I love Wicked (the musical). It has
great songs and characters. It wonderfully
tells an old story in a new way. But
what I think attracts people most to Wicked
is that it highlights someone who we assumed to be totally evil to show that
she was really just misunderstood. This
is a popular trend nowadays: Maleficent,
Breaking Bad, etc. Why?
Maybe because deep down we can relate to Elphaba. I’m certainly not perfect. Maybe we are hoping that someone can find
goodness in us beyond all the mistakes we have made. Everyone has done wicked things, but are we truly
Wicked?
There is an old
heresy floating around today that says man is like “a snow-covered dung
hill.” What that means is that mankind
is wicked by nature and that only when we become a Christian does God overlook
our ugliness. This is utterly untrue. If this is what you were ever led to believe,
I am so, so sorry. You are not
dung. In the beginning, God made
everything good – including you and me. Right
from when you were first conceived in your mother’s womb God rejoiced over you
and said “My child, you are very good.”
So if we are all
made good – and this goodness is our nature that cannot EVER be lost – why do we
sometimes behave wickedly? Short answer:
because we are tragically wounded. Daily
we feel the effects of the original sin of our first parents – both physically
and spiritually. The Catechism of the
Catholic Church explains that despite original sin “human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is
wounded… and inclined to sin – an inclination to evil that is called ‘concupiscence’”
(CCC, 405 emphasis added). Because of
this, there is a lot of pain we can experience in each of our lives. You know this first hand, do you not? Jesus wants us to bring all our pain to him. He wants us to hide nothing. Though many times we do not run to Jesus’ love. Instead, we try to deal with the pain
ourselves when we get hurt. Dr. Bob
Schuchts explains this cycle in his great book Be Healed as follows:
1.
We experience a hurt.
2.
In the pain, a lie is spoken to us that we start
to believe as the truth concerning our identity. For example: I am not good enough or I am
alone.
3.
Out of ungodly self-reliance, we make an internal
vow to protect ourselves from the pain. For example: I will never trust men again or I
can never let people see the real me.
Let’s use Elphaba
as an example. She was born into the
world with green skin. Her father hated
her for this and preferred her sister.
That planted a deep wound of rejection in Elphaba’s heart from an early
age. For many years, she responded to
this pain by trying to be a good girl. Then
she meets the Wizard who appears to be another type of father figure to
her. She excitedly starts to think that
someone is finally embracing her uniqueness.
But it turns out the wizard is only interested in using Elphaba for her magic
powers. This pain strikes the root of
her childhood rejection wound and she snaps.
In her heart, Elphaba feels: I am
not wanted, and begins to form a false identity belief. After this, she still tries
to do many good things but they all backfire on her. She declares in song her internal vow, “Let
all of Oz be agreed. I’m wicked through and through. No good deed will I do again.” She makes this vow out of self-reliance in
response to her pain.
Do you have any
vows like this? Where have you been
hurt? Ask Jesus to show you. Sin happens when we respond to a wound by
acting out of ungodly self-reliance instead of taking our pain to Jesus and
being totally vulnerable with him. What
does a little child do when she scraps her knee? She immediately run and cries
to Mommy and Daddy. We need to relearn
how to do this with Our Heavenly Father.
When we run to Daddy, he kisses our wounds and makes it better. Do you know what the Latin word for Adoration
(adoratio) means? A kiss.* When we go to adore Jesus in the Blessed
Sacrament, we come with our sin, brokenness, wounds – and he kisses us. Why?
Because we are good. Because he
loves us. And nothing will ever change
that.
Jesus speaks the
truth to the lies that have crept their way into our deepest hurts. He says: You
are wanted! He frees us from unforgiveness
and judgments we have made toward God, ourselves, and others. Then he empowers us to renounce the internal
vows we made that kept us bound. I CAN let others see the real me because I
am NOT junk! When Jesus tells us who
we really are it changes us. He is
seeking you right at this moment. Let
him find you. Let him love you where you
feel most unlovable today.
“Because I knew
you, I have been changed...for good.”
Sources:
*Pope Benedict XVI: https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20050821_20th-world-youth-day.html
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