As we march deeper into Holy Week, let’s remember that for the first followers of Jesus, His condemnation and brutal execution must surely have seemed like total failure. To those who stood at a distance watching Him die on the Cross (Mark 15, 40) and the others who had fled for safety, but who later heard about His crucifixion, it must have seemed like the end. It must have seemed like the end, for example, of an inspiring movement that had first filled them with hope and enthusiasm – but now seemed only a great delusion.
With the death of Jesus, all the hopes of those first believers apparently lay in ruins. Whatever predictions He had made about His suffering and subsequent rising had either been terribly misunderstood or not been taken seriously. Only later, after their glimmering, stuttering visions of His risen presence (let’s think ahead to Easter!), did they begin to see things anew and more carefully consider His predictions.
What our ancestors discovered, over time, was that all of Jesus’ sufferings were foretold in prophecy. For example, in the prophet Isaiah’s poems about God’s loving Servant. It finally dawned on the early Christians that words first spoken about the whole people of Israel found their full meaning in Jesus. In Him, God’s message was fulfilled: “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
Again, looking ahead to Easter, let us remember (even at this early point in Holy Week) Jesus’ loving outpouring of His life. The early Church saw and inspires us to see, in Jesus, the fulfillment of Isaiah 49, 6: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
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Esta Semana Santa nos está invitando a reconocer que el amor y lealtad de Jesús al Padre (y a nosotros su Pueblo) fueron tan lejos como se pueda imaginar: hasta la muerte. Y es así como ganó para nosotros el valor para amar sin contar el precio y para ser fieles hasta el fin … siguiendo su ejemplo.
¿Somos gente preocupados por nuestros propios intereses y necesidades, nuestra satisfacción egoísta? ¿Quisiéramos ser personas libres, abiertos a Cristo, listos para servir totalmente desinteresados y generosos, “personas-para-otros?”
Oremos. “Padre, haznos como Jesús: que aceptemos dificultades, incluso incomprensiones y traiciones, y que las transformemos en fuentes de vida y alegría para todos los que nos rodean. Guárdanos siempre fieles a ti y los unos a los otros. Por medio de Jesucristo nuestro Señor. Amén.”
