I Do Not Belong to This World
We are getting close to Holy Week and the tension between Jesus and the people who reject his message is intensifying. Even as “many came to believe in him,” the authorities find his identification with God the Father more and more repugnant. There is a sober and somber note to the Gospel account, so much so that the Pharisees mistake Jesus’ statements as a threat about suicide. He knows that he is speaking about his impending death.
What I Have Told You From the Beginning
Humanly speaking, it is difficult not to respond as the Israelites did in the desert when their patience was tried beyond what they thought was possible, when they could see no end to the process. Their lack of faith and humility is easy to pinpoint when we read about it in the Scriptures but we cannot really say we are exempt from this temptation.
In the Lenten journey all of us are making, we are seeking to align ourselves with the will of the Father, for us, for those in our circle, for the Church, for the world. That was and is Christ’s mission and as we accompany him on the way to Calvary, it is ours as well. That means accepting the disappointments, betrayals and lack of recognition from those close to us, looking through anger and hurt to see how God’s will may be operative through these experiences. It means embracing illness and discomfort, lack of sleep and even the possibility of death as God’s will. It can mean maintaining a detached and kind openness when someone spurns what we offer them.
He Has Not Left Me Alone
In all this, we are not alone. When we are able to receive difficulties as being from the hand of God, as a gift that will lead us to something we cannot now see, we are following Christ in doing the will of the Father. That connection sustains Jesus and it will sustain us as we move toward our experience of passion and death and ultimately, of resurrection.
