Originally, the Gospel of John ended with the twentieth chapter. The twenty-first chapter was an addition made by the early church in the context of backsliding of the church. Though the disciples had many encounters with the risen Jesus, they took these encounters for granted and went about their business as usual, without sufficiently paying heed to their calling and mission to be “fishers of men”. The appearance of the risen Jesus should not be an event locked in history, a past event frozen to be sentimentalised by posterity, but it should be a continuing experience of us as individual Christians and as a church. Today, we must be able to say that we have seen Christ and that he has appeared to us.

Jesus appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem and directed them to go to Galilee and wait for him in the mountain where they would meet him. Galilee is not a sacred place but a place of secular, humdrum and ordinary human activity. The disciples, unable to wait for Jesus’ appearance in the Galilees of their daily life, became bored and decided to go back to fishing, an occupation that they knew very well. When Peter says, “I am going fishing”, we can sense defeat, dejection and resignation. They failed to realise that they could bear fruit only when they stay connected with Jesus. They fished all night but caught nothing.

Jesus once told them, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15: 5). We cannot be satisfied with a one-time encounter with the living Jesus; we need to have a continual experience of his presence and fellowship. This story represents the story of the church. Though it had come into being after having an encounter with the risen Jesus, we, as a community of disciples, as the church, have failed to live in continual experience of him and bear witness to his transforming power. Hence, we have become barren and fruitless. The disciples fished all night, but caught nothing. Is this not our story as a church and as individual Christians?

Fishing is symbolic of the missionary work of the church; Jesus recruited the disciples and turned them into ‘fishers of men’. But now we find them a community that has lost this sense of mission. But Jesus has not given up on them; he follows them to the sea shore. Unrecognized, Jesus comes to their side. “Children, have you any fish?” (Jn 21:4) All his concern and love for them are found in these words: “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.”

There are times when darkness descends on our life; when failure depresses us; when we no longer have courage or strength. Even though our eyes do not see, even though we do not recognize him, even though we see only darkness around us: he is standing at the shore of our life, deeply caring for us. Christ is near us, even when doubts and dejection torture us. He stands at the shore commanding us to cast the net to the right side of the boat, promising us a big catch.

The disciples did; they had such a big catch that they were unable to haul the net in. “Apart from me you can do nothing”; but with him, all things are possible to us. John, who had experienced this abundance of blessing at the beginning of their ministry during a similar fishing expedition, remembered how Jesus intervened to give them a similar catch of fish. He recognised Jesus and announced that the stranger in their midst is none other than Jesus Himself.

Peter reacted to this revelation as he had done when he was called almost three and a half years ago. At the time, he said to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man”. He acknowledged his sinfulness and state of estrangement from God. He repeats the same here also, but not with words but by his action: “As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, ‘It is the Lord,’ he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.” (Jn 21: 7) He realised that he was naked. In the intimacy of companionship, one does not feel one’s nakedness. But, when the intimacy is lost, we become conscious of our nakedness. This is what happened to our grandparents, Adam and Eve; after eating the forbidden fruit, when God called out to them, they felt their nakedness and hid themselves.

Now, Peter also experiences it. He realises that he is naked. But Jesus is standing on the shore inviting them to the intimacy of a table fellowship. Jesus is already there with a hot breakfast, another sign of his grace and provision: “When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread (John 21: 9).” But Jesus, truly reflecting the characteristic style of his ministry, did not want this to be a one-man show. Jesus invites them: “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” The disciples shared their catch of fish with Christ. They had the joy of not only an abundant catch of fish, a mission accomplished, but also the joy of having the intimacy of sharing a breakfast, a meal, with Jesus.

Jesus needed the five loaves of bread and two fishes from the disciples to feed the five thousand. Are we ready to bring the labours of our hands to the table? In a similar appearance in Luke’s gospel, the last appearance cited in the gospel, Jesus asks the disciples “Have you anything to eat?” (Lk 24: 41) Jesus invites us into a relationship of mutuality and not that of one-upmanship. The words of the institution of the Lord’s Supper echo in the words at this breakfast table as much as we heard it during the feeding of the five thousand: “He took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish”.

Mission is the joyous experience of fishing for people in the company of Jesus Christ: in his continuing, living and nourishing presence, and friendship. Jesus makes his presence felt in these table fellowships; the disciples recognise him in the breaking of the bread. He is both a host and a guest at these meal fellowships that the church celebrates every time they come together. Without Jesus, we can do nothing. While he is already there for us, it is important that we offer ourselves to him; we read in Revelation 3: 20: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”

The Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, is meant to continue and renew the transforming presence and friendship of the living and risen Christ and to offer ourselves for his mission of ‘fishing’ for people in Christ’s style in the world. We would definitely be for a big catch if we let him command us and direct us and be with us in our boats, if we have fellowship with him. A one-time encounter with the risen Lord is not enough; we need a continuing indwelling in him and experience of his living presence and transforming friendship.

What is it to be a witness? A witness is one who can give a testimony or evidence or proof of an event. As Christians we cannot escape the responsibility to provide evidence to the resurrection of Jesus and the fact that Jesus is alive and active in the world. How can we do that? How did the early Christians witness to the resurrection of Christ?

One instance of witnessing, closer to the resurrection of Christ, is found in Acts Chapters 3 and 4. Peter and John met a man who was lame from birth. They made him stand up, walk and enjoy all the privileges of a healthy person, particularly the privilege of worshiping God in the temple. It was an act resembling what Jesus had been doing in the world, an act of liberation, of making people whole, of establishing God’s rule. People who were astonished at this act came running to Peter and John. Peter explained to them what had happened. He said to them:

Peter made it unambiguously clear that this lame man now walked not because of their power, but by the power of God that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. That power is still available to make the lame walk, to make the blind see, to feed the hungry, to cleanse the leper and to give light to those who sit in darkness. By this act of healing, Peter and John testified to the power of the resurrection and the active presence of Christ in the world. We as followers of Christ can bear witness to the risen and living Christ only by continuing the healing, liberating, exorcizing and making ‘whole’ work of Christ in the world. The power of the resurrection was available to them; the same power is available to us today. But, are we prepared to commit our lives to be controlled by the resurrection order of existence? It is possible only when we remain connected to the life of the crucified and risen Jesus.

If the disciples continued the activity Jesus began, then they also would face the same persecution as Jesus did, from the same forces in the world. In this instance, Peter and John had to face the wrath of the same Sanhedrin that arrested Jesus; they were questioned by the rulers, the elders, the teachers of the law, Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family: members of the Sanhedrin (Acts 4: 5-6). They were asked to reveal the power by which they had made this lame man walk. “By what power or what name did you do this?” “Who put you in charge here? What business do you have doing this?” (Acts 4: 7) In Peter’s reply, we find a reiteration of the same witness:

How can we witness to the risen Jesus today? We must be able to directly confront the death dealing forces in the world and proclaim courageously that they have no dominion over us. Second, we must be able to demonstrate to the world that we, by our cruciform existence, would make available the power of the risen Christ to heal and to save: to liberate the world from the evil one. Third, we will not submit to any authority other than that of Christ. Our obedience will only be to Christ, and the worldly rulers will have only a relative claim over us.

It is interesting to note the reactions of those who listened to Peter and John as found in Acts of the Apostles: “They couldn’t take their eyes off them; Peter and John standing there so confident, so sure of themselves! Their fascination deepened when they realised these two were laymen with no training in Scripture or formal education. They recognised them as companions of Jesus” (Acts 4: 13-14) Will the world today recognise us as companions of Jesus Christ? Remember that it was their courage that made them become a witness to the risen Christ.

Then, they tried to silence them with threats. They commanded them not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus. But, these threats also did not work; they replied: “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judge! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-22) Our ultimate allegiance and obedience is to God incarnated in the person of Christ. All other allegiances and obedience have only relative claims on us. That is what we want to tell to our bishops and all those who glibly talk of ecclesiastical obedience.

Jesus has risen; death cannot hold him back; his ministry of redemption continues. But can we be its witnesses? The church, by continuing its work of liberation in the face of death dealing forces, by its commitment to be active proponents of life, must show that death has failed to hold him back and that his work continues. Even when death is a reality, we authenticate our witness to the risen Christ through the courage to affirm life, to resist death-dealing forces, and to face martyrdom with joy. Last of all, even when the worldly rulers threaten us and demand our obedience, can we give our total allegiance and obedience to Christ and his kingdom? Jesus is Lord and we cannot under any circumstance acknowledge Caesar or any other worldly ruler as our Lord. It is in this unwavering commitment and obedience, in the context of the worldly rulers claiming our obedience, that we can bear authentic witness to the risen Christ.

The empty tomb did not give the disciples any hope; it only left them despondent and dejected. All the gospels attest to this fact. Mark’s gospel is more explicit and forthright in expressing this reality: “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid”.

It was the appearances of Jesus that lifted them out of their despondency and dejection. Matthew, Luke and John narrate many instances of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples; Jesus met Mary Magdalene incognito and later she recognized him (Jn 20: 11-18); he appeared to the disciples when they were “together, locked for fear of the Jews” (Jn 20: 24-29); “Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord”. (Jn 20: 19-21) As seen in the previous meditation, Jesus encountered Thomas who required a very direct experience of the crucified and risen Lord and invited him to have a very tactile experience of the wounds on the hands and the side of Jesus. (Jn 20: 24-29)

The risen Lord confronted Simon Peter, Thomas, also known as Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples by the sea of Galilee as they returned in desperation to their original means of livelihood, fishing. (Jn 21: 1-19) Forgetting the mandate given to them by Jesus, to be ‘fishers of men’, they had returned to their original occupation of fishing; much like what our churches have become, today.

Even Paul, who was not recognized as an apostle, as per the traditions of the time, since he had never met Jesus during his life on the earth, claimed to have an appearance of the risen Jesus, therein privileging him to be an apostle of Christ too. In the letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes: “Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.” (1 Cor. 15: 7-11)

It was these appearances of Jesus that made the apostles believe in the resurrection of Jesus and transformed them into powerful and courageous witnesses of his living presence in the world. Down the centuries, it was this transformation of the timid, fearful and depressed disciples into courageous and joyful witnesses of the gospel that made the world stand up and acknowledge the reality of Jesus’ resurrection.

Among the many appearances of the resurrected Jesus, as found in Luke 24: 13-35 and Acts Ch. 9, this meditation reflects on two instances of Jesus appearing to the disciples: one was Jesus’ appearance to the two disciples who were on their way to Emmaus; the other was Jesus’ appearance to Saul, transforming him to Paul, many months later. The transformation that this experience brought into the lives of these disciples and in the life of Saul both, confirms the resurrection of Jesus and His living presence in our midst.

This encounter with the living and risen Jesus, who follows very closely in our walks to Emmaus, can happen only if we become blind to the world and its ways, and get a new sight or vision. In the Gospel of Luke, we are told: “As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.” (24: 15)

They were blind to the presence of Christ who walked with them on their long road to Emmaus. This tells us something about the nature of God’s presence in our midst.

The nature of the transformation, in the lives of the disciples, was one of re-orientation in sight or perception. They were given a radically different understanding of the crucifixion of Jesus, which for them was the tragic end to a good life and to the expectations of a people for liberation. As one of them said, “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.” (Lk 24: 19-21)

Their story was one of shattered expectations, hopes and dreams. What they had heard of the empty tomb was not at all convincing to them. They were overwhelmed by a sense of defeat; they could not appreciate the beauty and the glory of the cross.

Walking beside them, Jesus interpreted the scriptures and gave them a new sight, a new perspective on the cross: “Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (Lk 24: 26) He made it clear to them that the crucifixion and suffering of Jesus was not a sign of defeat but, of victory and a means to the glorification of the son of man.

We, as individual Christians and as churches are blinded by “the god of this age.” Paul writes to the Corinthians: “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Cor 4: 4)

Further, Paul points out that this glory is manifested in the cross of Christ. However, we are bewitched not to find this glory and beauty in the cross. “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.” (Gal 3: 1)

Paul in conclusion to the Letter to the Galatians, states: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Gal 6: 14) This is the sight we need and pray for.

We see a similar transformation in the form of a new sight regarding one’s calling and mission in the narrative on Saul’s encounter with the living Jesus. An encounter with the living Jesus blinded Saul. We read, “but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything”. (Acts 9: 7-8)

This is followed by Ananias’ visit to him and his laying his hands on Saul: the immediate consequence was that “immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.” (Acts. 9: 18)

This encounter made him realize “how much he must suffer” for Christ’s name. Here again, we find a radical transformation which changes his identity from Saul to that of Paul, and a new understanding of his mission as that of suffering for Christ’s name.

