LET US REFLECT / MEDITATE / PONDER / CONTEMPLATE ON THE THEME THE CROSS The Cross Our Gospel scene opens with Jesus and his disciples — meaning, in the main, the Twelve — gathering in Galilee. Our Lord told them, to their consternation, that “the Son of Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day”. We are informed elsewhere in the Gospels that our Lord had told his disciples this on other occasions but they had not understood what he meant. They could not imagine that their Master, the long promised Messiah, would have such an end as he had described. But this time, it seems, our Lord’s meaning got through to them. He was to be handed over to his enemies who would put him to death. They “were overwhelmed with grief” (Matthew 17:22‑27). It seems too that having understood that our Lord was foretelling his own death, they did not take in his prediction of his resurrection. Christ was entirely aware of what was coming and he made sure his own disciples were fully aware of it too. We read of great figures of history whose deaths came upon them despite their intentions to the contrary. Vercingetorix, the great Gaulish chieftain who put up such a stout resistance to Julius Caesar, was finally captured, in due course exhibited in a cage by Caesar and then executed. Caesar himself was assassinated. Many examples could be given of great personages unable to avoid the death that was imposed on them. The case with Christ, though, is different. Christ possessed a clear foreknowledge of his terrible end. He shared this foreknowledge with his closest disciples. He constantly manifested the power easily to avoid it had he so chosen. But he willed to submit to it, indeed to embrace it. He did so because it was the will of his heavenly Father, and because the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets had predicted that this was the way in which he, the Messiah, would fulfil his mission to save the world from sin and enter into his glory. There are religions which have flowed from founders who have been successful in a very temporal sense. Mahomet was successful in his influence and in his victories. Now Christ, who displayed supernatural powers and a spiritual authority no other person in history could rival, was unsuccessful in an immediately temporal sense. That is to say, of the many distinctive things about the Christian religion perhaps the doctrine of the Atonement for the world’s sin by Christ dying on the Cross is the most arresting. Christ was born to be finally put to death. His unsuccessful end was the supreme moment of his life. His acceptance and embrace of the death imposed on him because of his personal claims was among the greatest of his many great acts. It had cosmic significance for it expiated for the sins of the world and opened the gates of heaven. It unleashed the life of God for those who turn in faith to the Redeemer who died for them. That having been said, there is a notable follow‑on for his disciples. It is that they too, if they wish to take their stand with him, must follow in his footsteps. The disciples in their grief at hearing the predictions of Christ in respect to his sufferings and death, had to learn that this too was to be their path to sharing in Christ’s glory. The Christian religion is not only a religion which preaches a crucified Christ but it is a religion which expects a crucified Christian. St Paul writes that with Christ I am nailed to the cross. The one who loves Christ and who wishes to follow him closely must pray for the grace to do so because it means drinking a very special cup that is bitter‑sweet. On one occasion two of our Lord’s closest disciples approached him and asked that they be given places one at his right and the other at his left in his kingdom. Christ asked if they were ready to drink the cup he had to drink. That is what the Christian religion involves. It means drinking Christ’s chalice, and that chalice is the chalice of suffering. It means embracing the suffering that is involved in doing the will of God and in following the way of Christ. The cross of Christ is a very notable feature of the Christian religion and it is so easily avoided. It can be avoided in the portrayal of Christ, and it can be avoided in the portrayal of the religion he founded and continually sustains. It can be avoided by the one who wants to take his stand with Jesus. But it must not be avoided. We who are Christians must pray for the grace to embrace with love the cross that is present in everyday life and in the fulfilment of the will of God. Why? So that God’s plan in our life may bear abundant fruit. (E.J.Tyler)
Posted on: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 02:38:25 +0000
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