brotherSEPH's HOLY WEEK REFLECTIONS FOR HOLY SATURDAY: "JESUS ACCEPT US WHATEVER WE MAY BE"

"If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised."

- 1 Corinthians 15:13

WHY DID JESUS DIE?

When I look at Jesus on the Cross, I ask, "Why? .. Why, You, Lord, What did You do to deserve such a cruel death?" I feel ashamed and guilty, because, I know that it was my place that Jesus took. My place on the Cross. It was my suffering that He bore. It was my Cross that He carried.

JESUS' DEATH IS AN OUTPOURING OF IMMENSE LOVE

Jesus' human heart was filled with the Father's love. All through His lifetime, Jesus reflected God's love for the people by the mercy and kindness He showed them, even to the end. It is this love that enabled Him to give His life freely for all. For "greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

Jesus' sacrifice also expresses His loving communion with the Father. "The Father loves me, because I lay down my life", said the Lord, "I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father" (John 10:17; 14:31).

JESUS' DEATH IS IN FULFILLMENT OF DIVINE PURPOSE AND PROPHECY

The death of Christ was accomplished in the mind of God before creation. Jesus' violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances but is part of the mystery of God's plan. Christ is the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8).

Jesus' salvific death fulfills Isaiah's prophecy of the Suffering Servant (Is 53:7-8). St. Paul professes that "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures." St. Peter explains to the Jews of Jerusalem in his first sermon on Pentecost: "This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God."

Thus, Jesus's death is the very purpose of the Incarnation. It is the reason that Christ came into the world in the first place. From the first moment of His Incarnation, the Son embraces the Father's plan of divine salvation in His redemptive mission: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work" (John 4:34).

JESUS DIED FOR THE SINS OF ALL MANKIND

Jesus paid our sin debt in full. Matthew 26:28 says Jesus' blood would be shed for many "for the remission of sins".

At the end of the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus recalled that God's love excludes no one: "So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that not one of these little ones should perish." He affirms that he came "to give his life as a ransom for many". The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: "There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer."

JESUS DIED THAT ALL MAY HAVE ETERNAL LIFE

Genesis 2:17 tells us that the effect of eating the forbidden fruit was spiritual death (for all mankind) and the penalty for disobedience to God was eternal separation from Him. We have earned eternal death but God in His mercy provided a means for us to be reconciled back to Him and to enjoy life eternal - through the death of His Son Jesus (Romans 6:23).

In the Old Testament, the Hebrews were instructed to sacrifice a lamb as an atonement for their sins. They would have to do this often. This lamb sacrifice was a substitute which was looking forward to God’s true lamb sacrifice: His Son Jesus, sinless and blameless, who would be crucified on the cross for all of man’s sins in the past, the present, and the future. "God laid on him the sins of us all" (Is 53:6).

It may be recalled that John the Baptist, after agreeing to baptize Jesus along with the sinners, looked at Jesus and pointed Him out as the "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." By doing so, he reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant (Is 53:7-8) who silently allows Himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes; and also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel's redemption at the first Passover.

JESUS DIED TO "HAND OVER HIS SPIRIT"

Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (1 Cor 15:45)

After Jesus' death and just before His ascension, Jesus promised His disciples: "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Jesus, after being exalted at the right hand of God, received the promise of the Holy Spirit and poured out the Spirit on His disciples.

This is the same Spirit that Christians receive at Baptism. Thus they are aided and receive power through the Holy Spirit. They can abound in hope through His power. "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:13).

PRAYER :

RAISED UPON THE CROSS, O MASTER,
THROUGH THE WOOD YOU QUENCHED THE FLAME OF SIN!
SUFFERING DEATH BY YOUR OWN CHOICE,
YOU HAVE SLAIN THE ENEMY!
THEREFORE I ENTREAT YOU:
PUT TO DEATH MY SINFUL WAYS;
ENLIVEN MY MISERABLE HEART, 
CLEANSING ME FROM ALL DEFILEMENT; 
FOR YOU ARE THE MERCIFUL ONE! 
 WHY WAS JESUS LIFTED UP ON A CROSS?

"My Suffering Jesus: Why the Cross? Why did You die such a shameful and painful death?" Every time I look at You on the Cross, I imagine Your anguish and Your excruciating pain, yet only You knew what it was to suffer it. My Sweet Jesus, how terrible must my sins be, for You to have suffered so much!"

Christ humbled himself in His death, having been betrayed by Judas, forsaken by His disciples, scorned and rejected by the world, condemned by Pilate, and tormented by His persecutors; having also conflicted with the terrors of death, and the powers of darkness, felt and borne the weight of God’s wrath, He laid down His life as an offering for sin, enduring the painful, shameful, and cursed death of the cross... For this Word would be fulfilled: "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself" (Jn 12:32).

