This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
Throughout today’s Scriptures we find a paradox: Our Messiah is laid low, is weak and subjugated, and yet He consistently stands out as by far the strongest man in the scene, next to whom His adversaries appear weak.
When the soldiers come to arrest Him and He responds to their inquiry “I AM,” they spin away from Him and fall to the ground.
Pilate asks Him what truth is, and momentarily becomes His advocate upon hearing His merciful words about having committed the lesser sin.
Pilate recognizes His greatness: “Behold the Man!”, he proclaims about a stricken Jesus who is nonetheless still standing on His own two feet. And when challenged about writing “The King of the Jews,” Pilate stands by the inscription.
Jesus speaks of drinking His cup Himself, and it is He who carries His own cross out to Golgotha.
Jesus is not grandstanding to make some tragic but glorious point. He is simply, firmly, fulfilling His Father’s will. He is doing what He has done throughout His earthly life; indeed, even before that, in eternity.
It is this obedience that saved us.
If we give ourselves wholly to God, the cross will come. Jesus has promised it. But so will the strength to endure it, to be like Jesus even with the cross on our shoulders.
Ultimately, this is the goal of our daily contemplative prayer, where we seek union with God and His will: Obedience. Obedience to God, in good times, and in bad. Saving obedience, in union with the obedience of Jesus.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Thank Jesus for His obedience up to death. Ask Him for the gift of this virtue, whereby your life becomes complete surrender to God’s will, for the salvation of many, by the infinite power of Christ’s cross.
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