“I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” (Acts 9: 16)

On the walk to Emmaus, the disciples’ recognition of Jesus was made possible by the interpretation of the scriptures by Jesus; we read: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Lk 24: 27)

Later on, we read about what the disciples had to say in retrospect about this interpretation by Jesus: “They asked each other, were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Lk 24: 32)

The role of the church today is to interpret the scriptures to the people and make the presence of the crucified and risen Christ real and contemporary in the midst of our struggles and despondency, and therein, fulfil the mission of Christ in the world. It is this task that is expected of the ordained ministers of the Church. Today we have several readings and interpretations; the fact is that most of these interpretations are made through the prism of God as power and as a source of wealth, success and prosperity.

Paul alludes to this sort of interpretation in his second letter to Timothy: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Tim 4: 3-4)

Instead of making a myth out of Christ’s death and resurrection, what is needed is an interpretation of the scriptures that is made within the perspective of the cross and the suffering of Christ. The whole of the scriptures points to this aspect of God as love and its realization in history on the cross of Christ. It is to suffer for the sake of Christ or the humanity represented in Him; it is to be responsible for the other - God, humanity and the creation.

Then, we find Jesus having table fellowship with the disciples who were travelling to Emmaus. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.

It is in the intimacy of sharing, thanksgiving, and a sacrificial offering of oneself for the other, for the common good, that Jesus became recognizable. A new community is formed in the fellowship of sharing the broken body of Christ and in offering one’s body to be broken for the other. It is in this fellowship and sacrificial offering (Mass/Kurbana) that Christ becomes recognizable to the disciples.

A new community, a new ecclesia, is formed wherever we come together to “break bread”; and it is through this act that Christ becomes recognizable to us and the world.

Thus, with a new sense of mission, we are recruited into a new community that takes on the role of Christ and his suffering for a world that is badly in need of healing and wholeness. The crucified and risen Christ continues his mission of liberation in and through the cruciform existence of this community.

However, he waits to be invited to our table fellowship; he does not storm into our life uninvited. He eagerly waits for our invitation. That is beautifully expressed in Luke Ch. 14: 28, “As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther.”

God respects our free will even when we move away from Him and strive to edge him out of our life and on to the cross. Yet, He still pursues us. It is this commitment that is embodied in the cross of Christ.

In Revelations we read, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” (3: 20) Will we open the doors of our life and those of our community?

The encounter with the crucified and risen Lord creates a new way of life, a new way of being in the world, a new community, which embodies the values of the cross with a new appreciation for its beauty and power. This reorganized perception and new sight is a gift from God. It is this that we should seek and ask for: a new sight that helps us to see the beauty in the cross of Christ.

Jesus Christ is risen! Halleluiah! Yes he is risen indeed!

There is a story about a pastor who took his pastoral responsibility very seriously. He would move around everywhere, seeking his lost sheep. Once, he entered a pub and found three men sitting at the bar. He asked the first, “Do you want to go to heaven?” The man said, “yes”. The priest said, “Then go stand against the wall.” He asked the second if he wanted to go to heaven. The man said, “yes”, and the priest told him also to stand against the wall. He asked the third, “And you, do you want to go to heaven?” The man said, “no.” The priest was taken aback; he asked, “What? When you die, you don’t want to go to heaven?” The man said, “Well, yes, when I die. But I thought you were getting a group to go right now!” Many of us are like this third person in the story. We want to go to heaven when we die, not today.

What is the resurrection of Christ all about? What is Easter all about? Has it got any significance in the here and now, whilst we live on this earth? Or is it significant only after our death? The resurrection of Christ is not about a heaven after our death, but it is about living a life victorious over sin and death. What are the implications of Christ’s resurrection for our life in the world, here and now?

First, it assures us that it is not all over yet. We are living in a world of sin and death. Satan and the princes of this world seem to have their free reign over this world; they seem to trample upon human lives and God’s beautiful creation. We feel hemmed in, unable to make any headway, lost and surrounded. The resurrection announces that they do not have the final say; the final say is for Christ and his people; it is for God’s kingdom.

God, by raising Jesus, His son, from death, has unleashed the forces of a new life that works toward peace, justice and fullness of life. We have been given victory over sin and death. We read in 1 Peter 1: 3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” We are filled with a living hope. It is not all over yet.

In a world of sorrow, pain and ultimately death, it is not over yet. Easter is indeed a forceful reminder that the human spirit cannot be confined. It does not deny the reality of death, but it offers us an assurance that death or death dealing forces do not have the final word.

With the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the earth has been shaken up, the new rule of God has been proclaimed, so that despite appearances, the world is in fact a different place, full of new possibilities, previously unimagined.

Paul explains in his letter to the Colossians the reality of being raised with Christ: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (3: 1-4) Even whilst we are on this earth, we can be part of this resurrection order of existence, we are given this experience of being raised with Christ, so that our minds and hearts are set not on earthly things, but on things that are above. We are controlled and guided by heaven; our citizenship is in heaven.

Second, resurrection provides us with a new meaning for our life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Letters and Papers from Prison, wrote about the meaning of Easter: “Good Friday and Easter free us to think about other things far beyond our own personal fate, about the ultimate meaning of all life, suffering, and events; and we lay hold of a great hope.” Life has a purpose and meaning beyond our personal successes and failures; God has a plan for us and His creation.

It may involve privations and disappointments, but whatever the cost, it will be worth it. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Eternal life begins now. “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” We are part of a new reality, new life in Christ. Whilst in that horrible prison, Bonhoeffer wrote: “As I see it, I am here for some purpose and I only hope I may fulfil it. In light of the great purpose, all our privations and disappointments are trivial.” Life takes on a new meaning.

Without this meaningfulness, we are as good as dead. Death is not physical cessation of breath, but it is a state of having no meaning or purpose for living. If you are possessed with this understanding, death ceases to have any control over our life.

Hence, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he writes, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (15: 55-57)

The sting of death is our fear of death. It is fear of death that causes us to hold on to life and become selfish; it causes us to be forgetful of and indifferent to the sufferings of others; we try to secure our life in panic by hoarding and accumulating. We move away from our God-given destiny; that is sin. But ultimate meaningfulness of life, which enabled Christ to declare on the cross, “it is finished”, drives away all fear of death; and death’s sting has been taken away, and we can now live a life victorious over sin and death.

That is the experience of eternal life. That is the experience of true freedom.

Lastly, the resurrection of Jesus provides us with the assurance that the way of the cross is the true path to all human and cosmic quest for liberation. We tend to think that the cross was a temporary defeat and that the resurrection was the real moment of victory. But, the cross was the victory and the resurrection was merely the visible proof and public vindication of the victory on the cross.

Resurrection does not do away with the cross; rather, it affirms that the way of the cross, the way of suffering love, the way of being responsible for one’s fellow human beings and creation, is the most legitimate way for living meaningful lives, for solving the problems of this world and for the liberation of this world. God, by raising Jesus from the dead, has given his stamp of approval to the way that His Son, Jesus Christ, has opted for, a way of dying to give life.

Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” The Cross embodies this way, the way of dying to give life to others. It is a very costly way; it is not the way of miracles. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed... but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” (1 Pet 1: 18-19).

Jesus did not shy away from any situation of human disfigurement and disintegration of life. Jesus acted in responsibility to his fellow humans and the earth; he refused to budge before the death dealing forces of his time, be it religion, culture or politics.

In this, he remained resolutely in solidarity with the poor, those who were pushed to the margins of our society. He brought them wholeness and healing. In short, “he took up our pain and bore our suffering”; he showed us love in action, not love in the abstract. This style of life, way of life, made the cross inevitable.

The cross remains as the embodiment of the power of love and its victory over all that disfigures God’s beautiful creation. The Resurrection of Christ is God’s way of declaring the way of the cross as the only way to liberate this world. This message is powerfully encapsulated in the poem/hymn written by James R Lowell, titled ‘Once to Every Man and Nation’. The last stanza concludes as follows:

Though the cause of evil prosper, Yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own

“Yet that scaffold sways the future” – Yes, the Resurrection bears witness to it. Succeeding generations of Christians bore witness to it and even faced the gallows singing praises to God. And we, who are given the privilege to be part of this resurrection faith, are called to bear witness to this reality and experience its power to transform the world.

Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Lk 23: 46)

Jesus’ words from the Cross began with prayer and also ended with prayer. Both prayers began by addressing God as “Father”, in the most endearing way in which one would address one’s father. Even at the moment of an ignominious death as that of crucifixion, when one’s experience would be that of God-forsakenness, Jesus affirms his intimacy with his heavenly Father.

For Jesus, prayer was an occasion in which he attuned himself to the will of his heavenly Father. This verse manifests the supreme expression of spiritual trust, victory and peace. Jesus was, in fact, at this moment of extreme suffering, reciting verses from a Psalm that his mother might have taught him to pray before going to bed. “Into your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.”(31: 5)

Jesus remains in control to the end, and it is he who handed over his spirit to his father. The first prayer from the Cross was one of forgiveness; the last prayer was an expression of spiritual trust and peace. Jesus ends his life with a victory that is complete and a peace that is indestructible. Jesus dies with full consciousness earnestly commending himself to the father.

As someone once said, “What we are witnessing as we stand before the crucified Christ is not death, but life – life so vividly and intensely alive that it meets death and goes down into nothingness.” Death is swallowed up in victory. To be alive is to be aware of what others have failed to notice; to be alive is to see ordinary things in an extraordinary way; to be alive is to be sensitive to new truths, to respond flexibly to unforeseen demands.

Jesus was alive; he was alive to the end, till his death. Jesus was alive to the dehumanizing forces around him; he was alive to the suffering of people around him; he was alive to the working of God in the midst of the imperfections, depravity and disfigurement. He turned them as occasions to glorify God, to announce the rule of God. He lived in complete responsibility to God and fellow human beings and the world. Will we be able to lead such a life as this?

Such a word as this can come only from a person who had lived his life to its fullness. What makes death so threatening and fearful is the feeling that one has not lived one’s life to its fullness; life is yet to be lived; we need a tomorrow to live it in its fullness. So we yearn for a tomorrow; we cling on to life with tenacity. We cling on to wealth, possessions, work, status and positions in life – things that can only provide a semblance of life.

On the Cross, Jesus unravels the secret of true aliveness and the true joy of life. The secret of true aliveness is to be able to lose one’s life to gain it, to give one’s life to eternity. “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (Jn 12: 25)

“This was the first prayer that every Jewish mother would teach her child to say last at night. Even on the Cross Jesus died like a child falling asleep in his father’s arms.” (William Barclay) The use of this prayer fits the evening of life as it does the evening before sleep, sleep being regarded as the threshold of death. Our sleep and rest each night should be a preparation for our final rest. If the faith, victory, aliveness, peace and self-fulfilment that are manifested in this prayer be ours both in our life and death, we must also be imbued with the same sense of mission, commitment and faith that Jesus Christ had in his heavenly Father.

Our death as much as our life should be a witness to our life in Christ. After the last word from the Cross, we read in Luke’s gospel that he breathed his last. The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said: “Surely this was a righteous man.”

In the Gospel of Mark, the evangelist gives more emphasis to how Jesus died: “And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God!’” There was dignity, majesty, beauty and love in such abundance in the way Jesus died on the Cross that the Roman Centurion could not restrain himself from praising God and confessing that Jesus was the Son of God, a man sent from/of God. This is a testimony by a gentile officer that will reverberate through history to one who was crucified as an accursed criminal by the rulers and nobility of his time.

~ Prayer ~

O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, who at the ninth hour of the day, with outstretched arms and bowed head, did commend your Spirit to God your Father, and by your death unlock the gates of paradise, mercifully grant us that in our life and death, we may be found worthy witnesses to your Lordship and thus, enter into your eternal rest that you have promised to us in Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit world without end.

Amen.

