The Passion of Christ

Passion Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent.

I want to welcome you all on this 5th Sunday in Lent, known as Passion Sunday, marking the beginning of what is called Passiontide, a duration of time given to turn our hearts and minds towards the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ from his final visitation to Jerusalem next week on Palm Sunday, through his final Passover shared with his beloved disciples and friends, his betrayal, wrongful conviction on Maundy Thursday, his suffering, agony, and crucifixion on Good Friday, and the silence of Holy Saturday morning as the Messiah lies dead in a rich man’s tomb.

These events of Holy Week recount the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ. We refer to Jesus' suffering and death as his passion because St. Luke, in the opening of his historical epistle, The Acts of the Apostles, writes that Jesus "presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs" appeared to the apostles and disciples. The Greek word for suffering, παθεῖν, is where we get the word passion. Not in the sense of human or fleshly passions that get us into trouble, but "to suffer at the hands of men" παθεῖν. The Passion of Christ is the all-encompassing suffering of our Lord's betrayal, beating, crucifixion, and death.

Now, the events that ultimately unfold during Holy Week would not have caught our Lord off guard, for he had warned the disciples many times that he must "go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised" (Mt 16:7). Jesus is foretelling of the suffering (παθεῖν), or the passion he will face at the hands of people who will not receive Him as the promised Messiah, who simply could not recognize that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had come to visit them in the flesh to redeem them from their sins.

And it is this very encounter in today's Gospel that sets in motion the events of our Lord's passion, which will terminate on Calvary's Cross. But what did Jesus do to finally push them over the edge? He spoke the Truth. He spoke the Truth not only about them but, more importantly, about himself. St. Matthew records that instead of becoming low before the feet of God and worshipping him, the Jews are testing him and arguing with Jesus over their Abrahamic allegiance and freedom as sons of Abraham. Jesus is telling them that only his disciples, only those who follow his words, are truly free. But they will not, cannot, receive the Truth. Jesus is claiming that belief in his words will shelter them from God's judgment.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." Meaning, if you would only accept my words as the word of God and therefore embrace by faith that I am the Lord your God, and if you remain faithfully in me by doing the words of my commandments, you shall attain eternal life. Whoever takes Jesus at his word and lives accordingly ​​shall pass entirely safe through the judgments of this world and shall not see death even in the final judgment.

Then, to top it off, Jesus pronounces a final judgment upon them, saying, "And because I tell you the Truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the Truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God." There goes Jesus, winning friends and influencing people!

But they don't believe him. In fact, they accuse him of sinning. They call him a liar, for how can Jesus claim that his words allow himself and others to escape death when neither Abraham nor any of Israel's prophets did so? "Now we know that thou hast a devil: Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, if a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our Father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? Ah, now we've arrived at the issue: the ultimate question. "Jesus, just who in the world do you think you are?"

So, he answers. "Your Father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." Did you catch that? Jesus just claimed to be "I am" Yahweh, the God who spoke to Moses from the bush. The "I am" who delivered Israel from bondage. "I am" who brought his people into the promised land and rested with them in the Holy Temple. Jesus is claiming to be more than merely a man. He is claiming to be the very "I AM": the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus is Truth, and the world will not allow Truth to prosper. That Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God is a truth that must be destroyed at any cost: it must be crucified.

"Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple." But he would not ultimately escape his passion but would willfully endure suffering, pain, and death. Jesus gladly embraced the hardwood of the Cross. But why? Why did Jesus suffer? Why, in the wisdom of God, was God crucified? Christ suffered for the Truth so that Truth might redeem rebellious liars like we were before we were saved. Christ endured his passion as the healing remedy for all our unholy passions. Christ was crucified to crucify our sins and make us holy. This is why the crucified Christ has and remains the central image, the centrality of the Gospel, and the life-giving heartbeat of our faith.

