Gospel Reflection: We must faithfully live our lives as Jesus did
This week is quite different to most other weeks in the church calendar, as we have two Gospel readings.
Opposing reactions
The first is a short one. It tells us about the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. It is a time when the people of Jerusalem were shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” – something we repeat in our celebration of the eucharist.
The second Gospel reading, which is much longer, is about the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, told from the Gospel of Mark. In this Gospel reading, the Roman Governor Pilate asks the people who they want released and they choose Barabbas. He then asks what do the people want done with Jesus. The crowd responds “crucify him.”
The same people who only days before praised Jesus and celebrated his entrance into Jerusalem with palms and the laying down of garments in his path, now call for his death. A very painful and horrible death by crucifixion. What made them change their minds? They move from “Hosanna!” to “crucify him!” in a matter of days.
For us, if we were there in the crowds, with Jesus in front of us, what would we shout? Jesus entered Jerusalem, not as a warrior in the tradition of King David as many had hoped for, but riding simply on a donkey. The disciples and the crowd applauded him, but they proved fickle in their support. Are we sometimes fickle in our faith? Christian when it is easy, putting our faith aside when it is hard?
The will of God
Today, we are quite rightly hearing a lot about victims – people, who through no choice or fault of their own, have been dealt with wrongly by others who are free to act otherwise and who know better. In some of the ways we think about the passion, Jesus becomes God’s victim. Through no fault of his own, and seemingly powerless in the face of his Father’s will, Jesus becomes a victim of God’s need for a sacrifice, a ransom or atonement.
As a result, many of us can feel that sometimes we are God’s victims too, because if God wanted Jesus to suffer and die, why should we be surprised or complain when we receive large crosses to carry as well?
Mark’s account of the passion tends to reinforce Jesus as a ‘victim’. Mark has Jesus eating with the outcasts, his friends betraying, denying or deserting him. He tells us that Jesus is terrified at the prospect of death and calls on his ‘Abba’ or Father to help him out. In the end he accepts ‘the will of God’ but even then feels abandoned by God on the cross.
A lesson in how to live
I often think we misread what Jesus is referring to when he accepts God’s will in the garden. Rather than refer to the particular will of the Father to see Jesus suffer and die on Good Friday, I think it’s more helpful and consoling to understand it as referring to God’s will that Jesus remains faithful to the way he lived. If by doing that, Jesus threatened the religious and political authorities of his day so much that they have to murder him, then his death is the ultimate sacrifice that reveals how far God was prepared to go in demonstrating his love for us. This reveals to us that Jesus came ‘to live’, and that by faithfully living this life he was put to death by the powers of sin. Through the cross we see the price to be paid in confronting sin in our day and obediently living out the demands of God’s Kingdom of justice and peace.
This Holy Week, let’s celebrate that God spared nothing in showing us how to live. As we commemorate Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, may we move from being victims of a bloodthirsty God to choosing again to follow Jesus’ example and live lives which are faithful, loving and obedient. May we also appreciate that as Jesus was faithful to God and God to Jesus, so they will remain faithful to us as well, no matter what.
May I take this opportunity to wish everyone a blessed Easter.
May the joy and hope of the Risen Christ be with you and your families and I pray you have a safe and restful school break.
