The Passion Of Jesus: What And Why And Who Series

Palm/Passion Sunday 2023

We have just proclaimed some of the longest, most intense Scriptures of our Christian year, informing us and all the world of the what and why and who of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ not quite two thousand years ago. These words invite long contemplation; the Church gives us a whole week to take them to heart. Don’t waste the week. Come into intimate contact with the God-man and His redemptive death.

The “what” is very clear. We killed God. Remember St. Luke’s story of the Prodigal Son and the rich dad? When the young boy went to his father and asked for his share of the inheritance, wasn’t he actually wishing his sire was dead? When Adam and Eve turned their backs on the only requirement God gave them to remain in Paradise and become god-like, weren’t they doing something like that? Well, we, in the person of Jewish and Roman authorities, killed God, Jesus, the only-begotten Son of the Father. And it’s my responsibility and yours. He had emptied Himself of His divine glory and power and prerogatives, become human with all our weaknesses except sin, did nothing but good for us, and we beat and whipped and humiliated Him and nailed Him to a cross. And His response, we know from St. Luke, was to forgive us, because we didn’t know what we were doing. But we also intuit that He would have forgiven us even if we knew exactly what we were doing.

What’s the answer to the question, “why”? We know too well why we choose sin over obedience in our lives. God gave us a world of beauty, truth and goodness. But we abuse the gift. He gave us the goods of the earth to enjoy and use, but we can’t get enough of them to satisfy us. Only union with Our Lord will truly satisfy us. So we accumulate, and even lie and cheat and steal to get more and more. God gave us the gift of our sexuality, to seek out and love our complement, woman for man and man for woman. To marry and unite and bear and educate children in love. The most intense human pleasure and joy of human life comes with that gift. But we abuse the gift, seeking the pleasure without marriage, or outside marriage, and cheating spouse and children of our full humanity. So many good gifts so often abused. So we killed God and hoped to eliminate our consciences. But we eventually pay the price for that abuse, first in our spiritual health, then in our social life and physical and mental sanity. God will not be mocked.

Because the “who” is not just the God who created us. He also is the Father who longs to change us, forgive us, sanctify us and bring us into the community of the Church. He could easily in His supreme power just dusted off His hands and left us to die and spend all eternity in His absence. But His goodness, His love would not permit Him to abandon us in our sin and misery. He calls us today to a simple act of repentance. As you gathered here you spent time recalling sins you may have committed, negligences, injustices, foolishness, abuses. Look to Him in your heart now and tell Him of your sorrow. He went to the cross to pay the price of our cowardice and heartlessness. He paid the price with the last drops of the blood and water in His heart. Turn to Him and this week confess sin, ask forgiveness, give thanks that even when we give up, Our Lord refuses to follow our bad example.