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Lent with Jesus on the Cross 5

3/30/2014

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During this time of Lent, I will be sharing with you what I’ve read and reflected on The Last Seven Words of Jesus on the Cross. Please, feel free to share your thought with us about these last words of our Saviour.

“I am thirsty.” (John 19:28)

Jesus heaved the cross along the stony streets of Jerusalem towards the hill of Calvary, for the most part alone. No disciple was encouraging him or helping him. He was alone. The people who were around him and who were lining the street through where He was passing, were insulting him and mocking him. He was exhausted and bleeding and the soldiers made Simon of Cyrene to get under the cross and help him carrying it. That was the only relief Jesus received on his way to his execution.

Hanging from the cross He asked for some water… He has lost too much blood, He was thirsty… and He was offered sour wine. This was in fulfillment of what the Psalmist says:

“Dishonor has driven me to despair; I looked for sympathy and there was none, for comforters and there was no one.

They gave me poison for food and vinegar to drink.” (Ps 69: 21-22)

Here is the Son of Man, the only begotten Son of God, who became man and is now one of us. He feels thirsty. He experiences loneliness. Like us he feels hurt. He is human and as a human being He needs the power of the love of God.

In our lives there are times when we experience loneliness… when we feel alone on this life journey… and there is a sense of isolation… there is the loneliness that finds itself in our hearts. And when we feel this loneliness and at the same time we look at our successes and our failures, sometimes we ask ourselves: But does what we have achieved or not matter to anyone, except to us?

In our lives we interact with other people. Through their words and actions they sometimes scorn us, criticize us, and humiliate us. And we feel beaten though not physically because we are getting the opposite of what we need. We need encouragement and support, we need hope and love, we need understanding and compassion.

We also hurt physically. We experience sickness and pain, we get weak, our bodies ache. But that is part of being human. Human beings get sick, human bodies weaken, human beings die.

In such situations we thirst for someone who can understand us, someone who can feel what we feel, someone who knows what suffering is, both physically and emotionally, someone who experienced before us what we experience as human beings. We thirst for God because only God can offer love, comfort, assurance and help. Only God does.

And let us bear in mind that God is not far from us… that God cares for us. God, in Jesus Christ, has gone before us on this life journey. In Christ Jesus, God has experienced insecurity, showed compassion, grieved over the death of a friend, experienced betrayal and denial by his friends, suffered the abandonment of his friends and his followers and had to face an angry screaming mob, not shouting anymore: “Hosanna!” but “Be done with Him! Crucify Him!”

God, in the person of Jesus, has experienced the human struggle, has known loneliness, was hurt and He also called for God’s love: “I am thirsty!”

In the suffering and struggle of the Son of Man we can see our own ordeals and frustrations. And this is possible because God, in his infinite and steadfast love for each one of us had become a human being like you and me, and He suffered and prevailed over it all. In Jesus, God is telling us: “You are not alone!” “You are loved with a love beyond all telling!” “I am your partner on this life journey! Do not be afraid!”

In the same way that you and I cry: “I am thirsty!” there are people around us and far from us who are also crying: “I am thirsty!”

“I am thirsty!” cries a homeless family and the person whose life is haunted with mental illness. “I thirst!” cries the widow and the laid off father. “Do not leave me alone!” pleads the abused child and the person on the brink of death. “I thirst for the living water!” beseeches the drug addict and the prostitute seeking to be set free.

And while we are hanging from our crosses we are at the same time standing under the cross of others. Jesus comforts us but at the same time inspires us to comfort others. When pain strikes He stoops down and be present to us and at the same time He invites to stoop down and assure others, who like us are also suffering, and help them.

By our actions we have to show them that we have been loved back to life and want the same for them. They need to hear the words of assurance that come through experience: “Do not be afraid! God loves you. He understands you. He is with you and will never abandon you.”

My dear brother, my dear sister, when your life journey is hindered by pain, loneliness and uncertainty, when you feel shackled with your sins, do not give up. Jesus knows what it means to suffer pain, loneliness and uncertainty, He took upon his shoulders the sins of each and every one of us, no matter how big they are or how many they are, and paid the price for them. He is our partner on this life-journey.

Let us take his hand… let us accept the drink from the living waters that He provides us with. Let us experience what the psalmist says: “Although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are beside me: your rod and your staff comfort me.” (Psalms 23:4)


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Lent with Jesus on the Cross 4

3/25/2014

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During this time of Lent, I will be sharing with you what I’ve read and reflected on The Last Seven Words of Jesus on the Cross. Please, feel free to share your thought with us about these last words of our Saviour.