Photo by Jędrzej Koralewski

Jesus in Solidarity with God and God’s Mission

When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished”. (Jn19: 30)

The next two words were spoken after the darkness, and that too, in solidarity with his Father’s mission. Jesus had the comfort of a mission accomplished. Jesus repeatedly made it clear to his friends and disciples that his food (ultimate concern) is to do the will of his heavenly Father (Jn 4:34) and that he has to do the works of Him who sent him while it is day. (Jn. 9: 4) Even as a twelve year old boy, Jesus made it clear to his parents that he has to be in his Father’s business. (Lk. 2: 49) Jesus, in what is known as the high priestly prayer, affirms, “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.” (Jn. 17: 4) Jesus turns what apparently is a moment of total failure into an occasion for proclaiming the accomplishment of the ministry that God had entrusted him; ultimately we find Jesus as the victor and the world and the people who had crucified him as judged and condemned. This is what is reflected in the word from the Cross, “It is finished”.

Crucifixion was not the end of Jesus’ life, but it was the accomplishment of his mission. As some have said, “Now the world is judged; Now the victory won; Now the kingdom established; The world thought it was judging Christ; Pilate thought so and Caiaphas; But as we look back we see him as the judge and them as condemned criminals.” Jesus said, “Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.” James R Lowell in his famous hymn wrote:

“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.”

Then he goes on,

“Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.”

“Yet that scaffold sways the future.” This is our conviction and hope. The crucifixion was not something that happened to Christ. It was the result of his unflinching determination and decision not to cow down to the pressures and designs of a world that was organized against God and to commit himself to work for the accomplishment of God’s purpose in his life and for the world. If we wish to have this sense of self-fulfilment, self-actualization, we must also be able to make the same kind of decisions and follow the same kind of life-style that we find exemplified on the Cross of Christ. We should find our niche in the larger plan of God for the world, whether it is as an engineer, doctor, teacher, lawyer, business man or woman, social worker, activist or home maker. We must turn our routine and every day chores into vocations, activities to which God has called us.

When we strive to fulfil God’s will and purpose in our respective vocations of life to which God has called us, the Cross would become inevitable. Doing God’s will in a world that is opposed to God and His mission is to invite crucifixion.

Are we ready to take up our cross and follow Jesus? If we do that, we are also promised victory through the cross. Only those who live a cruciform existence in the world can give up their life with this sense of accomplishment and victory.

It is in union with this sort of a life that Paul stated in the second letter to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness.” (4: 7-8) This sort of a statement can come only from people who have a sense of mission and calling. While we claim to be Christians, do we have this sense of calling and mission? We encourage our children to make use of all available opportunities to make money and climb up the ladder of success in terms of wealth, position and power, then follow a self-serving piety and religiosity that would add to their respectability.

After this cry, we read, “With this Jesus bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”(19: 30) Nobody had taken Jesus’ life, but he gave it up. Jesus had made it clear several times: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” (John 10: 18) Jesus reveals the secret of true aliveness, true fulfilment. “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”(Mark 8: 35) Jesus further observes, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12: 24-25).

This cry of victory demonstrates the true nature and meaning of what we glibly refer to as faith. Faith is not just to affirm that God exists. Nor is it to affirm that God can deliver whatever we ask of God in full conviction. In the Book of James it is stated, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.” (2: 19) The Christian understanding of faith is that God has a purpose in the creation of the world.

God is continually working to move the world and history to that future and that purpose. No force in this world can deter or block the movement of history to that purpose and future promised by God in Jesus Christ. Jesus, his life, crucifixion and resurrection is the down payment, guarantee, the first fruit of this new world, new future. Hence, in Hebrews, we read, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb 11: 1) Pioneers of faith described in Hebrews Chapter 11 are those who “looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

They staked their life for that future and that promise. God wants us to cooperate with Him to work for the realization of His purpose in the world. It is very much a historical project. It is in cooperating with God and working for the realisation of this project of God, this future promised by God that we can actualise our self and find true meaning and fulfilment for our life. Here we see Jesus as our elder brother, the pioneer and perfect example of this faith (12: 1-2); by following him we can find fulfilment for our life and give up our life saying, “It is finished”.

~ Prayer ~

O God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfector of our faith, help us and our successive generations to hear your call and to commit ourselves to accomplishing your purpose in history. Help us to stake our life for the promised city “with foundations whose builder and architect is God” and find our niche in the design of God for the world. Following the example of our Lord, Jesus Christ, enable us to be ready to lose our life for the sake of your kingdom so that we can gain our life and find actualization and fulfilment in our life. And at the end of our life, help us to give up our spirit with a sense of accomplishment and thus meet to be partakers of your heavenly joy. We ask this in the name of the one who suffered and gave himself for us.

Amen

Photo by Piotr Arnoldes

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the Scripture), “I thirst.” (Jn 19: 28)

The fifth word from the Cross, “I thirst”, uttered during darkness, manifests Jesus’ perfect humanity with all its vulnerability. Jesus had no easy way to fulfil God’s will on this earth. He had to directly confront the forces of evil.

In this mission, he had to go through doubt, loneliness and darkness. He felt that even God had forsaken him. He suffered physical agony in its depth. He did not try to hide his vulnerability and physical needs. He cries out like any other human being and asks for the consolation of a little water that would ease his pain and suffering.

It is unfortunate that as a Christian community we have failed to recognize the humanity of Christ and the hope that his perfect humanity provides for us. The gospels take pains to affirm his humanity and to affirm that Jesus also had all the physical needs and temptations that any human being would have. Jesus was hungry (Mt 11: 12); Jesus became angry (Mk 3: 5, 10: 14, Mt 21: 12-13); Jesus was tired and thirsty (Jn 4: 6-7); Jesus wept (Jn 11: 35); Jesus yearned for affirmation and friendship; Jesus was deeply distressed and troubled; he was overwhelmed with sorrow (Mk 14: 32-38).

It is Jesus’ perfect humanity that makes him the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. (Heb 12: 2)

As the Book of Hebrews affirm, Jesus is our elder brother, the firstborn in the family of God: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death…” (Heb 2: 14) The book of Hebrews further affirms, “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Heb 2: 17-18)

It is in this vein that the Church fathers affirmed that Jesus’ perfect divinity was in his perfect humanity. We cannot become God, we can only become perfect human beings; Jesus being its perfect model, we can follow him and model him; Jesus is the prototype of the new humanity. Unfortunately, we are more interested in making him our cult deity and worshipping him rather than following him by taking up our crosses.

Today, Jesus has more worshippers than followers.

It is important that we acknowledge our needs; they are not to be despised. Jesus enjoyed participating in feasts, whoever might be his hosts. Jesus was in fact abused by the religious leadership as “a glutton and a drunkard” (Mt 11: 19; Lk 7: 34). However, Jesus raised our basic human needs to a more sacred and sublime level of celebrating God’s gifts and also creating communities of love and fellowship. The central act of Christian worship, remembering of Christ, and Christian commitment is a feast, a matter of eating and drinking, but it was turned into a sublime occasion of thanksgiving, self-giving, loving, caring and sharing and building community. Of course, equally, there is the possibility of food and drink being used for self-indulgence.

Extending this theme further, the Apostle Paul states in 1 Timothy about those whose “consciences are seared with a hot iron” and continues: “They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer.” (4: 1-4)

Through this word from the Cross, Jesus comes to us with all his vulnerabilities and seeks entry into our lives. Most of us prefer to hide our vulnerabilities and put up a brave front; we often put up an image of self-sufficiency and self-confidence which make relationships difficult. But Jesus opens up his needs, even physical needs, as a point of entry into the life of others to establish a transforming friendship. The story of the transformation of the Samaritan woman is a case in point. Jesus approaches her with one of the most basic needs of any living organism, water. “Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (Jn 4: 6-7)

Imagine the source of “living water” folding his hands to create something like a bowl and to take on a beggar’s posture to receive water from the Samaritan woman. He begs, “Give me a drink”. Jesus was exposing his vulnerability before this woman as a means of establishing an intimate relationship with her. In fact, we know that this relationship had become extremely therapeutic that she opened up her life and its vagaries before Jesus. It became a transforming encounter.

The cry, I thirst, still resounds in our ears as representing the yearning of Jesus for our friendship and our transformation. We should also take on this posture if we have to enter into a transforming relationship with others and become channels of the “living water”. The cry represents Christ’s ardent desire to receive the love of human hearts and to fill those same hearts with divine charity; it is a sublime and spiritual invitation to love.

Jesus has come down to the depth of human depravity and hence, the cry from the Cross for a little water to quench his thirst. Jesus here represents those who are denied the basic needs of life; he represents the hungry and the thirsty. Many basic needs of a large section of people in this world remain unmet, not because of lack of resources, but because of unequal distribution and access to resources. This is the manifestation of a sinful world. Jesus enters into the depth of this human deprivation and hence, the cry, “I Thirst”.

Our response to this cry would finally be taken up in the Last Judgement. We would hear him say, “I was thirsty and you gave me something/nothing to drink… Truly I tell you, whatever you did/did not do for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did/ did not do for me.” (Matt. 25: 35-46)

Water is increasingly becoming a rare commodity, which only the rich can afford. In the Bible, water is depicted as the source of life. In John 4: 10-15, in the conversation that Jesus had with the Samaritan woman at the well, he speaks metaphorically of the life he promises to all who turn to him for “living water” and as “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus further points out in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”(Mt. 5:7) Righteousness is a state of right relationship with God, fellow human beings and the rest of creation. Jesus’ thirst was always to restore right relationships, to heal broken lives and to bring wholeness to humanity and the rest of creation. That is represented in the prayer that he taught us, “Thy Kingdom come” and “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.

Deep within all of us is a thirst that transcends the physical ones. It can be for love or to be loved; it can be for meaning and fulfilment. This is represented by the Psalmist, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.”(42. 1) Ultimately, Jesus in this cry represents to God, his heavenly Father, the anguish of all humanity for restoration of right relationships – shalom.

Jesus did not try to hide his humanity and his vulnerability before the Samaritan woman, “Will you give me a drink?” Jesus went through all the privations of humanity. However, through this exposure of his own vulnerability, Jesus was trying to establish a relationship of intimacy with this woman so that she would take the freedom and courage to open herself up to Jesus. She was not just an ordinary woman; she was a woman with a lots of critical questions; she had deep within her psyche a longing for living water. She was used and abused by men and finally left to fend for herself. Jesus, by opening up his vulnerability, by his unconditional positive regard, transforms her into recognizing the long awaited messiah in Jesus and becoming the first woman evangelist and credible witness of Jesus Christ. When Jesus cried, “I thirst”, he was expressing his deepest desire for the deepest intimacy with all of humanity, all of us.

In response to this cry, they (probably the soldiers) held a sponge full of vinegar on a hyssop to his lips and he received it. (Jn 19: 29) Jesus accepts the harshly sour vinegar; and in that acceptance, he bears the bitter consequence of our sin and gives up his life. This is divine love. And this divine love thirsts for our return and our love.

How will you respond to this divine yearning today, “I Thirst”?

~ Prayer ~

O God, you shared our humanity in the person of Christ; you suffered all our wants; you took upon yourself the thirst of humanity disfigured by our own sinfulness. Despite the fact that you are the source of living water, you chose to become one of us who, in the height of suffering and loneliness, cries out in thirst; finally you succumbed to drinking the bitter vinegar of human sinfulness. Help us to realise that you thirst for our salvation and our peace and our right relationships in the world. Help us also to recognize our real thirst and to find it quenched by following your, son our Lord, Jesus Christ who totally abandoned himself for us in love.

Amen

Jesus in Solidarity with Himself

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) (Matt 27: 45-46, Mk 15:33-34)

This cry from the Cross, emanating from tremendous mental anguish, reveals the perfect humanity of Jesus Christ. This and the next word from the Cross were spoken during the darkness that came over all the land; they were spoken in solidarity with himself from the depth of his suffering.

God, in Jesus Christ, identifies himself with the humanity, in all its brokenness and suffering. All human beings, at one time or the other, would have asked this question, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” This is in fact a quote from Psalm 22: 1. What is being addressed is the question of human suffering, and more than that, the suffering of the just and righteous. Anyone who is committed to doing God’s will in history and taking responsibility for the world and fellow human beings, will go through the same kind of anguish. In fulfilling God’s mission, Jesus passes through disappointment, doubt, loneliness, and the darkest valley; he goes through the experience that God has forsaken him. He experiences the chasm that exists between God and humanity; he stands in the breach and cries: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ezek 22: 30; Is 59: 16)

Even in this suffering, Jesus does not deny his Father, God. Jesus enters with all humankind into the depth of God-forsakenness and asks for the meaning of his suffering. Much of the suffering in our world has no explanation. It is not God’s will that we should suffer. It is commonplace to talk of many adversities of life – separation, death, sickness, sorrow – as God’s will. They are existential realities; but they cannot be described as God’s will. God created the best possible world and gave it to us to manage. But when, as human beings, we play God and disturb God’s order in creation, suffering and death will ensue. The wages of sin is death. There is nothing much God can do about it except to suffer with us and to share in our suffering. This verse affirms that God is with us in our suffering, even when we are left with the feeling of God-forsakenness.

