Matthew 26:14- 27:66
(This is a long passage. Read it all this week from your Bible. I have quoted just a small portion which reminds us of “love’s primary perfection”.)
26 Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. 30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.
“Reflection on the Passion Story”
Only the “nobodies” were kind and sensitive to Jesus on his journey to the cross.
The important people were either for the crucifixion, seeing it as a tough but necessary decision, to preserve their truth about God and their religious systems; or they were afraid and hiding for fear they too would be nailed to a cross
.
I think it was Scott Peck who said,
“Most evil - serious evil- in this world is done by people who think they are doing good.”
If evil were done only by those who ganged together and said: “Let us be evil together!”, evil would not spread far. No, most evil is done by people who think they are good and doing their best. So the question is obvious: What am I doing now, what am I involved n now - shouting or timidly silent - that actually perpetuates innocent suffering n the world?
“There are situations where power is of no avail. They are most of the situations in which as humans we find ourselves! May we not also dare to say that, from the standpoint of a faith tradition which posits love, not power, as God’s primary perfection, they are most of the situations in which God finds God’s self too?”
Douglas John Hall, God and Human Suffering. p. 99
This is a story about a love which will not let us go - ever!
“When the crucified Jesus is called ‘the image of the invisible God’. the meaning is that THIS is God and God is like THIS. God is not greater than he is in this humiliation. God is not more glorious then he is in this self-surrender. God is not more powerful than he is in this helplessness. God is not more divine than he is in this humility.” Hall, p. 112
The irony is we would avoid this week in we could for we would rather have light without darkness, vision without trust and risk; hope without despair, Easter without Good Friday.
“To be human is to suffer, and God knows that. That’s why God suffers too...suffering is where God and human beings meet. It is the one place where all persons - kings, priests, paupers and prostitutes - recognize themselves as frail and transient human beings in need of God’s saving love. Suffering brings us closer to God and God closer to us. Suffering despite all its inhumanity and cruelty, paradoxically enables humans to long for humanity, find it, treasure it, and defend it with all their might.” Hall, p. 117
Listen to this story - “This is the essence of God, this is the heart of God.” Hall p. 114
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