What is it that "draws" us to the Condemned One in agony on the Cross? How is it that, generation after generation, this appalling sight has drawn countless hosts of people who have made the Cross the hallmark of their faith? Hosts of men and women who for centuries have lived and given their lives looking to this sign?

The Cross. The instrument of a shameful death. It was not lawful to condemn a Roman citizen to death by crucifixion: it was too humiliating. The moment that Jesus took up the Cross in order to carry it to Calvary marked a turning point in the history of the Cross. The symbol of a shameful death, reserved for the lowest classes, the Cross became a sign of victory and a crown of glory!

The Cross is a divine lesson in obedience and humility. Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:6-8). For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous (Romans 5:19). By submitting to death, Jesus had destroyed its power, thereby making eternal life available to everyone. The Cross, an emblem of suffering and shame became the centerpiece of God’s plan of redemption. Christ suffered to leave us a divine example of every virtue which we could imitate - love, charity, humility, obedience, patience, and forbearance.

St. Luke notes: "When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem" (Lk 9:51). While he "ascends" to the Holy City, where his "exodus" from this life will be accomplished, Jesus already sees the goal, Heaven, but He knows that the path that brings him back to the glory of God passes through the Cross, through obedience to the divine plan of love for humanity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "the lifting up of Jesus on the cross signifies and announces his lifting up by his Ascension into heaven, and indeed begins it" (n. 661). We too must be clear in our Christian life, that to enter into the glory of God requires daily fidelity to His will, even when it requires sacrifice. The Ascension of Jesus actually happened on the Mount of Olives, near the place where He had retired in prayer before His passion to be in profound union with the Father; once again we see that prayer gives us the grace to faithfully live out God's plan for us.

Jesus offers us His Cross as our lifeline of hope and salvation. He gave Nicodemus a sign that he could not miss. Jesus tells him: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness (Numbers 21:9), so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." (John 3:14-16)

Let us examine Numbers 21:7-9 -- And the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. --

In like manner, Jesus had to be lifted up on the Cross so that He could heal us of our sins. Just as the brass serpent was raised on the pole for the healing of Israel, so Jesus was raised on the Cross for the healing of the world. When Nicodemus saw Christ on that Cross he understood and believed.

As we prepare for Easter, can you see Jesus on that Cross? Look at him on that Cross. Be like Nicodemus - understand and believe. He was lifted up on that Cross for you, He was lifted up on that Cross for me. He was lifted up on that Cross to heal us from all our sins.

PRAYER :

BY YOUR OWN FREE CHOICE, COMPASSIONATE CHRIST,
YOU ENDURED A SHAMEFUL DEATH UPON THE CROSS.
WHEN YOUR MOTHER SAW YOU, SHE WAS WOUNDED IN HER HEART.
BEATING HER BREAST. SHE LAMENTED WITH MOTHERLY SORROW!
AT HER PRAYERS, THROUGH YOUR TENDER MERCY,
HAVE PITY ON THE WORLD ,
AND SAVE US; HEAL US FROM OUR SIN! 

THE CROSS - A SIGN OF CONTRADICTION

Every time I look at the Cross, it gives me courage and hope. When I look at Jesus on the Cross, my heart is filled with all that is beautiful - Truth, Justice, Beauty, and Love. I cry out from the depth of my being, "My Sweet Jesus, how can I ever repay Your Goodness?"

The Cross of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is a sign of contradiction to the values and principles of the world. It shows how God can bring good out of evil, order out of chaos, meaning out of absurdity, and life out of death. God's infinite power comes to us in the human powerlessness of Jesus Christ born wrapped in swaddling clothes at the beginning of His life on earth, and in His powerlessness in being nailed to the Cross at the end of His life here on earth. The Cross stands at the very summit of Christ's saving entrance into our humanity - and it stands at the very bottom of Christ's degradation. The Cross confounds non-believers, it frightens the proud, it is an object of scorn and ridicule for the evil mind.

And yet the Cross of Jesus Christ is a sign of peace, a sign with which we bless ourselves, our children, our homes, and all things we hold dear. Pre-eminently the Cross is proof of how far it is that God our Father has gone to prove His love for you and me. Strangely, mysteriously, and in a seemingly contradictory way, the Cross is a sign of Love. No. It is not merely a sign or a symbol, it is the ultimate proof of God's love for us.

The Cross summons us to change the way we see things. It urges us, challenges us, and demands us to look at the world in a vision and in a way that departs from the vision we might have under a different and secular perspective. It calls us to look at our relationships with others, to look at life, and to see death in ways that are inside-out and upside-down from those who have no faith, and who are forced to see them through the eyes of fear.

