The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today prepare us to experience the journey of Jesus through Holy Week and connect to our own suffering and death.
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| Journey in April |
The passage from the Prophet Ezekiel points to a restoration of Israel after the Exile.
* [37:15–22] The symbolic action of joining two sticks into one continues Ezekiel’s description of God’s future saving action: the unification of Judah and Israel under an ideal ruler.1
In the psalm prayer from Jeremiah 31 is the presentation of the people’s return from captivity as a second exodus.
* [31:2–3] Jeremiah describes the exiles of the Northern Kingdom on their way home from the nations where the Assyrians had resettled them (722/721 B.C.). The favor they discover in the wilderness is the appearance of the Lord (v. 3) coming to guide them to Jerusalem. Implicit in these verses is the presentation of the people’s return from captivity as a second exodus, a unifying theme in Second Isaiah (chaps. 40–55).2
In the Gospel of John the plot to kill Jesus is hatched in the Sanhedrin.
* [11:49] That year: emphasizes the conjunction of the office and the year. Actually, Caiaphas was high priest A.D. 18–36. The Jews attributed a gift of prophecy, sometimes unconscious, to the high priest.3
Ann Mausbach comments that today’s reading sets the stage for the week, but also reminds us of the beauty and depth of God’s love.
Such irony in Caiaphas saying Jesus needed to die to save all of us as that is what he actually did. He died to save us. Let’s heed the words of our wise doctor and not take this moment for granted. In the week ahead we can choose to stress about Easter dinner or we can walk with Jesus through his most beautiful awful. Let’s walk alongside him and be reminded of his profound love for us. Let’s let the passion of what has been done for us wash over us and help us find our own resurrection.4
Don Schwager quotes “The crucifixion is always lived,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
"The crucifixion is something that must continue throughout our life, not for forty days only, although Moses, Elijah, and Christ fasted forty days. We are meant to learn from them not to cling to this present world or imitate what it says, but to nail our unregenerate selves to the cross." (excerpt from Sermon 205,1)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on John 11:45-56 shares that these leaders sought to understand God’s work through human resources alone. Despite all they knew about Jesus’ miracles, their thinking didn’t allow for divine agency. They admitted that something miraculous was going on, yet they opposed it because it didn’t fit their limited perspectives.
Our ways are simply not God’s ways. His thoughts are simply not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). God likes to shake up our human assumptions. He likes to surprise us, to accomplish his plans outside of our human expectations. So how should we respond? By keeping a humble heart. Remember, we don’t have all the answers, and we don’t always see the whole picture. God’s power is infinite. He can do things in situations that we simply cannot conceive. We should be prepared to admit that at every turn.
Let God surprise you as you enter Holy Week. Allow him to stretch your expectations. He longs to touch your heart, especially as you recall and celebrate his Son’s death and resurrection. Look for signs that he is working. If you see that he is doing something powerful, perhaps something that you don’t understand, don’t be too quick to judge it or dismiss it. Investigate it. Ask God about it. He might just have something marvelous to show you!6
Friar Jude Winkler places the prophecy of Ezekiel in the time that the Israelites were captive in Babylon. The characteristic of God known as “hesed” in the Hebrew Testament is Love in Covenant. Friar Jude reminds us of the level of revelation added by the Holy Spirit in the words of the high priest in the Gospel.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces today’s practice, from writer Gesshin Claire Greenwood, who comes from the Buddhist tradition and asks us to practice releasing the thought that “things should not be this way.”
Greenwood writes:
Buddhist wisdom points to the reality that suffering is an enduring and continual part of being alive. . . We are often sheltered in our own kind of psychological palace where we are shielded from things like illness. Yet this kind of suffering can ultimately not be avoided. We will all, everyone one of us, face old age, sickness, and death. . . .
Fr Richard adds that personally, one of the most distressing things to me about the COVID-19 outbreak has been a feeling that “things should not be this way.” In reality, though, things are and always have been this way. . . . The suffering caused by illness and death is nothing new.
According to [a Buddhist] legend, there once was a woman who sought out the Buddha after losing her baby to illness. Crazy with grief, she asked him for medicine to bring her son back from the dead. He replied that he would give her this medicine if she brought him back a white mustard seed from the house of a family that had never experienced death. The woman went door to door, searching for a family untouched by the loss of a loved one. Of course, she could never find such a family. She realized that death touches everyone. And in realizing the universality of grief and death, her suffering lessened.
This story shows us that the feeling of “things should not be this way” is an additional and unnecessary pain on top of our inevitable suffering. We cannot avoid old age, sickness, and death, but we can remove the unnecessary assumption that things should be otherwise, and the psychic pain this assumption causes us. [1]7
The current pandemic offers us an opportunity to share with others our actions and prayers as work to prevent increased illness and death while becoming more aware of our own mortality.
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