“My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” (Mark 15:34)

Jesus never committed a sin. He had done nothing wrong and He was dying hanging on a cross in disgrace. He was in excruciating pain. He was bleeding profusely. His lips were parched with thirst. He was in a struggle between life and death. This is not fair. For Jesus no cause-and-effect principle was applied. Jesus, feeling that He was in a helpless situation cried: “Why my God? But why?”

Jesus despaired because He was one of us: fully human being. No one cared anymore. His followers had left him. He was seeing no hope. What could justify the reason why He had to undergo this tragedy? No reason. No known cause. It was unjust.

We all experience despair. We all experience a break-up from God. All this is because of our sin. From the moment that we dissented and tried to be the masters of our own life, we were estranged from God. We created a wide chasm between us and God and we could not reach across this chasm and touch God. Our sin has contributed to the disorder that marred the perfection of creation. Our sin has contributed to the introduction of sickness, hatred, selfishness, injustice, death… and when we realize the situation in which the world is in, we despair. We cannot see a solution to all these problems and distortions. We search for ways to make things better, but we realize that the world cannot make itself perfect. Because of our sin and therefore estrangement from God, we feel despair… we feel hopelessness… we feel that we will never be able to find God, and this scares us.

But there is hope. We have the possibility of finding God, because the Man on the cross has bridged the chasm for us. He who is God extended his hand so that we could reach across the chasm and touch Him.

Like us in moments of despair, He cries: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” His voice is the echo of our voice. His cry is our cry. He is showing us that He, as God, understands the torment we experience when we are estranged from Him. He, our God, understands us.

Like us, Jesus experienced the anguish, the agony, the torment that all of us experience in life. He wraps his arm around the shoulders of a father desperate for a job to feed his family. He sits by the bed of and watch over a young woman dying of cancer.

We all experience loneliness, neglect and hopelessness. We all look around us and feel that life is unfair because there is too much selfishness, injustice and sin. He stands by the side of each and every one of us throughout every experience of life that we go through, comforting us, encouraging us, assuring us that He knows what we are going through and that we are not alone. He is with us.

Jesus, who is without sin, has suffered and died for our sin. He has bridged the chasm that we created between us and God. Through Him God is telling us: “I gave you my only Son to suffer and die for your sins and I want you to know that I love you. Nothing will separate Me from you especially when you turn to Me and ask for mercy and forgiveness.

“You live because I love you. And you are forever mine.”


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Lent with Jesus on the Cross 3

3/21/2014

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During this time of Lent, I will be sharing with you what I’ve read and reflected on The Last Seven Words of Jesus on the Cross. Please, feel free to share your thought with us about these last words of our Saviour.

“Women, this is your son! There is your mother.” (John 19:26-27)

“Who are my mother and my brothers? … Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to me.” (Mark 3: 33, 35) Jesus put this question and He himself gave the answer. The meaning of family, for Jesus, now have changed. It does not include only relatives by birth or by marriage or as might be understood by the broad Jewish concept of extended family, but now it includes all believers particularly those who do God’s will. All people were to be bound to God’s family.

Also Jesus was always surrounded by his group of disciples who might have been considered also to be his “new family”. But when things started getting too rough for comfort this “new family” got unsettled and disturbed. By the day of his crucifixion almost all of them had either run away, or denied him or abandoned him. Jesus Christ was alone to face his trial and death.

Only Mary, his Mother and John, his beloved disciple followed him and stood under his cross along with a couple of pious women. To his Mother and to John, Jesus assigned to them an ongoing relationship not based on bloodlines but on love. In John’s gospel we read: When Jesus saw the Mother, and the disciple, He said to the Mother, “Woman, this is your son.” Then He said to the disciple, “There is your mother.” (John 19: 26-27)

What is the meaning of family? For some, family means the people that they were raised with, those who accept them, who share their lives with them and who understand them even without saying much or anything. For others, family might also be people who are not related to them through birth, but people who might be surrogate parents, friends who replace siblings and other relatives. With the latter the bond that unites them is love and not bloodlines.

Hanging on the cross, Jesus saw below him two of those people in his life: Mary and John. Mary, being his Mother, was related to Jesus through birth, whereas John was related to Him through love. The two of them were related to each other also through love.

