March 30, 2021

As we enter into Holy Week, we have to grapple with betrayal, violence, judgment, prejudice, death, and an apparent lack of hope. If you are a person of faith, you come to understand that the passion and death of Jesus is a parallel to all our lives. Believers have come to cherish the fact that God became one of us and suffered because of human unfaithfulness to restore us to the humanity God created in God’s image and likeness. The Son of God, Jesus, entered into the human reality and participated in our life in all things but sin. He took upon himself the hatred of the world and the infidelity of the world. He was judged and condemned unjustly. He was abused and marginalized. He was tortured and made to feel and look worthless. All in today’s world who have experienced abandonment, judgment, the wrath of hatred, exclusion, and been the recipient of violence can resonate with Jesus. Jesus chose to enter into this reality precisely to resonate with humanity.

Jesus yells out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is the Messianic Psalm that Jesus held in His heart and knew from the tradition He was raised in and taught. In the tradition of the Jewish people, by just uttering the first line, He said the prayer. It’s the prayer that is spoken in times of distress with the sure and certain hope that God will not only hear us but respond. We often hear that it’s the darkest before the dawn. As a Christian people, nothing could seem darker than the crucifixion. Yet, Psalm 22 in the prayer murmured from the cross, Jesus reiterates His belief in God and places His hope on love. Three days later the resurrection happens and love wins, humanity is vindicated. 

In Luke (24:13-35) the famous story of Jesus on the road to Emmaus is found. Here the resurrected Jesus is unnoticed by everyone; the pain of the crucifixion permeates the landscape. The two folks that Jesus meets on the way are distraught for they placed all their hope in this person that they thought would be the Messiah, only to see Him killed and thus their dreams eradicated. As Jesus talks with them, He breaks open scripture and seems frustrated, for He implies, “Don’t you understand that the promise has been fulfilled?” God has taken on our burdens; God has heard our cries. God has taken on the consequence of sin and through the love of the Father, the Son and the Spirit has raised up humanity anew. Love in fact has won. Hope rests on love. The cross reminds us that love inspires us to hope, and hope feeds our faith. “Faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love (I Cor. 13:13).” We celebrate that Easter has destroyed death, and we come to believe that God, who is love, has restored life through love; God’s very self. May all who have been touched by death, may all who have experienced the darkness of pain and suffering come to grasp the hope that has been given to us in the sign of the cross. May we put our faith in God and recommit to a God of love. It’s in the act of loving that forgiveness is manifested; through love that healing is brought about; love is the repairer of all breaches; love is the source of new life. 

Happy Easter! Alleluia, Alleluia. May we now believe in new life and possibility, and live it with God’s grace!