. We need to think about the things that lead us to sin: Temptations. Every time we pray the Our Father, we say, “Lead us not into temptation.” We’re asking God to protect us from anything that would pull us away from Him. Temptation is not sin itself. Temptation is anything that attracts us toward saying “no” to God. It’s the pull toward happiness without Him. It’s the subtle suggestion that we can aim at a different target and still be fulfilled. So let’s ask the question again: Do you want to be happy? And does your plan for happiness include God? Each year, the first Sunday in Lent has the Gospel of Jesus being tempted in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11). In Year A, that Gospel reading is partnered with another familiar temptation story from the Book of Genesis: Adam and Eve, the serpent, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (2:7-9, 3:1-7). In one of them, the temptation leads to sin. In the other, the temptations do not. In Genesis, the temptation leads Adam and Eve to say “no” to God. In the Gospel the temptations lead Jesus to say “yes” to God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that in the desert, the devil tries to “compromise Jesus’ filial attitude toward God” (#540). Instead, Jesus confirms his faithful attitude and relationship to God. That’s always the devil's strategy: To convince us that we can live and find happiness without God. These two stories show us something about how temptation works. In Part 2, we'll begin to recognize it.

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With every post, Deacon Pedro takes a particular topic apart, not so much to explore or explain the subject to its fullness, but rather to provide insights that will deepen our understanding of the subject. And don’t worry, at the end of the day he always puts the pieces back together. There are no limits to deacon-structing: Write to him and ask any questions about the faith or Church teaching: [email protected]. Follow him on Facebook and Instagram.