Elie Wiesel, the Romanian born Jewish-American writer and Nobel Prize winner, describes an incident in a Nazi concentration camp. In the incident, two adults and a little boy were being led to the gallows. The little boy had refused to betray fellow inmates who were involved in an act of sabotage and sentenced to death. In his famous work Night (1960), Wiesel narrates the incident as follows:

“The three victims mounted together onto the chairs. The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses. ‘Long live Liberty!’ cried the adults. But the child was silent. ‘Where is God? Where is He?’ someone behind me asked. At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over. Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting.

The two adults were no longer alive. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive. For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet glazed. Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is He? — He is hanging here on this gallows.”

The description of this incident by Elie Wiesel subsequently influenced many Christian Theologians to link Crucifixion and the Holocaust, and to affirm the nature of God’s presence with us, in our history, beset by human sinfulness.

The nature and form of God’s presence in our life and history is being revealed in this cry of total helplessness and God-forsakenness. In the religiously organized Christianity, it is common to attribute superhuman power to Jesus and to attempt to use it to one’s own advantage. The temptations that Jesus had to face at the beginning of his ministry were specifically related to how he could fulfil the mission entrusted to him by his Heavenly Father. J. C. Fenton expresses this dilemma:

“Hands so swift to heal and bless,Feet so ready to speed from city to city,He saved othersWhy not use the same strength?”

This was the question that the Roman soldiers and one of the criminals who were crucified with Jesus disdainfully raised to Jesus on the Cross: “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself” (Lk 23: 37); “Are You not the Christ?” he asked. Save Yourself and us!” (Lk: 23: 39); “He saved others, but He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel! Let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him.” (Matt. 27:42) It was Jesus’ wilful choice to follow the way of the Cross; the way of suffering love, the way of the suffering servant. Matthew, quoting from Isaiah 53, describes Jesus’ ministry of healing, which we would like to picture as miracles, as that of the suffering servant:

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Is 53: 4-5; Matt 8: 16-17)

The following words of Bonhoeffer illustrate this amply: “God would have us know that we must live as humans who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mk. 15:34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world and onto the Cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.” (Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, July 16, 1944)

It was conclusively affirmed that there are no easy ways to carry our crosses. There are no easy solutions to the riddles of history and the problems of the world. We must be prepared to take the responsibility for this world and history; history is the realm of human decisions and actions. Miracle is not a historical category and it is a category in the realm of fantasy and magic. Even when we reject God and edge God out of the world and on to the Cross and invite suffering for ourselves, God can only stand aside and watch and, like a mother or father, in suffering love, yearn for our return to wholeness and peace. That is the form of God’s presence with us and in the world. Every Christian is called upon to be a similar presence in history. That is to live a cruciform existence in the world.

~ Prayer ~

O God, who in your Son had involved in our history and ever in our destiny and suffering, and exposed to the risk of rejection and went through the experience of God-forsakenness, help us, following your example, to stand in the breach with you, and take responsibility for the suffering and pain caused by our arrogance, pride and selfishness and thus become part of the history of your redeeming love. Help us to put our trust, not in your omnipotence, but in your suffering love for us and the whole world and be witnesses to it wherever we are. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray.

Amen

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (Jn 19: 26-27)

While the crowd mocked and jeered, it is heartening to note there was present at the foot of the Cross those who really cared, especially women: “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”(Jn 19: 25) Again we note that in his last moments on earth, Jesus was concerned, not with his own condition, but with the accomplishment of his mission and with the welfare of those He was leaving behind. He did not go into self-pity, but was concerned about his mother and the disciple whom he loved. Jesus did not devalue his earthly relationships. But he lifted these relationships to a higher plain. Family and human relationships are precious and to be cherished. Jesus, even at this last stage of imminent death, takes responsibility for his mother and the disciple whom he loved. Jesus, by these words, invites us to be responsible and take seriously our obligations and commitments.

However, Jesus binds them into a new relationship of obligation and responsibility that transcend blood relationship and our narrow and parochial loyalties. In these days when our commitments and loyalties are narrowed down selfishly to one’s nuclear family, Jesus’ words to his beloved mother and disciple assume new meaning and significance. In a nuclear family, the husband, wife and children, often limited to one or two, would love and care for each other. But then, their ultimate point of reference becomes their family and the priority becomes enriching and securing that one family unit. In the process, our obligation even to parents and other elders in the family, left without any resources to rely on, is forgotten. It is increasingly becoming an institution in which children learn to be selfish.

In this cultural scenario, this word from the Cross, calls us to extend the boundaries of our family, obligation and responsibility. In Jesus, a new family is created, a family of those who do the will of his heavenly Father. When his mother and brothers tried to have access to him and talk to him in the midst of a crowd that was listening to him, Jesus lifts up the question of family and asks, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” He, then, pointing to his disciples and raises one of the strongest criticisms on our notion of family, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matt 12: 49-50; Mk 3: 32-35). Jesus, on the Cross, lays the foundation for a new and extended family called the Church, a community that submits itself to do the will of Jesus’ Father, whom he taught us to call “Our Father”.

In this word, Jesus champions the cause of orphans, widows and those who suffer without a community to take care of them; the number of people in this category and condition are increasing – the mentally and physically challenged, people who are seeking a half-way home before they become fit to be integrated, battered women, the elderly who are left to fend for themselves, the home-less who seek a family to find love and care. Jesus calls us to a new responsibility and commitment. Will we hear his call for a community, instead of wallowing in our affluence and ritualistic piety? The Cross demands that we ever expand the circle of our love to include more and more of those who otherwise would be left out on the highways and byways of our life.

~ Prayer ~

O God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for adopting us as your children; and extend the boundaries of our family to include all those who are left out in the race of life. Thank you for the new family of the Church; help us never to be an exclusive club but be an inclusive fellowship that broadens the horizon of its responsibility and commitment, not only to our friends and benefactors, but also to all those who are widowed, orphaned and estranged. We pray trusting in your love manifested on the Cross.

Amen

The real significance of the second statement of Christ from the Cross can be understood only in the context of the two criminals who were crucified with Christ and their differing responses. One of the criminals, who was crucified along with Jesus, insults Jesus. He remains unrepentant. Moreover, he thinks of the Messiah only in terms of power and how he can make use of that power for his escape from punishment well-deserved. The question of morality does not influence him and hence, he is not remorseful.

Christianity today has become another religion like any other religion, concerned more about power and its benefit to oneself, than about living a moral life in keeping with gospel values.

The second one, the criminal who was promised entry into paradise, acknowledges the following: 1) “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.” He acknowledges his sinfulness; he is remorseful and repentant. As we sit at the foot of the Cross, we should carefully examine our attitude: whether it is that of the one who insulted Jesus or that of the one who acknowledged his total unworthiness and depravity. 2) He recognised in that crucified, broken, powerless and disfigured human figure the Messiah, the anointed King, the one who could give back his life and his life in all its abundance, his saviour. Hence, he turns to Jesus and requests him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 3) What this criminal asks Jesus is not that he is spared of the suffering on the cross, but that Jesus “remembers” him when He comes into His Kingdom. To remember is to bring something of the past into the present and to make it alive and active. This criminal and his prayer have found a place in the liturgy, especially that of the Eastern Churches.

The word from the Cross was in reply to the request of the repentant criminal: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Firstly, we should note how, even in that situation of extreme agony, Jesus responded to the criminal’s request with such love and urgency. Jesus did not tell him that the experience of paradise would be given to him at a later time; instead, he affirmed that it had become already a reality. He will be given a place in paradise not tomorrow, but today itself. Jesus told Zacchaeus, the tax collector, “Today I must stay at your house”. Secondly, Jesus also affirms that his crucifixion is nothing but his coronation as King. Thirdly, he declares that this criminal also will participate in his royalty.

Paradise originally is a Persian word for a nobleman’s garden. When a Persian king wished to honour somebody, he would make him a companion to walk with him in the garden. He tells the criminal that he will not simply be in Jesus’ retinue but he will be sharing in his royalty. Paradise is not a place but an experience. Heaven is not some place beyond and after, but it is an experience to which Jesus invites us today, in this life and in this world – a new heaven and a new earth. This is marvellous grace. Here is a criminal not fit to live on earth, who was suddenly made fit to live in heaven.

~ Prayer ~

O God, on the Cross of Christ, you manifested the depth of your love for us. When we ask that we be remembered, you offer us a place of honour in your paradise. Help us to be remorseful of our sins and not be found among those who want to manipulate you for their own selfish ends. Help us to see your glory in your abandoning yourself for us in love and taking upon yourself our burdens and sickness; by your brokenness you brought healing to us, by your poverty, you made us rich. Help us to follow this example that we may also share in your glory and be companions with you in your paradise. This prayer is offered trusting in your love that offers us a place of honour with you in paradise.

Amen.

Jesus in Solidarity with the World and Humanity

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Lk 23: 33 & 34)

The first and last words from the Cross begin and end with a prayer. Both address God, “Father”. The first word comes out of utter self-forgetfulness. At a moment of excruciating mental and physical agony, betrayal, and loneliness, there is no shrieking, cursing, or spitting but prayer. At a moment of extreme crisis, as he had been all throughout his life, he enters into a profound communion and fellowship with his Father.

At a time when one would be intensely self-preoccupied, Jesus prays for his enemies, those who crucified him. According to F B Meyer, one of the noted preachers of yesteryears, “in uttering this first cry from the Cross, our Lord entered that work of intercession which he ever lives to continue on our behalf. He thinks, not of himself, but of others; he is occupied, not with his own pain, but with their sins. He makes no threat but instead offers a tender prayer of pleading intercession.”

Who are the subjects of our prayers? How often do we enter into such deep communion with God in complete surrender of ourselves to God and His will?

“Father”, “Abba”, was the most endearing way that Jesus addressed God, his Father. Through him we are also being adopted as children of God and have been given the privilege to cry, “Abba, Father.” Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven”. Jesus prayed, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” (Matt. 11:25); “Father, if you are willing” (Lk 22: 42); “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” God in Jesus Christ invites us to a deeper and intimate communion with Himself.

Jesus prays that God forgive his detractors as they had crucified him out of their ignorance (they did not know what they were doing). For Luke as well as the New Testament writers, ignorance does not mean a state of mental deficit or lack of knowledge or information but a sinful moral state.

This verse also posits the centre of tragedy in human nature; our ignorance, our spiritual blindness; it was this ignorance that crucified the author of life. In Acts we read, “Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders.” (3:17); “None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Cor.2:8) This tragic aspect of human ignorance is again re-stated in Romans: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”(1:21)

The soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross and carried out the task entrusted to them, the Jewish leadership who deliberately planned and executed the act of eliminating Jesus, the Roman rulers who, because of the pressure of maintaining law and order, despite knowing that Jesus was innocent, sentenced Jesus to an ignominious death – they were all acting out of ignorance.

It was our self-righteousness, vested interests, pre-judgements, indifference and apathy, anxieties and fears of what would happen to us, lack of courage to stand up to the truth and take sides, our desire for wealth, position and power that crucified Jesus.

As Archbishop William Temple has pointed out, “His enemies were not the notorious sinners whom society casts out… it was not the gross sins such as shock respectable people which sent Jesus to the Cross: it was the respectable sins which are in the hearts of all of us.” (William Temple, Palm Sunday to Easter, pp. 15-16)

Jesus prays that God forgive our most staggering ignorance that led to the crucifixion not only of an innocent man but the very source of life and light. Calvary is where we see the awful depths of human sin but we also see the tremendous heights of God’s love.

