Being part of the mystery: 3rd Sunday of Easter

 A few years back…  I was attending a birthday party for an 8-year old. We had music, presents, family, friends and even a piñata which the birthday boy eventually struck after threatening to strike everyone else before that. And then came the final act. One of the family friends was a good magician and started to show off some of his tricks.

By far, the most popular of his tricks was extracting coins seemingly out of the children’s ears. We were all thrilled and entertained. But not equally. The way we were thrilled was very different.

As the magician started to withdraw money from the children’s heads as if it were a  mini-bank,  the crowd was instantly divided. On one side, there were those like me, on the other, those like the children.

I, as with the rest of the adult crowd, was intrigued. How did he do it? I know there was a trick somewhere, but where? We were paying close attention and waiting for a false move that would give the trick away. We were thinking, reflecting, analysing, wondering, and also keeping our distance.

The children, however, could not keep their distance. The magician became a living child’s magnet. In seconds, all of them were jumping around him and screaming “Do it to me. Do  it to me!” For them, that was not a mystery to be scrutinized, they just wanted to be part of it.

Magic disturbs the scientifically trained mind. It attempts to show that the immutable laws of physics do not apply. If money can grow out of children’s heads, I am sure there will be something we can do about it. Adults need to discover the trick to pacify their minds, to dismiss the event and go back to their daily routine.

Children, on the other hand, do not know yet that there are immutable laws, they are just drawn by curiosity to unusual things. For them, a TV is as magic as a disappearing act. We have learned to dismiss the TV magic because, even if we don’t understand the trick of how things that are happening in Iraq can also be shown in our living rooms,  we know that some technician knows how it happens and can give us a reasonable explanation. We know it is not magic, simply complicated technology.

The day the children used their thinking to dismiss the mystery, they would have become adults. Perhaps, that is what Jesus meant when He said, that unless we become like children, we will not inherit the kingdom.

When Jesus appears to His disciples after death, they are looking for the trick. Is He a spirit? Thomas would even ask for proof, “It is all a trick of your imagination, unless I see and touch by myself.” Jesus was very patient with them. He knew they were looking for the trick and tried to invite them to become like children again. This time, there was no trick. It is true, “It is indeed I”, He then invited them to be part of the mystery: “Stay in the city, until you are clothed from power from on high.” 

“He then, open their minds to understand the Scriptures…”, the gospel tells us. In the first reading Peter declares he is a witness to that understanding, that what the Scriptures (and Prophets) have been foretold is that God’s Christ would suffer. Lastly the second reading also speaks about knowing God: “Anyone who says, ‘I know Him’, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar.”

We constantly suffer the adult temptation of understanding God to pacify our minds so that we can move on with the “real” issues of our busy existence. There is understanding to dissect and dismiss, and there is understanding  to embrace and change. The children’s desire was to be part of the magic; the adult’s desire was to dismiss the magic. We need to learn to combine the maturity of the adult and the genuineness of the child. We need to learn to scream to God: “Do it to me.”

It is useless to try to understand God from a distance. The Jews had been reading the Scriptures for ages. We can go over the whole Old Testament word by word and we will never guess that the Messiah “had to suffer” and whoever it was all there, in front of their eyes. To understand the prophecies, the church will have to re-read the Old Testament, but only after God has made them experience the mystery… only when the church was part of God’s mystery… only then could God play the magic on them.

When we are part of the mystery, our understanding opens a new world in front of us. When our understanding is suspicious, we will be closed to any world that is not in our daily routine. To say that we know God but we are not part of Him makes us liars because we are only “trick-seekers”. The mystery of the resurrection, the mystery of why the “chosen one” had to suffer, the mystery of how God can love us so much as to become a victim of his creature can only be understood from inside -  when God performed the “mystery on us”.

May we learn to ask to God to keep doing His mystery on us.

The core of the cross: Good Friday

As I was looking at this image in the ”porta lignea” of the basilica of St. Sabina in Rome, it stirred me to ask an interesting question. Why is the cross important for our faith?

 This picture shows the first representation of the crucifixion that has been preserved to our days. What is interesting is that it dates back as late as the 5th century. Other Christian symbols have been preserved from the beginning of the church: the fish, the bread, etc… but no crosses or crucifixes. Why? Did it take the first Christians five centuries to discover the centrality of the cross? Did the 5th century Christians suddenly discover the importance of the crucifixion?

This representation does not pretend to innovate a symbol, it is simply a representation of a scene shown among many other scenes. In fact, the crosses are barely visible, what is shown is the crucified. Does the cross deserve to be our most outstanding symbol?

Perhaps symbols evolve and change with cultures, but the core of our faith is expressed in the gospels, which some scholars have described as accounts of the passion and resurrection, with a long introduction. Accepting that Jesus “must suffer according to the Scriptures” is an essential condition to true faith in Jesus.

The cross is not just an unfortunate episode in the life of Jesus. Jesus did not even save us “in spite” of the cross, but through His cross. Jesus was not a simple hero or martyr whose torments were an expression of their fidelity and consistency. His passion revealed a Redeemer. If the incarnation of Jesus reveals God with us; the crucifixion reveals God for us.

Jesus had been in control of His life and destiny clearly throughout His whole ministry. He decided whom to cure, where to go, what to preach, when to leave, whom to approach. He is the master. There is, however, a turning point in the life of Jesus when He was assailed by an extreme distress. In the synoptics, it happened at the Garden of Olives. The gospel of John presents this extreme distress at the beginning of the Last Supper. From then on, Jesus was passive. He would let things happen to Him. He would not run away or hide Himself. He would not defend Himself or even pray to be delivered. He allowed men to do with Him as they pleased. This was a unique moment in the history of the universe. God had become vulnerable, tragically vulnerable.

