Christianity’s Holiest week helps us value God’s love for us

Holy Week gives us an opportunity to reflect on the basic mysteries of our faith – Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. When Jesus prayed in the garden, he asked God to put off his suffering and death so he could finish proclaiming the message of love.

However, after three times at prayer, he accepted the Father’s will. As St. Paul said, “For just as by the one man’s (Adam’s) disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s (Jesus’) obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Rom. 5:19) Obedience is a more important aspect than the suffering.

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians he quotes a hymn, “He [Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name.” (Phil. 2:8-9) The obedience to the will of God is what was so important. The suffering was secondary.

The apostle John was an eyewitness to the Crucifixion. In his gospel narrative, John describes in great detail the day we call Good Friday. Speaking in the third person John wrote, “He who saw this has testified so that you may believe. His testimony is true.” He wrote about the significant events of the Crucifixion, because he witnessed the whole bloody affair. He wanted his readers to understand the depth of God’s love and come to believe in Christ as both suffering Savior and resurrected Lord.

Jesus revealed God’s love even in his time of torture and torment. When Jesus hung on the cross in indescribable pain, a thief next to him asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom. The thief was assured that his request would be granted. He would be with Christ in Paradise that very day. Even in the face of death, Christ comforted a fellow sufferer.

Jesus went through terrible and undeserved suffering – suffering that was emotional, mental, as well as physical. He suffered betrayal by Judas and denial by Peter. Pilate sentenced him unjustly, the religious authorities framed him, then the Roman soldiers whipped him, crucified him, and left him to die.

John describes carefully this bloody, cold-hearted scene – a portrayal of the darkest hour in human history. John, the eyewitness, wants us to see the horror of it. In his gospel we see goodness despised, love crucified, and God’s light diminished by unrestrained, vicious evil. It was the worst, most savage Friday the world has ever known.

If we can identify with the suffering of Christ, we might appreciate how God turned that wretched Friday into Good Friday. This is the day our salvation began to become real and very precious because God was still in charge of things as the Resurrection proved conclusively.

Easter is not about bunnies and eggs. It is not about butterflies and parades. Easter celebrates the reality that Jesus is alive and lives among us. Faith in the Resurrection comes not from an empty tomb, but from the faith witness of the men and women who saw and felt the living presence of the risen Christ in their midst. Our faith also rests on our meetings with Christ through the people and events that come to us in our daily life. He was their hope. He is our hope, too.

Easter calls us to recommit ourselves to making the Resurrection credible because we are the signs of hope when we live the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in our daily life.

The world needs to be told about the risen Lord, and if we don’t do it, the message may never be delivered.

Spread the Good News that the Lord is risen!

Alleluia!