The crucified Christ is the very message of St. Paul and the apostles, "but we (he proclaims) preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles" (1 Cor 1:23). Paul was resolved to know nothing "except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor 2:2). For Paul and the Apostles, the crucified Messiah is the Gospel, complete folly to the world but to us who are being saved (says the Apostle) it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18).

Christ crucified is the power to save sinners like you and me. The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, his passion, suffering, and death- is the unimaginable wisdom of God, which has drawn us from the depths of death and raised us to eternal life. Therefore, with Paul, let us never, ever be ashamed of that shameful instrument of death, which, by the passion of Christ, became for us the means of life. This is what we are thankful for. This is what we stand in awe of.

And this is why we have gathered today at the altar of the Lord to remember and celebrate his passion; to give thanks for his passion. Having confessed that Jesus "suffered and was buried," we will soon remember in our Eucharistic prayer the Son who was given by the Father to "suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption" and then "having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death" we respond with thanksgiving. "For as often as [we] eat this bread and drink the cup, [we] proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again.” As Jesus was lifted up on a cross, the priest lifts up the bread and elevates the cup as we look upon that divine medicine which heals our sins, just as the fiery serpent that Moses set on a pole brought salvation to snake-bitten Israelites who looked up and gazed upon it (Num 21:6-9).

In fact, when we the priest comes and communes you with the body and blood of Christ, he reminds you of our Lord's life-giving passion saying, "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee; Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee. The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for you; Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee and be thankful." Holy Communion, our worship in this Eucharistic celebration, is but one grand act of thanking God for the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why St. Paul knew nothing but Christ and him crucified. This is why crucifixes have adorned Christian altars since at least the 6th century and remain today in evangelical, protestant churches such as St. Benedict's. The crucifix is not a sign of defeat. It's not a shameful sign of weakness. It is the sign of Messiah; it is the sign of the God of the Bible, signifying God's never-ending love for you and the unimaginable means by which he shows it.

You will have noticed the veiled Cross here on the altar, which may seem counterintuitive on Passion Sunday, as the passion of our Lord and the Cross are indissolubly connected. But mother church, in her wisdom, directs our devotion to the Cross of Christ, not so much as an emblem of victory to be unveiled at the Easter Vigil, but as an instrument of humiliation and suffering, the humiliation to which our Savior subjected Himself, of hiding Himself when the Jews threatened to stone Him, and the suffering he obediently and willfully incurs between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The Veiled Cross is a corrective to our present-day culture of celebration, rooting Easter's festivities in the reality of suffering and death and rightly positioning the troubles and sufferings of our own lives, no matter how much we try to avoid or distract ourselves from the reality of suffering in this world.

Your suffering isn't meaningless or absurd. Not in the least! Jesus and him crucified on the Cross, his suffering for you, makes sense of all our suffering. For in the wisdom of God, suffering (for the faithful Christian) is the path to glory, as it was for our Lord Jesus Christ, "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb 12:2). Jesus' suffering was not in vain, his passion was not for nothing, but was the way to eternal glory.

Christ and him crucified is the only rationale for the passion we endure in this life. Can you imagine the torturous existence experienced by anyone who has no hope of eternity with Christ? And the insanity of suffering without purpose? But the suffering and death of our Lord on Calvary's Cross make sense out of this world's nonsense. Andy, by his stripes, we are healed. What the blood of goats and calves could not win, Christ won by the oblation of his body and blood. By his death, we, by faith, have eternal life and the promise of an eternal inheritance.

So, prepare yourself to enter the holy of holies to be fed by the great High Priest and Bishop of your soul. He will feed with you his precious self, his body, and blood. And this is a foretaste of the union we will one day enjoy with him when we shall dine at that heavenly banquet awaiting all faithful people who love our Lord Jesus Christ.

So come, feed on Christ who says, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eats of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (Jn 6:51).

Beloved, remember, our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Therefore, do not shy away from sharing in the passion of our Lord, for it is through godly suffering that this world makes sense and by suffering we attain eternal glory. Amen+