NOTES for Wis 2:12-22

Righteousness has always been an object of envy and hatred for those who did not want to walk the path of righteousness. Many different objections were raised: it is hard, completely impossible, unprofitable, meaningless... And behind all the objections there has always stood one thing: fear. What is the wicked person afraid of? How can the righteous person threaten him? There is, of course, a peculiar aggressive "righteousness," whose bearers think that a sinner deserves death, or at least severe punishment, for his sin.

But a true righteous person never takes such a position. He always condemns sin unambiguously and firmly, but he never rushes to pass sentence on the sinner. And this is not a matter of softheartedness or indecision, but of the fact that every human righteousness is the result not of the absence of sin in the righteous person's life, but of resistance to it. Every true righteous person understands that he is not sinless and that he follows God despite his sins. He also understands that his path will end on the Day of Judgment together with everyone else's, whether they are righteous or sinners. Then it will become clear who is worth what. Therefore the righteous person does not rush to conclusions when it concerns his neighbor.

The threat the righteous person poses to the wicked lies elsewhere. It lies in the very fact of the existence of righteousness and of righteous people. In the fact that there is an alternative to the world order that is founded on falsehood and evil. Of course, at times the wicked person is annoyed to see someone whom he senses is better than himself, despite all his bravado. But the matter is still not only this annoyance; it is that the existence of an alternative to the order of things familiar to the wicked person devalues and eventually inevitably destroys that order. Against this background, an attempt to force the righteous person to turn aside from the path of righteousness, using the whole force of the evil in which the fallen world lies, looks quite natural. It is as if the righteous person is being told: it is easy for you to be righteous and to speak about righteousness as long as you have not seen the world as it is, without embellishment, in all the fullness of its ugliness. Let us see what you say when you see that!

If even in such a situation the righteous person remains faithful to himself and to God, the wicked person usually becomes confused, though he tries not to show it. That is no surprise: the triumph of righteousness in the face of the world's evil can mean only one thing: there really is an alternative to this evil and to the world that lies in evil. There is a Kingdom where neither evil nor sin has any place, and it is stronger than the world's evil. And that means evil is doomed. Together with those who live by it and defend it.

Christians usually see in the righteous man of the Book of Wisdom a foreshadowing of the Saviour. This is probably right: the New Testament books often describe the Saviour's path in the same words. But there is also a deeper connection, spiritually linking the tragedy of the Cross with the drama of every suffering righteous person. This is the connection that made inevitable the persecution of Christians of which Jesus warns His followers, a connection whose meaning has been understood by the righteous of every age and people.

For the reasons for rejecting righteousness have always been the same. The righteous person was a thorn in people's side above all because he did not live as everyone else did. His life did not have to be strikingly conspicuous to provoke hostility. The mere fact of his existence was enough—a fact that reproached everyone around him, everyone who justified themselves by saying that one must live like everyone else, because there is no other way. Yet by his very existence the righteous person said: there is another way. You simply do not want it. You will not take the trouble to change your life. It is not hard to imagine the irritation of those who really do not want to change anything.

But there is something even more frightening here for such people: the collapse of the value system with which they explain their position, or the collapse of their justification for having no such system. Every person needs inner confidence and stability in their own stance towards life. If someone tries to deprive them of that confidence and stability, their reaction can be extremely sharp: the instinct for self-preservation comes into play, one of the strongest animal instincts inherited by human nature.

Fallen humanity needs it. Before the Fall, people could rely on God, who protected them, so that they needed no protective instincts; now, after the Fall, a person has to take care of themselves in many respects. The instinct for self-preservation proved necessary for fallen humanity's physical and psychological survival. But it is not needed in one's relationship with God. Yet people often follow it even there.

Religion appears, one of whose tasks is to provide the religious person with guarantees concerning God and their relationship with Him. Righteousness, however, is always life without guarantees. And that is frightening. One can overcome this fear and break free of the limitations of the fallen world that prevent a person from walking the path of righteousness. Or one can remain with it—but then every righteous person will be perceived as a mortal threat simply because they exist.

What, then, can be said of the Messiah who brought the Kingdom? Here is all the fullness of life, together with the absolute, fundamental absence of any guarantees, their complete impossibility. It is no wonder that those who hated Christ most were deeply religious, pious and self-assured people: He was taking everything away from them. In return He offered the Kingdom, but they did not want such an exchange. Between their own religiosity and the Kingdom, they chose their religion. For the Messiah, that meant the Cross—but also the resurrection, as victory over death. The religious people, meanwhile, held to their own position. And they passed by the Kingdom, into the outer darkness.