Jesus came to bring about forgiveness and reconciliation. Love does not keep an account of wrongs; love forgives. Jesus had this to say to the crowd gathered to listen to him, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”(Lk 6: 27-28) To a question as to how many times one should forgive, Jesus replied to the disciples, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matt.18: 27) Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors.” (Matt. 6:12) Paul exhorts Christians in Ephesus: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”(Ephesians 4:32)

Following Christ, Stephen also prayed for his detractors, “Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep”(Acts 7:60). There is nothing so lovely and nothing as rare as Christian forgiveness. Forgiveness is the first step to reconciliation, to bridge the chasm between God and the humans, between humans among themselves and between humans and the rest of creation. By pleading to his heavenly Father for forgiveness to his detractors, Jesus stands in the gap between God and His creation, and intercedes for restoring them to their rightful relationship with Him.

~ Prayer ~

O Lord, at the foot of thy Cross, I realise that it was the respectable sins in our hearts and society that crucified you. It was our ignorance and spiritual blindness that crucified the author of life. We recognize sin in its most concrete and stark form on the Cross of Christ; it continues to destroy life and disfigure humanity. And yet, your love abounds and you continue to intercede for us; by your forgiveness, you befriend us and invite us to your love and friendship. Help us to follow the example of your forgiving love and continue your ministry of reconciliation wherever we are. Relying on the out-stretched arms on the Cross, I pray.

Amen.

Why do we gather at the ‘foot of the Cross’ on a Good Friday? What should be our orientation as we prepare ourselves to meditate on the Cross and the seven words from the Cross?

In Kerala, Good Friday is often referred to as Dhukkha Velliazhcha (The Sorrowful Friday). This is indeed a misnomer. It is Good Friday as it is the suffering and crucifixion of Christ that brought us salvation and opened to us the possibility for a new life and the fullness of life.

Black clothes and vestments have no place as we are here not to mourn the death of Christ; but rather to celebrate the end of a life that was lived in such courage and love.

Jesus does not want our sympathy. Sympathy can be a cheap emotion where one identifies with the hero of the day for a moment, feels pity for them and is moved to tears. We often enjoy a good lamentation. That surely has a cathartic effect and gives one self-satisfaction. But the situation that brings suffering continues to have sway over our lives. Self-flagellation and self-imposed suffering would only have the effect of a narcissistic massaging of oneself.

Hence, Jesus turned to the large crowd of people that followed him and the women who mourned and wailed, and told them: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’” (Luke 24:27-29). At the foot of the Cross, are we willing to weep for ourselves and our children?

The death of Jesus on the Cross was not an accident that we should condole or sympathise with for his suffering or misfortune. It was the completion and fulfilment of a mission that he voluntarily took upon himself; it was the inevitable culmination of a life lived in obedience to God.

A narrow focus on the Cross and the end of Christ’s life without recognising the whole span of his life and ministry that was lived in solidarity with God’s mission and those who were poor, oppressed and excluded, would only result in an exercise that is futile. Jesus gave his life and no one took it from him: “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life; only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.” (John 10:17-18). Are we ready to commit our lives to follow him?

Are we meant to be spectators of the Cross? Many followed Jesus from a distance: “Peter followed at a distance.” (Luke 22:54). Many wanted to see the crucifixion; many pitied the plight of this young man who held a lot of promise; many wondered whether he would make a big come-back; many felt angry at the way the political and religious authorities treated him, and yet they did not have the courage to stand up and be counted.

Many who extolled him as the Son of David on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem had become so disappointed with him that they turned against him. They called him a deceiver and demanded that he be crucified. Are we among those who followed Jesus from a distance? Are we prepared to be implicated in the crucifixion of Christ? We were all there and are responsible for the Crucifixion.

It is easier for us to point fingers at Judas, the chief priests, Pilate, the Jews in general, the Roman soldiers and so on. The meditation of the Cross would be meaningful only in so far as we acknowledge our responsibility for the Cross. We should realise that the same forces and attitudes that crucified the Son of Man are active in our world and in our minds, and they continue to crucify the sons and daughters of men and women.

The African-American Spiritual, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”, sung from the depths of black slave experience, epitomises this concern:

Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? O Sometimes it causes me to tremble! tremble! tremble! Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

(Old Plantation Hymns, 1899)

Let Good Friday be an occasion for us to repent, turn around, like Peter: “And he went outside and wept bitterly.” (Matthew 26:75). Let us acknowledge our complicity in the Cross of Christ. Let us commit ourselves to take up our cross and follow him.

~ Prayer ~

O God, who became poor that we may become rich and who took our human form that we may partake of your divinity. Help us to realise at the foot of the cross of your Son, what our sin had done to humans and all creation; in the mangled body of Christ on the cross, help us to see the horrendous reality of our sin.

But we thank you that you have not left us without reprieve; you took responsibility for our sins and pardoned us whilst we were yet sinners. You surely took our pain and bore our suffering; by your wounds, we are healed.

Realising our complicity for the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, help us identify the dehumanising and death-dealing forces, within and without, that destroy humanity and the integrity of creation. Help us in repentance, solidarity and unrelenting fight, ever relying on your grace, commit ourselves to your transforming love.

In Jesus’ name we pray.

Amen.

Seven Words From The Cross
The seven words that Jesus uttered on the Cross reflect his solidarity with the broken creation, the depth and nature of suffering he endured, and the victory he had won over the powers and principalities of this world, thereby fulfilling the mission that his Father had entrusted to him. The meditations that follow in this section on the Passion focus on each of these words.

The first three words from the Cross were spoken before the darkness about which we read in Luke 23:44-46: “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.” All the three synoptic gospels refer to this darkness. The first three words were spoken in solidarity and concern for others: his adversaries, one of the criminals who was crucified with him, his mother and his much loved disciple. It is a time when a crucified person would be extremely self-centred and self-preoccupied. It is a time of extreme physical and mental agony coupled with intense hostility to one’s tormentors. Naturally, the crucified would be cursing and spitting at those around him. But here, we find Christ being concerned about others, even his persecutors. The three words are:

1. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

2. “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

3. “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” (John 19:27)

The fourth and the fifth words were spoken during the darkness. They were spoken from the abyss of god-forsakenness and total annihilation. Jesus enters into the depth of his mental and physical agony.

4. “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34)

5. “I am thirsty.” (John 19:28)

The last two words were uttered in solidarity with His Father’s Business and they were uttered after the darkness. They were words that come from a sense of accomplishment and self-fulfilment.

6. “It is finished.” (John 19:30)

7. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)

During the passion week, particularly on Good Friday, churches have conceived different ways of meditating on the Cross. Jesus’ last words from the Cross, also known in the church tradition as “Seven words from the Cross”, have been used widely since the 16th century as a way to meditate on the Cross of Christ during the Lenten season, especially during the Holy Week and on Good Friday. Since meditating on the seven words from the cross would be a long exercise, I would like to limit myself to sharing certain perspectives on the cross.

The meditations on the seven words from the cross, as expounded by preachers, often lay preachers, without much theological training, fascinated me as a young boy and continue to fascinate me either because of their distortions or because of their erudition and transformative potential. It amuses me to listen to preachers striving hard to graphically represent the bodily suffering of Christ before their listeners and then, to encourage them to attempt self-flagellation.

In the midst of these efforts to channel people’s emotions toward the sufferings of Christ, especially his physical affliction, preacher after preacher fails to lead people to the true significance of the Cross in their Christian life. Furthermore, they often trivialize the suffering of Christ on the Cross by narrating them within the framework of the atonement theory: that it was all designed by God, or predestined by God that a paschal lamb had to be sacrificed to placate an angry God, and thereby atone for the sins of His people, sin being understood in purely personal terms as a guilt-ridden conscience. The Cross of Christ gets reduced to a drama enacted on the stage of history where characters such as Jesus, Judas, Pilate, and so on, play their parts so well as per the lines scripted for them by God.

It gets reduced to the idea that salvation of humanity is achieved merely by appeasing an angry God. In this mechanical and rather abstract understanding of the Cross of Christ, ironically, as much as Jesus, Judas also becomes necessary and significant for our salvation.

Beyond assuaging our guilt and giving rise to certain personal, pietistic and soothing responses, this sort of understanding does not lead to any meaningful action or improved ethical behaviour on the part of the people. Hence, in short, what we need is to revisit the historical reality of the Cross, to be lived out in our ordinary day-to-day lives.

1. The Cross of Christ reveals the dreadful reality of sin within us and the societal structures, and what it did to the Son of Man and what it does today to all human beings and to creation itself. It defaces and disfigures humanity and the integrity of creation. It makes sin very real and visible. What defaces and disfigures humanity and God’s beautiful creation is sin both in its individual and structural manifestations.

It would be hypocrisy to say that it is human sinfulness that crucified Jesus and yet not to look for its concrete agents and their designs, and their continuing activity in the present world. They are individuals as well as structural, and often manifest themselves in their complex influences and remain hidden and invisible. However, they have tremendous power to destroy life on this earth. They are described in the gospels as “demons” and in the epistles as “principalities, powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph. 6:12). The Cross of Christ is God’s direct collision with these demons and the principalities and powers. Hence, naming the demons and driving them out becomes a Christian imperative.

2. The Cross reveals the boundless and unconditional love of God that seeks after his creation, which had rebelled against him and gone astray, had gotten lost in sin and death. God is not willing to condemn His creation to perdition. God has bound himself to His creation in such a way that He does not aspire for a destiny apart from His creation.

God has inextricably tied Himself to His creation that even after its deliberate choice to move away from Him, He yearns to seek after what He considers His own. God was even willing to send His Son to die for His creation. What we see on the Cross is this “hound of heaven”, as the English Poet, Francis Thompson puts it in his poem, “The Hound of Heaven”.

“As the hound follows the hare, never ceasing in its running, ever drawing nearer in the chase, with unhurrying and unperturbed pace, so does God follow the fleeing soul by His Divine grace. And though in sin…, away from God it seeks to hide itself, Divine grace follows after, unwearyingly follows ever after, till the soul feels its pressure forcing it to turn to Him alone in that never ending pursuit.” (The Neumann Press Book of Verse, 1988)

3. We find on the Cross of Christ God himself taking on the responsibility for human sinfulness and the consequent fragmentation, sickness and suffering that we see all around us. God suffers on the Cross and bears the consequences of human sinfulness. Responsibility is the catchword; God became responsible for our sins and the sins of the whole world; God saved us not by His omnipotence, but by His love.

God’s love is suffering love. True love is suffering love as it respects the freedom of the other, freedom to move away from the one who loves. What humans have done with freedom is to make a mess of life in this world; and yet, He yearns for their return, to set everything in the right relationship with Himself, among themselves and with the rest of creation.

We find on the Cross, not a detached God, but a God who suffers. This God is not the God of the philosophers, an unmoved mover, but the God who has linked His life with that of His creation so inextricably that even when they go against His wishes and create chaos and death, He can only stand aside and suffer, and yearn for their return and cajole them with His love.

Rabindranath Tagore in his famous poem, Gitanjali, exemplifies this understanding most poignantly: “Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee! He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path maker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil! …Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all forever.”

Jürgen Moltmann, the well-known German theologian, observed: “The fundamental Christian assertion that God is love... in principle broke the spell of the Aristotelian doctrine of God… Were God incapable of suffering... then he would also be incapable of Love.” (The Cross of Christ, p. 323) It was an echo of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from the prison to his friend, nine months before his execution: “Only the suffering God can help.” Not only does God suffer with us, but He also suffers for us. God takes responsibility for us.

4. It was the religious leadership and its vested interests that crucified Jesus. The Cross poignantly reminds us of the fact that it was religion (Jewish), the religious leadership (Chief priests, elders, doctors of law and the Pharisees) and the religious people who crucified Jesus and not the worst criminals whom we detest.

On the Cross of Christ we find the strongest criticism of religion as a system that is organized against God with its laws, rituals, sacrifices and priesthood. It is a paradox of history and civilization that in Jesus’ name we have today one of the richest and most powerful religions that exert significant influence in the world. It was the nexus between the Jewish religious leadership and the Roman state that successfully managed to control the revolutionary imagination of people and create the cultural condition for the Roman political hegemony to continue.

It was the economic exploitation of the Jewish masses that was at the backdrop of their mutual support. It is the same nexus, of the rich, the priesthood, and the politician, that still prevails in its various manifestations such as communalism/sectarianism, religious nationalism and religious fundamentalism that continue to play havoc with the lives of people and spread death all around us.

They are judged and condemned on the Cross of Christ. Christianity and the societal structures in which we respectfully participate are stripped naked and shown in their stark forms before the Cross as being responsible for the Cross of Christ.

