You will die in your sins

The words are brutal: crushing all hope with a foreshadowing of eternal pain.

Yet our Lord says them not just once or twice but three times in today’s Gospel (John 8:21-30).

I am going away
and you will look for me,
but you will die in your sin.

Where I am going
you cannot come.

…

You belong to what is below,
I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you
that you will die in your sins.

For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins.

They are words of warning, not only to the Pharisees, but to us as well.

Why would we die in our sins?

We would die in our sins if we bind ourselves to the things of this world: binding our pursuit of happiness to earthly pleasures that will die with our death (and usually long before that) and turning ourselves away from the beatitude that is everlasting.

You belong to what is below,
I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you
that you will die in your sins.

We would die in our sins if we – individually or collectively - rely only on our own wisdom, willpower, virtue, or any human quality or indeed anything that is not of Christ: the true and infinite embodiment of God’s saving power.

For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, be merciful to me – a sinner.