Death, under the Cross, is not an ending, it is a beginning. Suffering, pain and loss under the Cross, are no longer things that separate us from God, they unite us to Him. Tragedy under the cross is not ultimate, it is only temporary. Sin under the cross no longer alienates us from God, it occasions His coming to us in the midst of our sins in His merciful love.

Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, is a victim no more. Why, then, should we consider ourselves to be victims? Under the Cross, there are no more victims! For the wood of the Tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden and the wood of the crib in Christ's nativity in Bethlehem has become the wood of the Cross that overcomes all that would separate us from the loving Presence of God in Christ. Christ, the victim no more, reigns triumphant from the Cross.

PRAYER :

JESUS, LORD, AND LOVER OF MANKIND, 

INTERCEDE FERVENTLY BEFORE THE FATHER FOR US -

THAT OUR PRAYERS MAY BE ACCEPTED 

AS PURE AND SWEET-SMELLING INCENSE; 

THAT WE MAY ALL BE ACCOUNTED WORTHY 

TO VENERATE THE LIFE-GIVING CROSS 

AND TO BEHOLD IT WITH REVERENCE AND LOVE.

SEND DOWN ON US, THEN, YOUR MERCY, O SAVIOR,

AS THE LOVER OF MANKIND. 

CONCLUSION:

Do you ever wonder why the Church keeps the body of Christ represented on the Cross? Well, it is because on it humanity remains naked and exposed. Humanity has not yet fully received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that Christ handed over when He died on the Cross. Humanity has not yet allowed itself to be raised in glory by the power of God. Until that day comes, we, the children of Adam and Eve, know that we are naked. We need to see ourselves up on that Cross. Until that day comes the silence of the angels will continue and heaven will wait in the stillness of expectation, holding its breath for our response. 

brotherSEPH's HOLY WEEK REFLECTIONS FOR GOOD FRIDAY: "THE ACT OF FORGIVENESS"

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

- 1 Peter 2:24

"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

- Ephesians 4:31-32

The idea of FORGIVENESS is so ingrained in our cultural and religious traditions that it is easy for us to overlook what an extraordinary idea it is. Although we tend to separate out “forgiving” and “forgetting” the biblical notion of forgiveness is literally “a forgetting,” in that after the act of forgiveness “it is as if ” the grievance never happened.

It is only the aggrieved party who can do the forgiving, and the act of FORGIVENESS “wipes away” the memory of the grievance so that it no longer has any influence on the relationship. So it is that the phrase “I will remember their sins no more” appears again and again in the Bible, for example, in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hebrews.

Before this idea of FORGIVENESS took hold there was simply “revenge,” in which affronts were met with retribution, often disproportionate to the original wrong. These “family feuds,” if we want to call them that, could go on for generations, and still do, as we see sometimes, for example, in the Middle East, where memories of affronts are long.

A moral advance on such indiscriminate retribution was the lex talionis, the “law of retaliation,” which prescribed that the response had to be equal to the offense, as, for example, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

But the idea of FORGIVENESS moves social relationships into a whole new key and goes beyond mere justice. Indeed, forgiveness is an affront to justice, which is one of the perpetual accusations made against the Gospel by its critics.

Israel’s God is a God who forgives, but we may recall that the first covenant in the Bible is the covenant with Noah, and in that story God’s forgiveness has limits. “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” 

(Genesis 6:5)

So God does not forgive the people and punishes them with a flood. God shows some mercy, enough to save a remnant in the ark, the blameless Noah and his family, and the several species of animals. But God repents of his action, viewing it as a dry run (if you’ll excuse the pun), and promises never to do it again, laying down his arms (so to speak,) and leaving his bow in the sky to remind him.

In Exodus, there’s a seeming change in the character and identity of God, in which mercy becomes a key quality.

In Exodus, we have a particularly important passage for subsequent Jewish and Christian understandings of God’s identity and character. It is Exodus 34:6-7 when God tells Moses to go up Mt. Sinai with two stone tablets. As you recall, God descended in the cloud, revealed the divine name to Moses, and then proclaimed to him:

“The Lord, the LORD,

a God merciful and gracious,

slow to anger,

and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,

forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,

yet by no means clearing the guilty,

but visiting the iniquity of the parents

upon the children

and the children’s children,

to the third and fourth generation.”

Now this passage is really packed with things to ponder:

1. First, this is a big moment in the history of God and his people. The revealing of the divine name tips us off to it, and right after this is the giving of the law and the Sinai covenant. To reveal one’s name is to be in relationship. God chooses to be in relationship with Israel, and renews the previous covenants.