5. The Cross is the inevitable culmination of a life lived in obedience to God’s will and against the designs of Satan. It is not a drama or fulfilment of a design that God had planned and Jesus executed with perfect precision just so that God could absolve humanity of its sins. The Cross is a historical reality. In the conflicts of history, Jesus remained in solidarity with those who were poor, the most vulnerable whom the religious leadership detested, and confronted the forces that dominated and exploited people. Jesus befriended women and affirmed their touch; he became a “friend of publicans and sinners”; he turned their religious and political world upside down. Roman state had a grouse against Jesus for destroying the pax romana, the peace of Rome that would be conducive for their political hegemony and economic exploitation in connivance with the Jewish religious elites.

Jesus confronted the forces of Jewish nationalism and proclaimed unambiguously that those pagans whom they detested would have privileged places in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus strived to usher in a new world order, the Kingdom of God, that those in political and religious authority felt would undermine their world and its schema (form or order). It was this concrete decision to go outside the camp and suffer abuse with those who are excluded that necessitated the crucifixion; otherwise Jesus could have had a death befitting an old rabbi. These same forces - forces of religious bigotry, religious nationalism, colonialism, patriarchy, casteism and economic and political hegemony - these same forces are still active in the world and continue to crucify the sons and daughters of human beings.

The Cross demands that we strive to identify and directly confront these forces which dehumanize people, destroy the integrity of creation and spread death all around. These forces remain embedded in our societal structures; they not only destroy human lives but also threaten the very existence of this planet.

As we approach the Cross, it is imperative that we affirm its historical reality and its re-presentations and re-creations in our history and everyday life. The Cross of Christ should not be turned into an object of worship. Nor should it be turned into a theory of atonement as to how we can appease an angry God.

It should find its representation in our lives. As Jesus himself commanded us, we should carry our own crosses and follow Jesus; we must commit ourselves to a cruciform existence. It would necessarily imply a life in solidarity with the mission of Christ and also the oppressed, and in confrontation with the death-dealing forces of this world.

George Macleod exemplified this perspective: “I simply argue that the cross should be raised at the centre of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves, on the town’s garbage heap, at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek… at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died, and that is what He died for, and that is what He died about. That is where churchmen ought to be and what churchmen ought to be about.” (Only One Way Left, The Iona Community: 1956, p. 38).

Bonhoeffer shared the same perspective when he wrote: “To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself (a sinner, a penitent, or a saint) on the basis of some method or other, but to be a man—not a type of man, but the man that Christ creates in us. It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life.” (Letters and Papers from Prison, P.361)

He further states, “I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. …By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in Life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing, we completely throw ourselves into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world - watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That I think is faith.” (LPP, p. 369)

~ Prayer ~

O God, We recognise on the cross of your Son, the horrendous reality of our sin and what it had done to the Son of Man. We also realize your boundless and unconditional love that seeks after a wretch like me. On the cross of your Son, you are in our suffering and that you have bound yourself to our destiny.

Help us to realise that it is not the worst criminals that we detest that crucified the Lord of Life, but it is the respectable sins in all of us, especially entrenched in our societal structures. Help us to acknowledge in the mangled body that is hanging on the cross, the Lord of our life and submit to His Lordship. We ask these in the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, who reigns with You and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

On Maundy Thursday, we commemorate three events that are a precursor to the arrest, persecution, crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, events that are supremely significant and pregnant with meaning for the community of the faithful and for the whole of humankind. Maundy comes from the Latin word mandātum, which means “mandate or command.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus says: “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (13: 34)

The first event, therefore, that we celebrate is the new commandment that Christ gave to his disciples and how that was demonstrated by washing the feet of his disciples, taking on the role of a servant. In a Jewish feast, as a courtesy, a servant is expected to wash the feet of the guests. Jesus came to this world to demonstrate love of God in action.

The intricacies of God’s love, its depth and form cannot be described in words but only demonstrated in action and that too, through imperfect human means. Such a metaphor is that of a servant; it is being for others, their comforts and their wellbeing. “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet (13: 14). This is the kind of respect and concern that is required of us as human beings. In the letter to Philippians, apostle Paul articulates the love manifested in Jesus Christ (Phil 2: 6-8).

In your relationships with one another, have the same mind set as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross!

Addressing the disciples who consistently failed to understand his mission and quarrelled among themselves as to who is the greatest among them, Jesus said: “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mk 10: 42-45)

The symbolic gesture of washing the feet of few members in the congregation on a Maundy Thursday should not make us complacent to the grim reality where preoccupied with its own development and institutional maintenance, the church has reduced itself to a body that only strives to accrue power and wealth, breeding dissension and discord.

Here it is worth reminding ourselves of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “The Church is the Church only when it exists for others... not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.” I would like to refer to this being-for-others as Cruciform existence. The church is called to be a cruciform presence in the communities that we serve.

This way of being in the world has become strange to the mainline churches; they are in an effort to maintain the top-down ecclesiastical hierarchy without being able to share in the agony of Christ for the world. Bonhoeffer advocated “religionless Christianity.” It is the love of Christ, manifested in concrete terms in our communities, that can make a difference to the world. They must be prepared to dissolve and be lost as salt and leaven and thus remain obscure and self-effacing.

On Maundy Thursday, we also commemorate the Passover meal that Jesus had with his disciples and instituting it in perpetual remembrance of Christ’s precious death until his coming again. In continuity with the meaning attributed to the Passover meal, this meal is shared in thanksgiving for the redemption wrought for us in Jesus Christ. Hence, it is often referred to as the Holy Eucharist, a sacrament of thanksgiving.

It is primarily a meal, a shared meal, in which Jesus Christ himself is the chief celebrant and the host. He gives himself to us as a living sacrifice; he takes responsibility for our sins that have marred God’s beautiful creation. God in Jesus Christ takes on the suffering of his creation. Hence, the Holy Eucharist is known in Eastern Christianity as Holy Qurbana; Qorban is a Hebrew term used for the offerings brought to the temple.

Those who partake of the body and blood of Christ are united in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and are sent forth into the world with the same mission and predicament as that of Christ. Hence, the churches in the Catholic communion call Holy Eucharist, Holy Mass. The word Mass comes from the Latin word, Missa; the word Missa comes from the word Misso, the root of what is referred to as ‘Mission’ in English. It is associated with the words of commissioning or sending forth: ‘you the Church is sent’.

The Mass hence is to be lived; we live the Mass in so far as we live lives of sacrifice. However, it is not just an individual affair but a corporate sharing of Christ’s sacrifice and suffering for the world. The community of believers become one with Christ in his sacrifice of himself for the redemption of the world. Hence, the Holy Eucharist is also known as the Holy Communion. It is no longer that we live, but Christ lives in us. We are united in the self-sacrifice of Christ for the world; we become the body of Christ.

The Holy Eucharist is often wrapped in an aura of mystery and hence to be taken without asking further questions, a mechanical act that is efficacious and beneficial. The fact that the Holy Eucharist is an act of self-offering is a corrective to this understanding.

The Gospel of John doesn’t describe the words of the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Instead, there is the feeding of the five thousand, where the multitude was fed with the “five small barley loaves and two small fish” that was given to Jesus by a slave/boy (Jn. 6: 9). “Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted (Jn: 11). It is our offering of ourselves that Jesus blesses, breaks and distributes to all and sundry in great measure.

Without this human agency, God is helpless in channelling his blessings to a world in need. This is poignantly manifested in the liturgy of the Church of South India where in the elements (the bread and wine), the fruits of human labour, are brought to the altar along with the offertory alluding to the act of the slave/boy in the narrative of feeding of the five thousand. This is again acted out in the parable of the institution of the Holy Eucharist.

M. M. Thomas refers to the revolutionary nature of the Holy Eucharist when he defines the Holy Eucharist as constituting spiritual communion, social community and economic communism. This is subtly and yet sharply articulated in Acts 2: 42-47; 4: 32-35. The hallmark of a caste ridden society is non-commensality, refusing to have meals together with others outside of one’s caste group. The Holy Eucharist calls for creating a society that is inclusive of all, particularly those who are kept outside of one’s definition of “neighbour” (in Jewish society).

The Holy Eucharist challenges us to work towards a social, economic and political order that is caring towards the most in need in our society. St. Paul articulates this when he elucidates the meaning of Eucharist in 1 Cor. 11: “It is not the Lord’s Supper you eat. For when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk… So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.”

Lastly, the Holy Eucharist is a meal that is eaten as a ‘foretaste’ of God’s Kingdom that has been inaugurated by Jesus Christ by His death, resurrection and ascension. The foretaste makes us restless to make God’s rule a reality in any given social order and earnestly seeking and working for the penultimate realisation of God’s Kingdom, wherever we are placed. It is a feast of the Kingdom, where Jesus is the chief celebrant, and we are all disciples who serve the meal to a world that is ‘hungry’.

The third event that we remember on Maundy Thursday is Jesus’s mental agony and final decision to take up his cross in utter isolation, deprived of the solidarity of his close companions (Mk 14: 32-42). This is the culmination of several instances where his disciples failed to comprehend his ministry and remained indifferent to it; where Jesus reiterates it in no uncertain terms of the agony he has taken on for the world, as an authentic human being.

The Son takes up himself the responsibility to reclaim the world for his father and establish His rule over all the earth. But, it is only through his suffering and death on the cross. Jesus leaves us with the exhortation, “Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” It is a clarion call to the church, sleeping as it may be, for repentance, discipleship, preparedness for combat, readiness to suffer and face martyrdom with the sure hope in the victory of the cross.

Thus, Maundy Thursday remains a precursor to the final moments of Christ’s journey to the cross reminding the church of the nature of its being and task in the world and how it is to be fulfilled.

The stage is set for the final encounter.

The hour had arrived for the world to make the ultimate decision, to either acknowledge Jesus the King or to renounce Him. The time had come for Jesus to fight the great battle with Satan, sin and death.

Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem amidst the shouting of hosannas by the crowd was a meticulously planned coup, strategically choreographed to catch the Jewish authorities by surprise and to announce his kingship and his rule; one that would mock all the worldly rulers and worldly kingdoms. Jesus rides on the colt of a donkey with all humility to announce peace and justice, instead of war.

Why did I say that it was a meticulously planned out coup?

Jesus was beyond what Jewish and political authorities could chew; his rabble-rousing was more than what they could tolerate. They feared that all this would invite Roman intervention in their domestic affairs. They also realised that Jesus’ actions would eventually hurt their political and economic interests. The Sanhedrin, involving chief priests, Pharisees and the elders finally came to the conclusion that it would “be better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” (Jn 11:50) Jesus was perceived as a threat to national security.

So, we read, “from that day on they planned to put him to death. Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews.” In John 11: 57, we read, “Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.”

It is in this context that Jesus decided to go into hiding; and from there, he meticulously and clandestinely planned for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Moreover, to keep this a secret, he used signs and passwords. Read the narrative in Luke 19: 29 and following: “he sent two of his disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, Why are you untying it? just say this, the Lord needs it’. Then, the owner would allow them to take it.”

In this narrative, isn’t it very clear that it was a pre-planned and clandestine attempt to expose himself and his mission without being caught by the Jewish authorities? Jesus did not want to play into their designs. But at the same time, he also knew that he would not be able to escape them.

This brings us to acknowledge the following:

Our Lord is one who was detested and perceived as a threat by the religious and political establishment of his day. They wanted to eliminate him. He was perceived as a threat to national security.

Jesus could not escape confronting the political and religious establishment that never cared for the sick, the poor and the downtrodden, who were in the margins of society. Jesus had his own design for the world; a world of love and peace. A Christian, if he is true to Jesus Christ, cannot but confront the same forces active in this world. Are you prepared to join him? We cannot ignore the political dimension of the gospel.

Lordship of Christ and the Kingdom of God he came to announce cannot be kept a secret or private matter; it has to be made public. Can we also join Jesus in this triumphal demonstration to make public God’s design for this world and God’s rule over this earth? That is evangelism. The password for us is “The Lord needs it”; Yes, Jesus needs you; Jesus needs us. Are we ready to be his bearers and acknowledge His Lordship over all realms of life?

Jesus is a King, but he is a king with a difference. Jesus was openly placing before the world an alternative kingdom and alternative model of rule. “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Jesus comes not with power and pomp of the worldly rulers; he comes riding on the colt of a donkey in gentleness and humility. While the kings of this world come riding on horses which are the symbols of war and might, Jesus, the king, comes riding on a pony, without any insignia of power; he comes to establish peace.

