From Jerusalem to the Cross to the Resurrection

Passion Week begins today on this faithful Sunday in which Jesus enters into the Holy City.  He enters His own city, the city He has made and sustained and a city He will continue to bless until the end of time, which is Jerusalem.  However, He enters into more than just an earthly city, but He enters into salvation for the inhabitants of the entire world, for all of those present, all of those before Him and all of those who would come after that accept His grace.  His entrance into Jerusalem has two meanings one, Jesus is revealing Himself as the King of Glory and two, He comes to save us.

Jesus gave many hints, both obvious and others more sublime that He is the Son of God, the Messiah, that He is Divine.  This was done in order to prove that God was among us, that He no longer wanted to speak in prophecies, dreams and visions, through nature, etc. but in person.  God desired, not out of need, to be present with us but out of love.  God among us.  The entrance into Jerusalem is precisely that, not just another King David, but your God is coming to you riding on a donkey.

There is also another reason and maybe twofold here, is that Jesus is coming to save us from our sins and He will have to enter into His passion.  It also signifies how quickly we forget because today the crowd is cheering, “Hosanna in the highest to our King, Hosanna,” and by Friday the same crowd will be cheering, “Crucify Him, crucify Him.”

Who are we in the crowd?  Are we the fickle ones who change their minds quickly and often?  We would never be the ones cheering crucify, crucify Him, rather we would be shouting out, Hosanna.  I wonder even in my own life sometimes, who am I in that crowd?  After honest reflection I have to admit I am sometimes the fickle one, the weak one.  How often do we go to confession or ask God for forgiveness and then quickly return back to the same sin or some other sins, we go from the strong resolution to the weakness that is in us.  Peter himself said, “Lord I will die with you.”  Less than a few later He was denying He ever knew Him.  Am I better than Peter, are you?  I would imagine not!   That is why Jesus enters into the passion so that His work on the Cross would be our saving remedy and not just a onetime remedy, but that every time we failed we could go back to the Cross and be forgiven.

His act of love is powerful enough to forgive every sin except the one or ones we do not want to be forgiven for.  God’s grace is more powerful than any sin or evil that can be committed because of His mercy.  The Cross of Christ proves this lest one think that evil is more powerful than God’s grace.  More importantly we must remember what this cost Jesus, it cost Him everything and ultimately His life for ours.  

When Jesus enters Jerusalem today to begin Holy Week (Passion Week) we too must make an effort to enter into it with Him, we must follow Him today to the Upper Room, to Mt. of Olives, to the way of the Cross, to His Crucifixion and death on Calvary and finally to rise with Him.  Let this week be one of serious reflection, prayer and sacrifice so that we may enter into that Spirit that is freeing, loving, and all forgiving, the Spirit of God.

Went Home With Head Held High

We can take many lessons from the Woman Caught in Adultery story from today’s Gospel.  The first is obvious, forgiveness.  However there are more lessons, such as “the angry and righteous mob,” “feelings of humiliation,” “feelings of defeat,” and most of all – feelings of relief and happiness.

The angry mob who wanted to stone this woman to death had become the self righteous and angry mob.  They wanted to make sure that they rooted out all that of which was immoral from their sight with no second thought to anything, this is what usually happens in the mob mentality, it is a mentality we see today often in our political world where everyone makes their own candidate the Messiah and the other guy a demon and these feelings are disguised and bathed in one’s own self righteousness which then makes it easy to go from point a to point b, i.e. catching the woman in the act and then dragging her through the streets and getting ready to kill her.

The feelings the woman had would have been of fear but also humiliation as now she is exposed publicly.  However, those same feelings got turned around on the angry mob as Jesus challenged them in looking for the person who had no sin to cast the first stone; it was they who now felt humiliation.  The question for those persons would have been, did they finally understand mercy or did they walk away bitter?

The woman finally would feel relief in that she was not going to die that day or in that fashion and she also felt great happiness as the sin of adultery, which in fact is a very grave sin had been lifted from her.  She already paid the price and penance for those sins, being dragged through the street and almost stoned death would have been enough much more than just saying two rosaries.   I like to picture in my own mind, Jesus picking her up by the hand and looking at her face to face.  I am sure when her eyes met His, her knowledge of Jesus went beyond Him just being a nice guy but someone who could take away her sins.

Two groups of people came out that day, on the trip out the mob held their heads high in self righteousness and the woman held her head low in humiliation but on their journey back to their homes the mob went home with heads held low and the woman now made clean went home with head held high, Amen!