“God so loved the world
that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the
world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”
- Jn. 3:16-17
“The Lord your God is in
your midst, a warrior who gives victory; He will rejoice over you with
gladness, He will renew you in His Love; He will exult over you with loud
singing as on a day of festival.”
- Zeph. 3:17-18
“Because of the death of
Jesus on the Cross, all the sins of humanity since the dawn of history have
become as a drop of water to be lost in the ocean of God’s mercy.”
- Thought based on the
writings of Corrie Ten Boom
“An immortal soul is
beyond all price. There is no trouble too great, no humiliation too deep, no
suffering too severe, no love too strong, no labor too hard, no expense too
large, but that it is worth it, if it is spent in the effort to win a soul for
God.”
- Author Unknown
Do we see the Love which reaches out to us from the Cross
of Christ? It is there that Jesus reveals the fullness of the Father’s Love for
us, a Love beyond all that we can ask or imagine. It is Divine Love that
through Christ’s Spirit is present in power to us even now. It is Divine Love
too which awaits us in the world beyond our world, awaits us with a fullness
and fire beyond anything we can dare to dream possible. It is a Love for each
of us burning in the Sacred Heart of the Father. It is a Divine Love that on
our final day will greet us and embrace us when in communion with His Son we
rise with Him to Glory. It is the Glory, the Grace, the Heaven of being drawn
into the burning Heart of God and being immersed forever in the fire of His
Love for us.
I watched “The Passion of The Christ” this Good Friday,
and no matter how many times I see it, I am unnerved at the extent of the
suffering endured by Our Lord.
Why did He do it? The Satan figure in Mel Gibson’s film
tells us that it was all for the price of atoning for humanity’s sins. To give
the Devil his due, this is true. But the Evil One is ever about doing what he always
does. He leaves us with half the truth or less; he leaves us with an incomplete
picture, or better still, he leaves out the most important part of the picture.
Yes Jesus on the Cross is atoning for sin, saving humanity, paying the price
for our salvation. But what the film doesn’t accent enough is that all of this
is for me, for you, for each of us.
It is for each of us that the Lord does what He does. We
are His “happy thought”. We are the Focus that drives Jesus irresistibly
forward in His pursuit of the Father’s Dream for us. It is each of us that
Jesus is thinking about as He takes each step along the way of the Cross, and
as He climbs higher and farther toward the summit of Calvary. It is Divine Love
for us, the Father’s Love for His children burning in the Heart of Jesus, which
empowers the Lord to bear all things, to suffer all things, to pay any price
for the fulfillment of God’s Purpose, the Mission and Dream of having humanity
with Him, in His Presence and in His embrace forever.
I love the awesome scene in “The Passion” film when Jesus
truly strengthened by Mary’s presence begins to raise the Cross once more, all
the while refocusing on that Mission and Dream. As He lifts the Cross Jesus
says to Our Blessed Mother, “Behold, I make all things new!” It is a statement
echoing Christ’s words from the Book of Revelations, words that signify the
restoration of creation to the state before the Fall – before the Fall from
Grace, before the brokenness, before the collapse of that state of
“at-one-ment” between God and humanity, that state of Paradise, of Eden, the
primordial Garden where God walked with us in friendship, intimacy, and holy
communion.
As awesome as this scene from the film was, imagine if
Jesus had turned His gaze from Mary at that moment, and then looked into the
camera at each of us. Then what if He had repeated the words from Revelations
while adding “for you”? “Behold, I make all things new - for you!” As amazing
as this scene already was (And it was!), I think it would have increased
exponentially in its power with Jesus saying “for you”, all the while gazing
out at us. Why else does He lift the Cross with such power and passion if not
for Love of us? “And I when I am lifted up” on the Cross “will draw all
humanity to myself” - will draw all humanity into my embrace, into most Holy
Communion with the Sacred Heart of God.
In the “Chicken Soup for The Soul” series there is an
incredible story about a father who rescues his son from the rubble of a school
building totally destroyed during an 8.1 earthquake in Armenia. Every year
without fail I find myself thinking about that father as I watch “The Passion”
film and contemplate the Divine Love which drives Jesus on irresistibly to
endure and even embrace suffering and death for me, for us. In fact, this is
His Mission: to reveal the fullness of the Father’s Love for us. Like the
father in the Chicken Soup story, the Divine Love radiating from Jesus wants
only to rescue us and have us once more in His embrace. For that reason alone,
for this singular “WHY?”, Jesus endures the scourging, the crown of thorns, the
mockery, the contempt and scorn of his accusers, the humiliation and disgrace,
as well as the horror and torment of the Cross.
Jesus is exactly like the father in the earthquake story.
The father digging through the rubble wants only to have his son once more with
him. He had always told his son, “I’ll always be there for you!” Did not God say
the same to us on Sinai? I AM Who am ever present with you, with tender,
faithful Love. On the cross Jesus pays the price to keep the Father’s promise
to us, to be faithful to His covenant vow to us.
But there is even more to the metaphorical power of the
Chicken Soup story. For his son, to be there always for his son, the father begins
to dig through the rubble of his son’s collapsed school, hoping against hope
that he could save his child. The father thought only of his son as he dug for
eight hours, twelve hours, twenty-four hours, thirty-six hours all for the
purpose of rescuing his son, all for the dream if you will, of having his son
once more with him, once more safe and secure in his home and in the embrace of
his father’s love. The father embraces the Cross to save his son. The father
endures the Passion to rescue his son.
During thirty-six hours of digging by himself through
huge rocks and boulders, the father never once stops to rest. He does not stop
to eat or drink. Then in the thirty-eighth hour the father finds his son alive
and rescues him along with over a dozen of his classmates who also survived.
Does not Jesus do the same in his own Passion? It is for me, for us, that Jesus
pays the price of the Passion. He endures all, suffers all, to rescue us from
the ruin and collapse which ensues upon the Fall – from the brokenness of human
life and the separation from God and His Love, which ensues upon the trauma of
the Fall from Grace.
Yes, Jesus came into the world to suffer, to die, to save
sinners, to atone for sin. But we reduce Christianity to something so much less
than it is when we look only at such ideas as a full representation of Christ’s
work and mission. Really, when we entertain such ideas as a full understanding
and comprehensive vision of Jesus’ Mission and Dream, we reduce Christianity to
an incredibly incomplete picture, a warped and twisted picture of all that the
Father in His Love had planned for humanity. We become in our teaching and
theological courses like “a noisy gong or a clanging symbol”, and the
instruction of our Catholic colleges and Christian universities “profits us
nothing”. (1 Cor. 13)
It is because we fail to contemplate with tears of Joy
the Divine Love which fuels the “Why” of the Passion. “Why” did Jesus bear all
things, suffer all things, endure all things, even the sting and scourge of the
Roman flagellum, even the horror and humiliation of Roman crucifixion? Remember
the “Why?” Focus always on the “Why?” It is you!
AN EASTER PRAYER FOR YOU
That Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in Love, may
have power to comprehend with all the Saints what is the breadth and length and
height and depth of that Love, power to know the Love of Christ which surpasses
knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God…
That you may know that
Love which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, that it has never even entered into
the heart of a human being to conceive as possible… This God will reveal to you
through His Spirit…
- Thoughts based on St.
Paul, Eph. 3:17-19, and 1Cor. 2:
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