While the kings of this world come to destroy and plunder, Jesus comes to liberate and heal. Jesus is the prince of peace who will turn swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. He did not come to conquer, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for the redemption of the world. His sword was love and his sceptre was peace. Do we want to acknowledge him as our king and organise our lives and our priorities according to his will?

Lastly, by this act, Jesus was mocking and ridiculing the kings and kingdoms of this world. Jesus was openly challenging them. Of course, as we find in the later chapters of the gospels, this triumphal entry into Jerusalem infuriated the powers that were: the high priests, the Pharisees and the Herodians; and eventually this led him to the cross.

Jesus was placing before the world an alternative way of designing and organising the world. He presents before us an alternative political programme in a way we cannot ignore.

This alternative political programme and its strategy were finally unravelled before us on the cross of Christ. Are we ready to take up our cross and follow him shouting hosanna?

What makes the suffering of Jesus very poignant is that his own disciples were blind to the reality of the Cross. In Mark’s gospel we find three instances of Jesus announcing the suffering he would encounter in Jerusalem at the hands of the religious leaders; we also find three instances of the disciples never really grasping the true meaning of it. The disciples never understood, nor did they care to understand the mission of Christ.

It was only after Jesus’ third announcement of passion (Mk 10: 32-34) that we find James and John, coming to him with the request, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” Even then, they were quarrelling among themselves for positions of power. What they wanted was to persuade Jesus to exercise his authority in such a way that they would have all that they want: power, prestige, wealth and whatnot. They never could or wanted to understand the true meaning of the Cross and passion of Jesus Christ.

The content and style of Jesus’ mission in the world is brought into sharp focus on the Cross of Christ. It is very clearly and sharply explicated in a very short verse, in Mark 10: 45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The first attempt to deal with sin was to provide us with laws or commandments. But, the law made us only aware of our sinfulness: Paul writes in Romans Ch. 7, “Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was, if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’” Referring to the commandments of Moses, Paul makes it clear that the commandments of Moses could only make sin utterly sinful; in other words, the law can only make us feel guilty.

The response to a sense of guilt takes two forms. One is to strive to strictly adhere to the law, especially the letter of the law; engage in restrictive behaviours that would avoid any possibility to sin, thereby putting our life in a straitjacket. This is called legalism; submitting to strict adherence to the letter of the law to such an extent that we are unable to fulfil its spirit.

The Pharisees represent this legalistic response to the sense of guilt. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices: mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy and faithfulness.”

The second response is that of reparation or compensation for one’s sins, paying the cost of our sins through compensatory responses, so that our consciences would be cleansed of our sense of guilt. Obsessive-compulsive behaviour is an extreme form of this compensatory behaviour. It comes out of our terrible sense of insecurity and guilt. The whole book of Leviticus, from the beginning to the end, lays out the costs involved in compensating sin: the blood of bulls, birds, lambs and so on.

The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer were to be sprinkled on those who were guilty so that their consciences would be cleansed. In the book of Hebrews, the writer refers to these ceremonial acts or rituals as ‘dead works’.

What we see here is the development of a religious system that ties us down to legalism and ritualism or ‘dead works’ that are meant to purge our consciences of guilt, rather than enabling us to serve the living God. Religion, thus, enslaves us to the cycle of law, guilt and dead works.

In effect, this vicious cycle of religion survives on law or commandments, rituals and sacrifices, hierarchy of priesthood to perform those sacrifices, and man-made altars and places of worship. This is described in the scriptures as the old covenant or the first covenant. It lends itself to becoming exploitative, burdensome and repetitive.

Religion thrives on the guilt of people and the fear of retribution, that God would punish them for their sins and hence, they would have to appease God to receive His blessings.

It is this love of God that we find in Jesus Christ. Jesus has paid with his life the ransom to liberate us who had been sold into slavery. It is not that the cost and consequence of sin is any less serious; it is that Christ has taken the responsibility for our sins and their consequences. “He took up our pain and bore our sufferings, he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5) About this sacrifice of Jesus, we read in 1 Peter Ch.1: 18-19: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

The Cross of Jesus Christ has done away with the old covenant and the associated religiosity and its structures and practices and has established in its place a new covenant and a new spirituality of loving and serving the world and fellow human beings. He redeems us from our dead works to serving and loving our fellow human beings and the creation.

In this new spirituality, there is no priesthood, no sacrifices, no altar, and no holy temple. What is significant is faith expressing itself through love. About this new spirituality, Paul writes to the Galatians, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Gal. 5:6)

The key element of this spirituality is love translated into responsible action and service. Jesus is the model for this new spirituality. Jesus took responsibility for our sins; he willingly took up on himself the consequences of our sin. He did not save us by his power; he strove to persuade us by his unconditional love. “Jesus came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and give his life as a ransom for many” (45). The passion and the Cross of Christ invite us to this spirituality and self-giving love as the key towards liberating this world from its bondage to sin.

Our calling as Christians is to continue this ministry of being responsible for this world and our fellow human beings. Instead of striving to become such a community, we are fighting for power and positions of authority.

Are we ready to opt for this spirituality? Are we ready to take on the obligations implied in this way of following Christ? Are we ready to become a servant community in this world and be a ransom for our brothers and sisters?

Are we willing to lead a ‘cruciform’ existence in this world: a life of love, solidarity, responsibility, humility, and a sacrificial life of service to our fellow human beings and the world around us?

In this we shall be known as Christ’s followers. Only the Cross of Christ and our ‘cruciform’ existence in the world can bring wholeness and peace, and salvation to this world. Will we submit ourselves to Christ for this cruciform existence? That is the challenge that the Passion Sunday and the Cross brings to us.

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his teaching the islands will put their hope.” (Is 42: 1-4)

As mentioned in the earlier meditations, what makes the suffering of Christ more poignant is the incomprehension of the disciples. In spite of him reminding them again and again of how he was going to fulfil his ministry in the world, of the inevitability of his passion and death on the cross, the disciples failed to comprehend him.

In Mark 10: 32-40, we read that, oblivious to what Jesus had spoken to them, they were still arguing among themselves as to who among them was the greatest, as to who would sit next to Jesus in his glory. This is true even today. We are too pre-occupied with our earthly notions of power and privilege that we do not care to understand the true nature of Jesus’ ministry, how he brought salvation for us.

The suffering servant is a King; he is the anointed one. He is the chosen one, in whom God delights. But the problem is that he is not like the kings and emperors of this world. It is in illustrating this difference that Jesus, as the suffering servant, becomes meaningful to us. We are called to follow the model of the suffering servant.

First, the task of the suffering servant of Yahweh is to bring forth justice to nations or establish justice on the earth. To bring forth justice means to execute God’s will. All our relationships will become just only when they are organised according to God’s will. It is common practice for all of us to talk of God’s will when things go wrong and not according to the way we have planned. We bring in God as a proposition to bridge or fill the gap in our understanding. What we have is a “God of the gaps”.

But here God’s servant is committed to organising the totality of his life and relationships, according to the will of God. It is about this justice and righteousness of God that we read in the Book of Isaiah. Do we have the commitment to work towards organising all aspects of our life according to the will of God?

He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice on the earth. It is natural that most of us will grow faint and be crushed in this world, where much happens against the will of God.

Second, he will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the streets. This is what the king and his army are normally expected to do, particularly when they return from war with victory. They show off their power and try to instil fear, shock and awe, among the people with their loud shouts, war cries and the trampling of their feet. But the servant of Yahweh will not show such expressions of brute force or revelry. He will be gentle.

He is characterised not by love of power but by the power of love: “For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for fire.” (Is. 11: 5) He will be called the Prince of Peace. Our God is not a God of war.

Jesus as the suffering servant rules the world from the Cross. It is in this contrast that we can really understand the power of Christianity. The love of power versus the power of love: that is what we find on the Cross and passion of Jesus Christ.

Third, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench”. Reed is a weak plant that grows in marshy areas. What would happen to it if it was also bruised? Let us think of the many people in our society who are already vulnerable, weak and powerless: children, women, poor, elderly, sick and other socially and economically disadvantaged groups. What if they were to undergo further social and economic hardships, forced to live in unhealthy conditions, submitted to the violence of the powerful, without provisions for health care and other social securities?

Those constantly on the verge of being displaced, those subjected to live as refugees and strangers in their own lands, those subjected to the everyday violence of the state: they are all the bruised reeds in our society. The Servant of Yahweh will not break them. He will not give up on them. They are also the dimly burning wicks, whose oil is fast depleting and on the verge of being snuffed out.

We consider as valuable only those that are useful, ‘productive’ or have some utility value. A dying old man or a woman who is shut in and forlorn, a battered woman who has nowhere to go for protection, a child who is denied the privilege of good education and other pleasures of life, the poor who cannot afford any costly medical treatment: it is easy and convenient to give up on them. But the God, who comes to us in Jesus Christ as the suffering servant, will not give up on them, and he will not give up on us.

Even when we go astray and bruise ourselves and waste all our resources and become like a dimly burning wick, he will not give up on us. Don’t we give up on our children, when they don’t live up to our expectations? Don’t we give up on our spouses, our dear ones, our friends and our neighbours? But God will not give up on us.

As a community that follows Jesus Christ we are called to emulate his model of the suffering servant. But, the questions before us are how committed are we towards establishing God’s rule over all aspects of our life? How committed are we to protect, sustain and enhance the bruised reeds and the dimly burning wicks in our society?

The servant accomplishes his mission modestly and quietly, not by whipping people into conformity but by transforming them inwardly. The servant accomplishes his task not by force, but by his love. It is this king, who participates and remains in solidarity with those who are pushed to the margins of the society: the suffering servant: that we look forward to in realising the divine rule.

The fifth Sunday in Lent is known as the Passion Sunday. The passion of Christ cannot be confined to the week preceding resurrection. The shadow of the cross and passion has been there all through the earthly ministry and life of Christ. Before we come to the crucifixion of Christ, church fathers might have thought it appropriate to meditate on what had led to the crucifixion of Christ.

The blind man receiving sight, recorded in Luke 18: 35-43, has its parallel narrative in Mark 10: 46-52. Mark names the blind man Bartimaeus, meaning son of Timaeus. Timaeus means “foul, defiled, polluted, or unclean.” The blind man is treated virtually as an offspring of defilement and dishonour.

The story of Bartimaeus was narrated to highlight how he was transformed from being an offspring of defilement to being a claimant to the inheritance of the children of God, how he received sight and followed Jesus on his last journey to Jerusalem and Calvary.

Bartimaeus is presented in contrast to the disciples, James and John, who failed to understand the mission of Christ and hence, failed to follow Jesus all the way to Jerusalem and the cross. They were too caught up with the question of who would get the most respectable position in the Kingdom of God.

The key to understanding the story of giving sight to the blind man can be found in the question that Jesus had put forth to James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and to Bartimaeus, and the divergent answers that it elicited.

The story of the blind man is told as an epitome of discipleship; what it means to follow Jesus. What made the suffering of Jesus so unbearable was the incomprehension by those who were intimately associated with him, his disciples, of the mission and ministry of Jesus.

“He appointed the twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” (Mk 3:14-15) And Jesus told them of what was awaiting him in Jerusalem: “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” (Mk 8: 31)

Jesus reiterated this to the disciples three times. Jesus further emphasised what it meant to be a disciple of Christ: “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it’” (Mk. 8: 34-35).

Despite this clarification by Jesus, the disciples were all along arguing among themselves who would be the greatest in the kingdom of God. Is this not the real state of affairs in the Church and all of us who claim to be his followers?

The other disciples learned about the request of James and John. We read in Mark 10: 41 that the other disciples became angry with James and John. So Jesus had to call them apart and once again reiterate his mission and their role in it: “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mk 10: 42-45)

Our consistent refusal to understand the mission of Christ and participate in it, to follow the way of the cross, pains the heart of Christ more than anything else; this makes his suffering more poignant. Over against this, we find the story of the blind man, Bartimaeus: the epitome of Christian discipleship.

