Mt. 26:14 – 27:66
Today we are entering into the Holy week through the commemoration of the Palm Sunday of Lord’s Passion. This year the memorial of the passion of the Lord invites us to think about our fellow brethren who experience intense physical and mental suffering due to the corona pandemic. A meditative reading of the passion narrative empowers us to carry our crosses with hope and find meaning for our suffering.
Jesus also experienced the fragility of human nature amid his passion. His mental agony began well in advance when he began his public ministry itself because He knew that what he would be his destiny. He was also aware that among his beloved friends who is going to betray him. Every passion prediction that did also depicted his intense mental agony. The garden of Gethsemane was the culmination of all these. He had taken Peter, James, and John along with him. The Son of God wished human company at that moment and wanted their prayerful support however, they failed to understand what He was undergoing. He was alone in these moments of fragility.
He also endured another form of mental agony before his physical suffering by way of rejection. In Gethsemane, all the disciples deserted him and ran for their life. Peter promised that he would not deny his master and he denied him publically thrice. Judas betrayed him to the enemies with a kiss; he was rejected by the people to whom he was incarnated as their savior. The Pilate was ready to free him through a special annual mercy plea however the people opted for Barabbas, a known criminal and rejected their saviour and willingly accepted the curse of his bloodshed on them and their children and they wanted crucifixion for their Messiah.
He had to undergo a series of humiliation by soldiers whom they all knew as a well-known rabbi. They crowned Him with thorns, gave him a reed put on him a long robe and mocked him as king of Jews; Pilate chastised him thinking that it would satisfy their thirst for his blood. Again he has to undergo a mocking parade, carrying the cross to Golgotha, on the way he falls thrice, they call Simon of Cyrene to carry his cross, it was not out of their compassion for him but out of their bloody desire to crucify him alive and even the last piece of his clothes were snatched and divides among them. The last moments of his earthly life were too filled with sarcasm and aversion. He had to encounter the challenge to prove his divine identity by coming out of the cross, even the last drop of water deserved to him was delayed because they wanted to see the divine intervention. In the end, a piece of wood on the top of his cross stating King of Jews that too in three languages so that all those gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover could read the destiny of one who claimed as the king of Jews…
Dear friends his crucifixion can be considered as the most brutal murder recorded in history. He had gone through all the possible suffering, a human person can undergo. Why did God choose crucifixion as a means for the salvation of humankind? Where was God, when his son died on the cross? Now we may feel to pose another question: “Where is Jesus amidst this Corona pandemic?” A God who went through all these suffering and persecution and gave up his life for our salvation, how can He abandon us at this juncture? He is with us to share our burden to fill our lives with the hope that this Good Friday will not last long and we will rise again into the dawn of Easter Sunday along with him.