2. Second, while we in our day tend to focus on the individual, and on individual sins, notice that here the emphasis is collective to the people as a people.

3. Third, the relationship is not only collective it is trans-generational, the promise applying across multiple generations.

I would guess that most of what we talk about in this Lenten study over the next few weeks will be about individual acts of forgiveness applied to willful, intentional sins. But the early understandings of forgiveness in the Bible were almost always collective, and almost always for inadvertent sinning.

Divine forgiveness was a necessary condition for God and Israel to be in a relationship. This is a little hard for us to get our minds around because we tend to think of sin as a moral category, and it was also for Israel. But sin was frequently, perhaps even more frequently, thought about not as morality, but as purity.

God was understood to be holy and humans were not, the creator and the creatures were in different categories. And so we see the development of the elaborate holiness codes in Leviticus, which were designed to produce ritual purity in people so as not to offend God. Even so, it was impossible to keep all the myriad laws required.

Most sins that needed to be forgiven were inadvertent. So it wasn’t flagrant sinning like robbery, murder, or adultery, the ones we think of in moral categories, which needed to be forgiven so much as the infractions against ritual purity.

This is part of the backstory behind some of Jesus’ conflict with the scribes and the Pharisees who were zealous for the law, the maintaining of ritual purity.

Humanity makes us in need of forgiveness from the God who is holy. And that is why when God chooses to be a forgiving God it is a precondition for us to be in a relationship with God at all.

And again, if we look at the grand arc of the whole Christian Story in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments we see how the very identity of God can be understood in terms of forgiveness, the fruits of mercy, and love. So much so that, after Good Friday and Easter, the early disciples of Jesus, all of them Jewish, as he was Jewish, came to call him “Lord,” the name previously reserved for God alone. It is quite remarkable. They saw in his love, mercy, and forgiveness congruence with the character and identity of their God.

All these understandings about God’s holiness get carried into the Christian era, so the New Testament also understands sin as an offense against God’s holy law or against another human being. As in the Old Testament, forgiveness involves the wiping from the memory of the offense by the one affronted so as to restore harmony in the relationship.

The seriousness of sin is one of the chief preoccupations of the New Testament. Humans cannot by themselves avoid God’s condemnation. So Jesus says, in the Sermon on the Mount, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees you can not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) And St. Paul flatly declares in his letter to the Romans: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

This is the predicament of the human condition and the context of Jesus’ ministry. In the retrospective look of the apostolic age, it was understood that, as it says in 1Timothy 15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

Our best example of forgiveness at work is in “The Parable of the Prodigal Son,” (Luke 15:11-32) which I know some of you have been studying. One of the key features of that story is the father’s eagerness to restore his relationship with his lost son. Notice the father forgives the prodigal before the son even has time to deliver his little repentance speech. We should recall that the whole purpose of forgiveness is the restoration of the broken relationship. And in this parable, the older brother, who didn’t leave, didn’t sin, and kept all the rules, thinks it is unfair that his deadbeat brother is restored. And it is unfair because forgiveness is driven not by justice but by love. The older brother thinks he has earned his father’s love through his own achievements. But you don’t earn love. The father loves the prodigal not because he is good, but because he is his.

Two more features of the New Testament idea of forgiveness. The first is: the death of Jesus, which in miniature focuses the whole gospel story. Here the sinless faithful Messiah, betrayed, denied, and abandoned by sinful humanity, obediently goes to his death with forgiveness on his lips, praying to his Father for forgiveness for those who killed him. It is a loving act of atonement.

The second feature, which will come up in our questions, is the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray about forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our trespasses (debts, sins), as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Here, and elsewhere, Jesus is saying that the capacity to receive forgiveness is somehow intimately connected to our capacity to forgive. In Matthew 5:23-24, for example, Jesus says, “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” It is as if only those who can forgive can understand it enough to receive it.

PRAYER:

Dear God,

We remember today, the pain and suffering of the cross, and all that Jesus was willing to endure, so we could be set free. He paid the price, such a great sacrifice, to offer us the gift of eternal life.

Help us never to take for granted this huge gift of love on our behalf. Help us to be reminded of the cost of it all. Forgive us for being too busy, or distracted by other things, for not fully recognizing what you freely given, what you have done for us.

Thank you, Lord, that by your wounds we are healed. Thank you that because of your huge sacrifice we can live free. Thank you that sin and death have been conquered and that your Power is everlasting.

Thank you that we can say with great hope, “It is finished…” For we know what’s still to come. And death has lost its sting. We praise you for you are making all things new.

In Jesus’ Name,

AMEN.