First and foremost, discipleship requires an awareness of one’s blindness, inability to understand one’s true state of affairs or to judge the reality around oneself. Bartimaeus had a very clear and ready reply to Jesus’ question, “What do you want me to do for you?” He did not ask for money to support himself; he did not ask for alms as any beggar would do. He replied, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

In the Gospel of John, concluding the story associated with the healing of a blind man, Jesus said to the Pharisees, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

We who claim to be Christians and are very conscientious in following outward rituals of religion, fail to realise that we are blind to Christ and His mission in the world like Christ’s disciples themselves. It is important that we turn around, recognise our true state of affairs, and cry aloud for Christ’s intervention in our life.

Second, Bartimaeus acknowledged Jesus as the son of David, the anointed one, the Saviour. Hence he persistently cried out, saying, “Son of David, have mercy on me”; despite the best efforts of the crowd to silence him, he shouted all the more. And such was his faith. “Have mercy on me” is a cry of utter helplessness and desolateness and a cry for redemptive action.

This is the same cry that emanated from the tax collector and one of the criminals who was crucified with Jesus. This cry had found a central place in the worship of the Eastern churches: “Kyrie eleison”. We all need a clear sight and a new sight; we are blinded by the princes of this world that we have become unable to see the beauty of the cross.

Third, Bartimaeus was willing to risk the dangers ahead and also his possessions that provided him with security and certainty. We read in Mark 10: 50 that he threw his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. A beggar’s cloak is his sole possession. It contained whatever valuables he wanted to store for himself; moreover, it provided protection from the hostile climate.

To throw away the cloak meant to risk all; and then, for a blind man to jump to his feet and rush to Jesus meant to totally risk himself to the grave dangers that are on his way. Nothing in his life was as important as meeting Jesus and being able to see.

As Paul writes in Philippians, “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” (3:7-8).

Finally, Mark Ch. 10 records Jesus’ words: “Go, your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. Bartimaeus received not only his sight, but he followed Jesus along the road to Jerusalem and the cross. He became a disciple of Jesus.

If he had missed that opportunity, he would have missed it for life. That was Jesus’ last journey. It was a choice between life and death for Bartimaeus. It is the same for us too. We must cry aloud as Bartimaeus did, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” and plead, “Rabbi, I want to see.” Nothing is more important in life than having our sight restored and following Jesus on the long road to Calvary.

Large crowds were travelling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple (Luke 14: 25-27).

Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. He knew what awaited him: hostility and violence, suffering and death. However, those around him were oblivious to his fate. There was an enthusiastic crowd that followed Jesus, but for all the wrong reasons. They never comprehended his mission. Jesus knew that the enthusiasm of the crowd could not be an indicator of the success of his ministry. In fact, for him, it was a problem to be dealt with. And so he turns to them and asks them to take another look at the implications of following him.

Many people believed in Jesus because they saw the miracles he did. But Jesus did not trust them (John 2: 23). I believe that there is much similarity between us, the privileged, churchgoing Christians of Kerala, and the crowd that followed Jesus. The crucial aspect of that similarity is that they and we value family ties and commitments above all else. Parents are anxious and would do anything to make the life of their children secure.

We do not want our children to be distracted, and not even be bothered by the concerns of society or even that of God’s kingdom that would ultimately demand their commitment. As parents, we do not want our children to have any vision of life that transcends material prosperity and well-being. We want them to be outwardly devout and keep away from vices to the extent that they would not be a hindrance to pursuing their worldly ends of good and secure jobs, high salaries and material comforts. We foolishly believe that we can make our life secure through our children.

Jesus turns to them and proclaims that a price, a heavy price, is to be paid by those who follow him. “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14: 26).

The word ‘hate’ may appear too strong a word to be used; but, considering the nature and mental set of the crowd it was necessary to resort to the use of such a word to emphasize the fact that no earthly tie, however close, must take precedence over our allegiance to and obedience of Jesus.

Jesus makes use of a similar hyperbole, an overstatement in order to make a point with maximum impact, when he is confronted by the rich young ruler: he tells him “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Lk. 18: 22) We read about the response of this young man, “When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy.”

Jesus makes it clear to the crowd that followed him and to us as well, that it is not enough to be a Christian, but rather, what he expects us to do is to leave all and follow him, to be a disciple. Jesus does not call us to belong to a religious community called Christianity and follow its prescriptions, but he calls us to be his disciples.

Christian is a nomenclature for a group of people who subscribe to certain doctrines and religious practices. And there is nothing distinctive or great about Christianity as a religion. In fact the term “disciples” occurs 269 times in the New Testament, while the term “Christian” occurs only three times.

In the Book of Acts we are told that “The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch” (Acts 11: 26). The disciples are Christians, but all Christians are not disciples of Jesus Christ.

Jesus makes clear the cost of discipleship: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

In the words of the famous theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only Him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us… All that self-denial can say is: ‘He leads the way, keep close to Him.’” To deny oneself is to let Christ have complete sway over our life. This exclusive allegiance to Christ leads us to carry our own crosses.

We often use the word cross to refer to any painful experience that we may encounter such as death, calamities, sickness and other adversities and tragedies that are an essential part of our human existence. They are not the result of our choice; they happen to us. Carrying one’s cross refers to the suffering one has to encounter as part of his or her choice and decision in agreement with the will of God. It is the inevitable consequence of a life lived as Christ lived it in this world.

Cross awaits only a Christian who takes this world and history seriously. It is the decisions that one takes within it in accordance with the will of our Heavenly Father that brings him or her into conflict with the rulers of this world, whether it be that of religion or that of politics.

Cross is the price that Jesus paid for standing up to dehumanizing forces in this world; he exposed the hypocrisy of the religious leaders; he remained in solidarity with those who were excluded by the religious and respectable people of the Jewish society of his time. In all situations of life he acted with responsibility.

Cross is the price Jesus paid for taking responsibility for our sin and the world we have messed up through our sin. If we make choices and decisions like Christ in our life situations, if we act like Christ against the injustices that we find around us, and if we take responsibility as Christ for this world and our fellow human beings, we cannot escape our crosses.

Unfortunately, we have a Christianity that does not glory in the cross of Christ, but in a piety and morality that is more a part of middle class respectability than of following Jesus Christ. We do not have our crosses to bear because we cannot allow the world to hate us.

The fact is that the world does not hate us. We do not testify to the world that its ways are evil. Rather, we are conforming to its evil ways, and making maximum benefit out of it. We have worked out a Christianity that is convenient for us. This sort of Christianity is on public display today and it is more a disgrace to Christ than witnessing God’s rule on this earth. However, we can be a remnant that takes our discipleship seriously and pays the price for it.

Today, many regard prayer as simply asking God for things: approaching God with a ‘shopping list’. This is anything but what prayer should be.

Rather, it ought to be a dialogue, a two-way communication, between humans and God, where one’s existential concerns are placed before God and God’s will is sought in the midst of them to live a fulfilling life according to His will. Prayer for Jesus, as recorded in Luke’s Gospel, was an occasion when he was empowered for his divine mission. It was an occasion when Jesus opened himself to the will of God.

Jesus took with him Peter, John and James. Jesus wanted a community to share in his ministry and suffering: he selected a small group from among the disciples, a more intimate group: Peter, John and James. When Jesus had gone to cure the daughter of Jairus, he had the same group of disciples with him (Lk 8:51).

We find Peter, John and James again in Gethsemane, as Jesus was going through extreme mental agony as to how he would fulfil the ministry entrusted to him and what it would involve.

Jesus needed the intimacy of this fellowship and we also needed it. The Church is that fellowship, that intimate community that is willing to share in the mission of Christ and in his suffering for the world. But unfortunately, the disciples failed to realise it. Today, as a Church, we have also failed to share in Jesus’ agony for the world.

“As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became dazzling white.” (Lk 9: 29) Jesus was transfigured. The disciples saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to Jesus. They appeared in heavenly glory.

Jesus was found to be having a conclave with two prominent figures in the history of the people of Israel, Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets. They were speaking of His death, His departure, his exodus from the world, which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. Jesus’ crucifixion was presented here not as a fate that was thrust upon him, but rather as something that Jesus willingly accepted in consultation with those who represented the historical legacy of Israel, God’s plan of salvation.

Prayer, essentially, was this form of consultation with God and seeking out God’s plan for one’s life and committing oneself to live according to it. Jesus knew that there was no easy way to fulfil one’s responsibility to one’s fellow human beings and the world, to redeem God’s creation from the evil one. It was a moment of decision for Jesus.

The Cross refers to the sufferings that become our portion due to the decisions and actions that we take in faithfulness to our divine calling. For Jesus, these were not easy decisions; he wanted the fellowship of his disciples, his friends; he wanted the counsel and support of those saintly souls that represented his historical consciousness: Moses and Elijah. He wanted the divine light, so that he could see his present predicament from God’s perspective.

While Jesus was engaged in this very important conclave and taking a very crucial decision to follow the path of the Cross and confront the powers that be, what was the condition of the disciples? First, they were weighed down with sleep. The chosen people of God were found sleeping in the past; they are found sleeping in the present amidst the onerous responsibilities of participating in God’s concern for the world.

While the ship was tossed about in the rough sea and it was about to break and the mariners were afraid and each cried to his gods, Jonah, the prophet of Yahweh, the Lord of heaven and earth ‘who made the sea and the dry land’, was fast asleep deep down in the hold of the ship. (Jon 1: 4-10) He had to be rebuked by the Captain of the ship: “What are you doing, sound asleep? Get up, call your God!”

Second, at the mount of transfiguration the disciples were basking in this experience of divine glory and wanted to continue in it. Jesus, the company of Moses and Elijah, their dazzling white robes and the glory that shone around were too good that they made it an end in itself and decided to institutionalise it. “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah”, they said to Jesus. Today most of us are after such ecstatic religious experiences. Charismatic movements thrive on people’s need for emotional high.

When such subjective experiences become an end in themselves, and we seek after them and bask in them, then, they become another form of idolatry. We substitute these experiences for God and his mission in the world.

We forget our mission to the valley, where people are clamouring for healing and wholeness, where people are dying of the pandemic; where the poor are trucking and dying in the highways on their homebound journey. Rescuing them means hard toil and dirtying our clothes, and confronting the demoniacal forces, including the powers that be. That would even mean death and suffering; that would be costly.

Third, we find their incomprehension of the mission of Christ. They tried to consolidate their experience of transfiguration in certain institutional structures and enjoy it forever, not knowing what they said. They never comprehended the true meaning of discipleship or the true meaning of the mission of Christ in the world. Almost like in a trance they were jabbering, overwhelmed by the experience of divine glory and not realising its import for the mission of Christ.

It is this incomprehension of the disciples, their blindness to the mission of Christ and their unwillingness to confront the forces of evil that grieved the heart of Christ. The passion narrative is replete with such instances of incomprehension on the part of disciples regarding the mission of Christ.

In another instance, when Jesus was trying to impress upon the disciples about his confrontation with the religious leaders of his time and his death at their hands, the disciples were fighting over who among them would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and who would be seated on the left and the right of Jesus Christ when He comes in glory.

Christ’s disciples were bickering for positions and power; they were basking in the religious experience; they were most often found sleeping oblivious to the sufferings of the world. They never understood the meaning of bearing the Cross. The disciples of today are no different from those of yester years. We continue to cause pain and agony to Jesus. But yet, he seeks our fellowship, our love, our understanding and our participation in his suffering for the world.

The event of transfiguration answers the question, “Who is Jesus?” As we find in Luke Chapters 8 and 9, there are several people who have raised this question. In Luke 8: 25, the disciples ask: “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.” Luke records Herod saying: “I beheaded John. Who, then, is this I hear such things about?” (Lk 9: 9)

On the mount of transfiguration, God answers this question and declares who Jesus is: “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; Listen to him.” God gives Jesus His stamp of approval and authority. Jesus as the Son of God who stands in the line of Moses and Elijah, carrying the burden of history and leading the world out from slavery to sin and death into freedom and life. The Greek word used for departure means exodus. In Jesus, we have been given a new exodus. Are we prepared for this journey to freedom by listening to him and following him?

Just like Jesus’ intimate circle of disciples, we have got him wrong; we also remain ignorant of the true mission of Christ and the liberation that he brings to us. He brings salvation and healing to us, not by might, but by love and suffering.

Instead of basking in the transfiguration experience, are we prepared to follow him to the valley, where the real battle is fought: the valley of suffering and death? A great crowd awaits us there. They expect us to exorcise demons that possess people, make people convulse and shriek, and maul them and scarcely leave them. Are we ready to take up that challenge? We are called for this task. “This is my Son, whom I have chosen”; “Listen to him”.