+ This is a wonderful gospel passage today. Jesus tells the Pharisees that the day is soon coming when all their questions about him will have the strongest possibility to be answered. But the old saying is true, as well: "you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink." When Jesus is raised up on the cross then everything that God has to say about everything will be complete. When Jesus breathes his last, then the first rays of true belief can take root – for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. When the Son of Man is raised up then you will realize that I AM – you will realize that I AM SON OF GOD, that I AM GOD MYSELF – and you will realize that the Father and I are one! And you will realize that the Father is always with me – even when I was raised on that cross, the Father was with me – he cannot not be with me, ever!
This is the first message of the readings today: looking up at Christ crucified is proof positive of God's never failing, all inclusive, self-sacrificial love – for those who have eyes to see, for the horse that chooses to drink from the stream. That is why it is very important in all Churches of Christendom for a Cross of the Crucified Christ be situated high, large and visible so that all can recognize the very God of gods, and Lord of lords – the generous God who accomplished our salvation. The second message is taken from the first reading: just as the people of Israel were healed by looking up at an embronzed representation of the very snake that bit them and was killing them, at God's instruction to do so – so too would healing come when we look at the object of our own crosses that we are asked to carry – and when we look up at them and see both our crosses and Christ's cross united together. This is why his cross was raised, for our hope, for our healing!
The Lord looked down from his holy height, from heaven he beheld the earth. To hear the groaning of the prisoners, to release those doomed to die.
No comments:
Post a Comment