Jesus' Hour

5th Sunday of Lent Mar. 25, 2012 (Jn 12:20-33)

Now there were some Greeks among those who had come up to worship at the feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, "Sir, we would like to see Jesus."

Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.

Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.

Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.

"I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name."

Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it and will glorify it again."

The crowd there heard it and said it was thunder; but others said, "An angel has spoken to him." Jesus answered and said, "This voice did not come for my sake but for yours. Now is the time of judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself." He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.

In today's Gospel, Jesus speaks of the suffering and death that He was about to face. He explained the idea behind these things to come; He explained how a death can actually be life-giving. In this Gospel passage, we are reminded of the richness and depth of the Paschal Mystery which we will celebrate come Holy Week.

Jesus' suffering was redemptive. And Jesus makes it clear that our sacrifice and suffering can bear much fruit and be life-giving too. When we do good for others, we share our life with them. Even if we do not die to save other people, reaching out to them and trying to help them out makes us true disciples of Jesus who lived and died for others. Like the Greeks in today's Gospel, we also wish to see Jesus. But seeing and experiencing Christ will never be complete unless we become true Christians who are willing to follow Jesus.

The hour of Jesus' glory is the hour of His being lifted up on the cross. That is the moment of His triumph over sin and death. That hour is the hour of His total obedience to the Father. We too are called to that obedience. Our whole lives must be a witness to the glory of the Father.

As we are about to experience the celebration of Jesus' Paschal Mystery, may we learn to appreciate and meditate on the meaning of suffering and self-denial. Further, may we be true disciples of Jesus by faithfully following His example of sacrifice and obedience.

Now That's Love!

4th Sunday of Lent Mar. 18, 2012 (Jn 3:14-21)

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

In our Gospel for today, we are reminded of the reason Jesus came into the world - because of love. God loves us and wants us to be saved; hence, Jesus became man. The well known Gospel passage says it perfectly: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life (Jn 3:16)."

The First Reading (2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23) tells us that even though the leaders, the priests and the people of Judah were committing sins against Him, God still showed them great love and mercy by sending them prophets to lead them back to Him. But they did not listen to the prophets, so they were exiled to Babylon. But even there, God's love and mercy was upon them. After years of captivity, the Lord saved them and brought them back through Cyrus.

Our Gospel today shows us how God went so much further in showing us His love. If in the Old Testament, He sent prophets and made King Cyrus an instrument to liberate His people, in the New Testament, God sends us His Beloved Son Jesus. In fact, it was God Himself, the Second Person of the Trinity, who came to the world as man - all for our salvation. That is how much God loves us. As the Second Reading (Eph 2:4-10) emphasizes, even when we were in sin, He showed His great love in giving us Jesus for our salvation. It's already generous of God to give His Son, but to give Jesus to us undeserving sinners? That is God's love.

This mercy and love of God, although great and unfathomable, are not forced upon us. As the Gospel said, God's loving salvation requires our response. To be saved, we must believe in Jesus and in His salvation. Believing in Jesus consists of knowing, loving and serving Him, not simply confessing that we believe in Him but living a life contrary to what He preached. Believing in Jesus means coming to Him with deeds of light, putting off the evil deeds we used to hide in the dark.

As people who believe in God and in the redemption Jesus brought about, we are also called to imitate God's great love to the best of our abilities. The Lenten invitation to give alms is an echo of the challenge for us to live in love. We may not be able to die for the sake of others, but Jesus invites us to live for them. In a way, that is already life-giving. As St. Paul would put it, we must let Christ live in us. (Gal 2:20)

As we continue in our Lenten journey towards Easter joy, we rejoice as we are given a great hope. We are not left alone in our journey to come back to God. Knowing that we cannot save our own selves, God gave us His Son. And this is the Good News we rejoice for. We need only to do our part - to believe in Him, to love Him and to serve Him in loving others.

The Wisdom and Love in Suffering

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Aug. 28, 2011 (Mt 16:21-27)

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.

Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, "God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you."

He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?"

"For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct."

After Peter was able to profess through God's revelation that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus explains what being the Messiah meant. The Jews were hoping that the Messiah will be the leader who will liberate them from the hands of their oppressors. But Jesus revealed to His apostles that He whom they have confirmed to be the Messiah will have to suffer, die and be raised on the third day.