The passivity of Christ is the passion of God who decided to be touched and hurt by the sin of the world. Christmas makes full sense only in the light of Good Friday. God’s incarnation was not to holiday with humans. God became man to allow Himself to be touched by man’s rejection. Capital punishment is simply that, the expulsion of a man from the community. The cross is man’s way to tell God, “we don’t want you with us”. The Son of God attracted upon Himself the ultimate expression of man’s sinful condition.

An omnipotent God could be totally dispassionate about man’s disobedience; a compassionate God cannot but implicate Himself in man’s self-destruction to the point of taking the effects of this destruction upon Himself. Christmas is God accompanying man; Good Friday is God substituting man as a true victim of human sins. And all this is not a symbolic ritual sacrifice;  it is pure crude history, a naked fact. God came to His creation and was tragically rejected in the nastiest possible way.

From now on, sin cannot say anything else. The human power to hurt cannot become more powerful. It has been exhausted. Of course, we are still free to hurt ourselves and others, and these hurts will be real and consistently have tragic effects in our lives. But from now on, these sins are only mere echoes of the main cry “Crucify him!” Sin had spoken its loudest.

However, is this the last word?

Do you understand what I have done for you?: Maundy Thursday

The word “maunday” comes from a verse version of the Latin “mandatum” command. It refers to Jesus’ command “you ought to wash one another’s feet” (Jn 13:14).

Interestingly, the church has never received this “command” in the ritualistic sense. Although there were a few Christian sects that practice the rite literally, the church has received this commandment only as an imitation of the spirit of this rite. In fact, the ritual of the washing of the feet  is not mandatory, not even on Maundy Thursday. All the more for us to strive to understand the spirit of this gesture. The poignant question of Jesus to his disciples is still a good question today: “Do you understand what I have done for you?” (Jn 13:12)  Do we?

 In Jesus’ time, the washing of feet was a custom that was not required from anyone, not even slaves, although “occasionally, disciples would render this service to their teacher or rabbi” (Raymond E. Brown).

It is not surprising that Peter refuses this apparent reversal of preposition. Peter, or other disciples, should wash Jesus’ feet. However, Jesus was very clear. He does not mean that the disciples have become suddenly masters: “You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.” (Jn 13:13).

Jesus had intended something very different: “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. Amen, amen, I say to you. No slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.” (Jn 13:14-16)

In other words, although the distinction between master and disciples is real, the relationship becomes one of equality. If the master dares to treat the disciples like masters, all the more, the disciples should treat each other like masters. Although we are all different, when it comes to service, we become all equal. Servants have, in a way, received the dignity of masters without being masters. Dignity refers to something’s goodness on account of itself (Aquinas). The disciples have received something good, a master’s treatment from the master. They now become equal in dignity.

Love, unlike washing feet, cannot be commanded (Deus caritas 18). God does not force us to produce an emotion towards our neighbors. It does not work like that. Often, we forget this, and change the commandment of love into a pretense of love: “I do not really love him, but I will act as if I did.” We pretend to love only because we are told. Like Peter, we accept the commandment without understanding: “not only my feet, but also my hands and my head as well.”

Love cannot be understood unless it is experienced. It cannot be produced unless it is received. Only the disciples that received the master’s treatment by the master can give the master’s treatment to others. Washing each other’s feet entails removing our clothing of pretenses of superiority, acknowledging the equal dignity of the other person, and treating them consistently.

In this way, love does not become a product of our strength but a natural reaction to the goodness we just discovered in the other person. At times, we may not like them. We may even have good reasons to hate them, but still Jesus washed their feet with our feet. Jesus saw in them something we must discover, and when we do… we realized what Jesus had done, we understand and we are empowered to love as Jesus loves.

Palm Sunday

Just once, Jesus allowed the people to take over. For a time He had been preaching and healing. He had to face misunderstanding and lack of faith while trying to assert His identity as the Son of God. Then, He allowed them to do what they wanted. Before He was active, then He was passive. No more corrections, no more plans, just submitting Himself to the errors of their decisions.

Their first error was to acclaim Him as a political liberator; the second, to condemn Him as a dangerous criminal. The liturgy today sandwiches us between these two mistaken decisions; between the gospel of the entry in Jerusalem and the death on the cross; between the mistaken “Hosanna to the king!” and the “Crucify him!”

Today, we look at those facts with the privileged eye of an omniscient outsider who knows the outcome of those events. But for the people there at that time, understanding who Jesus really was,  must have been difficult. However, practically all our mistakes can be reduced to acclaiming the wrong thing as our salvation and rejecting what saves us as dangerous. Proclaiming riches, success, manipulation, control and dominion as our tools for liberation is making the same mistake the crowds acclaiming Jesus made. Rejecting our brothers and sisters as an inconvenient obstacle would be rejecting our true means of knowing and loving the real God. We are no better than the inconsistent and changeable crowds of Jerusalem.

The ascent to Jerusalem was the moment of truth. The moment when Jesus let people be people and accepted the Father as Father. Because people wanted to be people, He let them condemn Him. Because the Father wanted His will to be done, Jesus struggled and yielded to His Father’s will. Palm Sunday is a meditation on the nothingness of the human spirit and the entity of God’s Spirit. Still, we wave our palms today, not like the ignorant crowd who didn’t know what kind of king they chose, but as believers who know that our king is the only one who can really and deeply liberate us.