Suffering King

“Blessed is the king who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest.”

Luke 19:38

As our Lord prepared to make His final trip into the city of Jerusalem, He knew the hour for Him was quickly approaching. There have been several times when the Jewish leaders have tried to kill Jesus, but Jesus always escaped and walked away in the midst of them and we are told because “His hour has not yet come.” But now, as He enters into Jerusalem, His hour has indeed come, the hour to fulfill and complete His Father’s will, the hour to bridge the divide between heaven and earth, the hour to conquer once and for all sin and death. All this He will do not by fighting or shouting, but rather by suffering in silence.

This King who is to come is the One from God, the King who the Lord said He will send to shepherd His people and bring them together, this shepherd who is of old, this shepherd who is Himself. The Jews has anticipated the arrival of this Messiah for many years now, and some of them realized that Jesus might be the one. But they did not understand what kind of Messiah Jesus was. They wanted the restoration of an earthly kingdom where a son of David will once again be enthroned. But Jesus was much more than that. Jesus came to announce the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom that is not of this world, the Kingdom that is Himself. Hence, He will draw all peoples to Himself.

It is in His suffering and death that Our Lord, Our King, Our Prince of Peace brings about the salvation of the world. Our King and Messiah is one not as the Jews awaited, but rather one that was drastically different. Our King and Messiah is not merely another descendant from the line of David, but is rather God in the flesh. Moved with compassion for the suffering of His people, Our God took on our human nature so that He might take on our human suffering and transform it, giving it meaning and putting within it a redemptive nature.

May we who call ourselves followers of this King embrace our sufferings because Our King bore our infirmities so that our sufferings might not be for nothing but rather have even the saving and redemptive effects of freeing the souls in purgatory. Because our King and Lord suffered we now have eternal life.

You Are Possessed!

“Now we are sure that you are possessed.
Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say,
‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?”

John 8:52-53a

When Jesus taught that if one were to keep His Word, they would not see death. The Jews listening found that absurd to the point that they said Jesus was possessed! They could not wrap their heads around the fact that someone could live forever and never die. But, can we blame them? To someone without faith, it does sound pretty crazy. We learn by experience that people die, no matter how healthy one is, they eventually succumb to death. So in one sense we can see where the Jews were coming from. They were right, Abraham died and the prophets died — they got that part right, but the part they got wrong was that they are not simply dead and gone, they are fully alive in God.

Jesus came so that death will never overcome us. Our earthy lives will come to an end, but the eternal life with which we have been endowed never ends. We live forever in Christ. When our earthly lives are over, we will join the saints in the hallways of heaven, God willing, and on the final day, we will we made perfect in our glorified bodies.

So, to answer the Jew’s question, although rhetorical on their part, Jesus is indeed greater than Abraham! He was with the Father from the very beginning. Jesus is the Son of God. He is not possessed in the way the Jews thought in their doubt and confusion, but He is possessed in that He is One with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Where are we in our journey of faith? Do we believe that if we keep His words, we will never die? Do we embrace the life God has gifted unto us? Are we possessed by His love?

Blessing in Disguise

“In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died.”

Numbers 21:6

After God had led the Israelites out of Egypt, freeing them from slavery, they complained because of the lack of choice in food and drink. Perhaps they just didn’t want to be wandering around and they thought maybe if the Lord had come to rescue them shouldn’t things be easier? And so, they complained and questioned God’s motive and intentions, asking God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” Instead of being grateful the God for sending Moses and Aaron to liberate them from their slavish life in Egypt, they resented Him. They even wished they were back in Egypt! This may sound absurd to us. Why would someone who was once a slave, now freed, want to go back into slavery? It doesn’t make sense, but we’d be surprised how often we might even do this ourselves.

When we come face to face with a bad habit or habitual sin and after much prayer received the grace to work towards being free from it, and when the temptation or trigger comes and we fall for it, bringing ourselves back into that negative cycle of sin. Have you ever experienced that? The Israelites did not want to work for their freedom, and they’d rather be slaves and enjoy some sort of comfort — food, drink, seeming stability — than to live in the freedom as the people of God. And so, what does God do? The Lord sent serpents that bit the people causing them to die. At face value it seems as if God was punishing them out of spite, but that’s not really the case. What were the Israelites really complaining about? That God was not taking care of them. So, to show them what life would really be like without God’s care and providence, He withheld His care. Without God’s protection, snakes attacked the people and they died. Without God there can be no life, only death. Sometimes we may not see the blessings that are there because of our own pride or self-preoccupations. When we think God isn’t there, He really is there, but He may be silent, but His protecting hand is always upon us, otherwise we won’t be here.

When the Israelites repented, God offered them a remedy: mounting a serpent on a pole and raising it up (the modern symbol for medicine!) so that all who looked upon it will be saved. And in the fullness of time, God sent His only Son to be mounted on the wood of the Cross and He was raised up, and we who look upon the Cross with our crucified Lord is saved. God doesn’t promise us an easy life, perhaps what the Israelites were hoping for, but He does promise us eternal life, so much so that He became man, assuming our human nature, so that we might be saved and one day may enjoy the glory of heaven. How blessed are we?