This probably came as a shock for them. Peter could not accept this new revelation. He accepted and professed that Jesus is the Messiah; but he could not accept that this Messiah would have to suffer. Naturally, he was concerned for his Master so he didn't want him to suffer. But what he failed to realize is that the revelation that Jesus had to suffer, die and be raised is a revelation of how God, in His wisdom, has planned the salvation of men.

It sounded foolish to Peter and to the apostles that their expected liberator would have to suffer. As St. Paul said, "Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles (1 Cor 1:22-23)." Yes, since Peter was not thinking as God does, he could not see Jesus' suffering and death as wise. Even we, thinking as human beings do, cannot fathom why or cannot appreciate that Jesus, the Messiah and the Son of God, had to suffer. But once we accept without doubt what God is revealing to us, we can see not only the wisdom of God's plan of salvation, but also the great love He has for us that He would let His Son die for us. Only then do we realize that "the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom (1 Cor 1:25)." And we marvel at this.

After rebuking Peter, Jesus explained that anyone who wishes to follow Him should take up His cross and be willing to lose their life for Him. This is a radical call. Jesus seems to be forgetting that man naturally loves what is comfortable and that man always clings to dear life. But again, this is a revelation. Jesus is warning His apostles, and even us who wish to follow Him, that becoming a Christian is no easy task. It is rewarding, but it is not easy.

Being a Christian means living out the values that Jesus taught us and rejecting the values of the world. Sometimes, we may be inconvenienced, ridiculed or even persecuted because we live as Christians, but we must remain loyal to Christ anyway. Again, it may be foolish to accept these difficulties instead of escaping them, but as in the case of Jesus who died for us, we do it anyway because we do it out of love - even if the world does not get it.

Jesus exhorts us today to think with the wisdom of God and to love with the love of God. Once we do, accepting suffering and carrying the cross will not seem foolish to us. It will be an expression of our love and loyalty to our Master who did the same, and even more, out of love for us.

Jesus' Way is the Way of the Cross

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time June 20, 2010 (Lk 9:18-24)

Once when Jesus was praying in solitude, and the disciples were with him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They said in reply, "John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, 'One of the ancient prophets has arisen.'" Then he said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter said in reply, "The Messiah of God." He rebuked them and directed them not to tell this to anyone.

He said, "The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised."

Then he said to all, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

"My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me" (Jn 10:27)

These words from today's verse before the Gospel tell us that we have a shepherd who knows each of us and whom we must obey and follow. But we focus our reflection today on Jesus' question, "Who do you say that I am?" Jesus knows us, but do we know Him, whom we follow? Certainly, we cannot be followers of someone we don't know. And if we do not know Jesus, we cannot claim to be Christians.

Peter hits the jackpot when he answers that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah of God. Jesus was the savior that the Israelites have been waiting for. This was a moment of revelation for the Apostles. Jesus revealed His identity as the Messiah. The one they have been following is the Messiah.

But Jesus had to explain to them that He is not the Messiah that Israel was expecting. He was not a political figure who would free Israel from colonizers. He was not an earthly monarch. His glory does not come from pomp and power. His moment of glory is His suffering, death and resurrection. His way is not of the scepter; His is the way of the cross.

This revelation, assuming that the apostles fully understood it, comes as a shock. How could the Messiah die such a cruel death? Even the Gentiles who hears the story after Jesus' Ascension were shocked. How could God die? Why would God choose to suffer? Of course, today, we understand that Jesus' suffering and death is the redemption that God had planned, in His wisdom.

Jesus tells His disciples, and also all of us, that since we choose to follow Him, we must also learn to accept suffering and to see suffering in a new light. Taking up our crosses means that we must live according to the example of Jesus, being good Christians and taking the path that God has set for us. Doing this, we will certainly face a lot of challenges. But that is why it is called a cross. It may be difficult to bear, but we must do it out of love for God.

Jesus' mission on earth was fulfilled in His death and resurrection. We, on the other hand, are not all called to die for others or for our faith. But all of us, being Christians, are called to live for God and for others. We must "lose" the life we want to live and live instead as God wants us to live. In fact, we must let Christ live in us.

Following Christ entails sacrifice because He whom we follow has also sacrificed Himself for our salvation. We must learn from Him and imitate Him who carried His cross. We must carry our own crosses. The only way to life with God is the way of the cross.