Passion Sunday Would you have designed this way of salvation? When Jesus enters into Jerusalem, his disciples believed that his kingdom finally had come. Now would the Glory of Israel be restored, now would Jesus reign as King, now would God’s peace come upon earth. Filled with joy they cry out “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens!” - words which echo the song of praise that the angels sang at the birth of Jesus. Truly, God’s reign had come… but it ended up looking very different from what they had expected. The shepherds at the birth of Jesus were able, in faith, to see their Messiah. Humble as Jesus looked as a baby, he had the beauty and glory of the new-born. In him, the shepherds could have adored the magnificence of God’s creative power. But the Messiah the disciples were shown in Jerusalem was one without comeliness, one who looked like scum, one rejected by God. Jesus’ passage through suffering and death is not the way of salvation that they would have chosen – nor is it the way of salvation that anyone of us would have planned. Cut out from peace, abandoned by God, Jesus makes the antithesis of everything we see as good, the path leading to the fullness of life. We simply do not understand this. But we can know that when we enter into our times of trial, pain, suffering, loneliness, despair, even abandonment, Jesus is there with us, making all things new and leading us into the Kingdom of God.
Sr Kym Harris OSB |