Is.50:4-7, Phil.2:8-9, Mk. 26:14-27:66
The world seeks happiness: God offers Joy
From the letter to the Hebrews- 12.1b-2.: ‘Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.’
Today we followed with the crowd of disciples who went with Jesus as he made his way from the Mount of Olives to the city of Jerusalem. Like them we sang in our procession: ‘Hosanna! Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord!’
The Palm Sunday Liturgy moves us rapidly towards the Lord’s Passion. And we need to remind ourselves that we are here as participators in these events and not merely as observers. We participate because we have been baptised into the body of Christ of which he is the head. By his grace this Holy Week we come to share in his suffering, death and resurrection.
In these last days and hours of Jesus’ life and death we witness God in Christ reconciling the world to himself. This work of reconciliation is unseen by the world. But not to us who have been granted the eyes of faith. The gospels tell of Jesus going calmly forward to do the will of his Father. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews describes him as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.
Earlier on in the gospel Jesus teaches his disciples three times that he would suffer and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed, and after three days he would rise again. But they were quite incapable of understanding what he was telling them. They wished for a share in the coming Kingdom and he asks them of their willingness to share in his baptism and drink the cup of his suffering and they ‘yes’, But they are still thinking in human terms of this world’s happiness and glory. When now faced with the reality of Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion, they lose their nerve and flee, fearful of being be identified as Jesus’ disciples. Their earlier boasting of faith in him now evaporates and they scatter, as Jesus had foretold they would.
Scholars have suggested that Mark wrote his gospel in Roman as the early church began to face persecution. The purpose was to encourage the faithful Christians not to apostatize, and deny their faith, but to remain faithful as they faced persecution from the Roman authorities.
From its beginning Mark’s gospel gives a strong sense of the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God and Jesus’ urgency in calling people to repentance and faith. For Mark the creation has fallen under the dominion of Satan. Jesus, as the Son of Man, is sent by God to liberate humanity from the power of the devil and to restore the whole creation to the Kingdom of God. But Jesus opponents begin early on in the gospel to plan to destroy him.
The ‘good news’ in Mark is that Satan has now been finally defeated by Jesus sacrifice as he gives himself as a ransom for many. And it is necessary for this to be done through the humiliating death on the Cross. There from the Cross Jesus cries out in his native tongue of Aramaic: ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’
This great cry of dereliction that comes from the heart of Jesus is translated as: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?: words from the opening verse of Psalm 22, part of which we’ve said earlier.
It is a long psalm and the Psalmist continues address God in his suffering and desolation. The first Christians understood this psalm as a prophesy of Jesus’ own crucifixion and death. But they knew, as Jesus did, that the last 10 verses of the psalm change from that of a cry of dereliction and desolation that of a great hymn of praise and thanksgiving to God for his universal power of salvation. God, in other words vindicates Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith .
By his great cry of dereliction, Jesus stands in solidarity with all who experience that sense of God forsaking them. By a shameful death on the Cross Christ overcomes all our human failure and sin that cause us shame. As He tramples down death by death and opens up a new and living way into the Kingdom of God, a kingdom of mercy, love and forgiveness. In his kingdom we receive the true and everlasting joy of our life in God of which each Eucharist is a foretaste.
So, as we gaze upon Christ’s holy passion and Jesus’ suffering on the Cross this Holy Week, let us be renewed in our call to run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.’
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