They stayed with Jesus through his suffering in fidelity and empathy. As his parting words, Jesus entrusted each to each other thus expanding their understanding of family. To his Mother He entrusted his friend as her son, while to his friend He entrusted His own Mother as his new Mother.

Family is more than a relationship through birth. Take a look at your life. Are there people who cherished you and cared for you as a parent would have done? Are there people who cared about you, who listened to you when you felt down and dejected? Are there people who stayed beside you through thick and thin, no matter what? Are there individuals whom you might refer to them as the “brother” or “sister” you never had?

These people accept us as we are, regardless of our grouchiness and selfishness. These people become our family through their love, steadfastness, forbearance and sympathy.

As Christians, we also have to regard the family from a wider perspective. If we want to be true followers of Jesus, like Him, we have to include all people and treat them as our brothers and sisters. In the person of Jesus there are united all cultures, all experiences. “Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to me.”

“…this is your son.” We are responsible not only to provide food to our children, but also to those who go hungry every day in our country and in other countries, far and near, no matter the colour of their skin, or the belief that they profess.

“There is your mother.” We love, accept, welcome and support all classes of people whether they are like us, or not… rich or poor… believers or non-believers… attractive or disgusting… young and old… We love, accept, welcome and support all.

In all this we are sustained and motivated by God, the Father, the Parent, with whom we have been bound since we were being carried in our mother’s womb. This loving and wonderful God is bound to us in love and protection, and as St. Paul writes to the Romans: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Will it be trials, or anguish, persecution or hunger, lack of clothing, or dangers or sword? … I am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor spiritual powers, neither the present nor the future, nor cosmic powers, were they from heaven or from the deep world below, nor any creature whatsoever will separate us from the love of God, which we have in Jesus Christ, our Lord. (Romans 8: 35, 38, 39)

We are all one big family. We are brothers, sisters and parents in Christ Jesus. There are your mothers. There are your sons. There is Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, the Saviour of us all.

You are not alone in the world, welcome to the family.


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Lent with Jesus on the Cross 2

3/16/2014

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During this time of Lent, I will be sharing with you what I’ve read and reflected on The Last Seven Words of Jesus on the Cross. Please, feel free to share your thought with us about these last words of our Saviour.


“Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

During his time here on earth, Jesus taught us that our ways of thinking and acting are not God’s ways. He was continuously reminding us what God had spoken through the Prophet Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8) And God’s ways are: “The last shall be first”. The latecomers in the vineyard were paid as much as those who worked all day! There is no way that the world would agree to this according to its rules.

We fast forward to the last day of Jesus: Jesus hanging on the cross between two thieves. One thief personifies the contrast between the rules of God and those of the world. He reproached the other thief who was deriding Jesus: “… we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” He was acknowledging the miscarrying of justice that was happening. The thieves deserved to die, but not Jesus. He did nothing to deserve that.

And this repentant thief, turning to Jesus, did something astonishing, he made a profession of faith in Jesus: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

This profession of faith did not come from a disciple. The disciples who were expected to stand up for Jesus through thick and thin, when times started getting hard they disappeared… they hid away in fear. The profession of faith came from a criminal. Only he spoke of Jesus and his kingdom. Only he realized that He who hung on a cross next to him was, a King who with His death was opening his Kingdom that others may enter.

This thief did something unexpected. But the passion story is full of these characters who do what is unexpected from them. The disciples of Jesus, first they slept then they escaped and hid away. Those that proved themselves to be Jesus’ enemies are not the mighty pagan Romans, but the Jews, the chosen people of God. They were responsible for the death of Jesus, the Son of God. They preferred to let a heartless highwayman go free and the Son of their God, who was God himself, be executed.

The people of God, the Jews, the believers, they did not acknowledge Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. The pagans did. Pilate declared him King of the Jews and nailed his affirmation to his cross. The Roman Centurion acknowledged Jesus as: “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

God’s ways are not our ways! God chooses those through whom He would like to speak to us, and His choices are unpredictable. Notwithstanding that Pilate cares only about his career rather than to do justice and he condemns Jesus and frees Barabbas, yet God chose him to be the one to declare Jesus as King.

Our God is a God of surprises. A surprise that the Jews did not understand was that the Messiah should suffer and die when they expected a glorious and triumphant Messiah who would establish the kingdom of the people of Israel. The disciples could not fathom it when Jesus predicted his death and Peter tried to talk Him out of it. They could not understand how He would establish this kingdom if He is going to be executed. They were stunned into unbelief and scared to death. But God’s ways are not our ways!

