REDEMPTIVE SUFFERING AND OUT CONTINUING JOURNEY

Let us thank Father Ting, for the sharing.

Redemptive suffering is one of the great mysteries of our Faith and one of the most powerful elements in our continuing journey through this life and on to the after-life. Remember when the massacre of the schoolchildren happened in Beslan, Chechnya?  Extremist rebels stormed into the school grounds and blew themselves up together with hundreds of children.  The following day, their local newspaper had a most meaningful headline:

“FORGIVE US”

And they had the full page colored photos of the slaughtered innocents.

Yes, this is the world we have given our children, and we have to beg for forgiveness.  I have never read any such a headline in all my life, and it was the most descriptive, most soulful words I have yet to encounter.

Redemptive suffering the pain and the sacrifices we offer to redeem our world and ourselves.  The kind of pain and sacrifice of others to redeem our sins, our errors, our indiscretions, our indifference. The supreme sacrifice of a God who became one of us and gave His life for our redemption.

What does this all mean?  Would we still be interested to know?  And what relevance does it have to our lives?

On Wednesday, the 1st of March, we begin the season of Lent.  Ash Wednesday reminds us of the dust that we are made of, the dust in our nostrils when we inhale the pollution in the clogged channels and arteries of our lives.

The gospels devout more text to the final weeks of Christ on earth. Only two of the Gospels mention the events of His birth, and all four offer only a few pages on His resurrection, but each chronicler gives a detailed account of the events that lead to Jesus’ death.

Nothing remotely like it has ever happened before in history or in any recorded human event.  Celestial beings had slipped in and out of our dimension prior to the Incarnation (the birth of Jesus), and a few humans had even waked from the dead. But when the Son of God died on planet earth – how could it be that a Messiah could face defeat, a God get crucified?

Nature itself convulsed at the deed: the ground shook, the rocks cracked open, the sky went completely black at three in the afternoon!

On Wednesday, we begin our journey into the suffering, passion, death and resurrection of our Lord.  Every year, when I am asked to talk about this season, I am always swept away by the sheer drama of the event.

When you follow His last days, in the simple, unadorned rendering of events, you will also feel the grinding power of God’s redemptive suffering.

Hear the drums beat dolefully in the background for the execution.  The French call it “la chammade” the final drums for the beheading. During all that time, no miracles break in, no supernatural rescue is attempted.  This is tragedy beyond Shakespeare or Sophocles.

The superpower at the time, the Roman Empire, and the most sophisticated religious system allied with the most powerful political might and zeroed in against the solitary figure of Jesus Christ…the only perfect man who has ever lived on our earth. Though He is mocked by the powers and abandoned by His friends, yet the Gospels give us the strong, ironic sense that He Himself is overseeing the whole long, painful process. He has resolutely set His face for Jerusalem, knowing the fate that awaits Him.  The cross has been His goal all along.  Now, as death nears, He calls the shots.

Matthew’s scene-by-scene description of Jesus’ final week is graphically painful.

How can we who already know the outcome in advance ever recapture the end-of-the-world feeling that descended upon Jesus’ followers?  Over the centuries, the story has grown so familiar, and I cannot comprehend. much less re-create, the impact of that final week on those who lived through it without breaking into tears.

I will relay it to you, as best as I can, merely as a record of a reporter who goes through the gospel and the Passion story one more time.

We begin that journey on Wednesday…but for now, let us prepare our minds, hearts and souls for the event that will be unfolding.  It is as real as your daily breakfast and as heart-rending as any grief any of you may have experienced in your lives, and more.

Let us travel together the route Jesus took during his last days on earth, and discover for ourselves what it could mean to simply be standing by the roadside watching this Man who claims to be the Son of God, offer Himself for us…for what?  and why?

Until my next mail, I love you all.