Sometimes God’s ways confuse us because His reasoning seems to go contrary to all that we were told. The world tells us that the thief deserved only condemnation and death. God shows that in his infinite wisdom He thinks it differently. By God’s standards the thief deserves not only forgiveness but also a place in the kingdom. Once again the last are first. The last hour workers in the vineyard are paid as much as the others who worked all day. It is not the right way to run a business… but God is not running an earthly business but He is in the business of redemption where the laws are different.

This is God’s way of thinking and acting and shouldn’t we be thankful for it, because otherwise, do you think that we will be entitled to salvation?

Let us be honest! Isn’t there a dark side in our lives that we do our very best to keep hidden and carefully overshadowed by the good works that we do? If it were not for God’s grace and mercy, do you think that we deserve forgiveness and redemption?

We deserve to die, but if we decide to be like the repentant thief, and repent and ask for forgiveness, like him we can also ask our Lord and Saviour that we also be welcomed into his kingdom.

We cannot be good enough or work enough to earn it. But when we turn to him and sincerely plead: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” He will remember us. He will welcome us into his kingdom.




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Lent with Jesus on the Cross 1

3/12/2014

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During this time of Lent, I will be sharing with you what I’ve read and reflected on The Last Seven Words of Jesus on the Cross. Please, feel free to share your thought with us about these last words of our Saviour.

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

Jesus is hanging on the cross like any hardened criminal. We stand at the foot of the cross and we see only the darkening sky… the death… the misery. Jesus is dying and we are dying with Him because, after all, it is our fault.


We try to blame other characters for it but we are the ones. We are these other characters. We did it.

We blame the Pharisees… we blame Pilate… we blame the soldiers. And we are these.

The Pharisees pestered Jesus about his teachings and his assertions of authority. They were so meticulous in following all the rules, and they made so many demands from others. They destroyed in themselves any sign of human compassion. Only they were the righteous… all others were sinners. We blame them for the death of Jesus.

Pilate was the spineless governor. If he were to follow his convictions he would have freed Jesus… But Pilate’s concern was not justice… he had his own ambition… he had his own personal concerns. These were worth more than upholding justice. We blame Pilate for condemning Jesus to death.

The heartless soldiers reveled in their sadistic ways. They scourged Jesus body raw… they ridiculed Him beyond belief… they were not sensitive of what sufferings was Jesus undergoing at their hands. We do blame the soldiers for their cold-bloodedness.

But God knows that we are the Pharisees… we are Pilate… we are the soldiers.

We are those who kill the dreams of others and crush their spirits by making rules and demands that destroy life rather than give it. We do not like it that Jesus draws into his love the discarded of society… the victims of this unsympathetic world. How dare He?

We are those who stay silently on the sidelines in the battle against coercion and domination… we ignore the pain of others because we prefer our security… we help and feed others from what is superfluous in our lives and only enough to quieten our consciences.

We are the soldiers who destroy peace by our gossip and revenge…we do not turn the other cheek, we slap back and flee.

We hate to even think about the reality that we kill Jesus every day with our sins. We are enslaved by sin and we cannot do otherwise.

How long are we going to keep noticing our shortcomings in others and ignore them in ourselves? The sight of Jesus, innocent yet hanging from the cross, compels us to look at our personal, daily shortcomings and own up to them. We need to admit that we are today’s self-righteous Pharisees… that we are today’s pathetic self-centered Pilates… we are the modern-day Roman soldiers calloused by the pain of others and try to justify our cynical hearts.

In the sight of the crucified Son of God we cannot remain insensitive. While acknowledging our sins and failures, we hear the words of the crucified: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Then we realize that although we are sinners are we are also responsible for his death, we are not forsaken… we are not abandoned. Although we are capable of committing great sins, but we are forgivable and we are loved.

God can forgive us, He does forgive us, and He is always more than happy to do so. He will never turn us away. He expects us to turn back to him, like the father in the parable the prodigal son, and He will accept as we are… He will embrace us and kiss us… He will accept us back into his family… and He will celebrate our return. By God’s grace we are redeemed sinners.

 

 

 


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    Author

    Fr. Karm S. Borg MSSP is a Maltese Catholic priest within the Missionary Society of St. Paul until recently ministering at St.Paul the Apostle Parish,
    Toronto, ON, Canada.
    Now he resides in Malta at St. Agatha's Motherhouse, Rabat.

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