A homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Life only makes sense in the shadow of the cross.
That phrase came to me suddenly one day, watching another moment of senseless violence on the news. Another tragedy with sheeted bodies, shattered first responders, weeping loved ones. Deep, profound suffering.
We want to try to make sense of it. We want to know why. And I'm afraid that, this side of heaven, we never will. When I stand before the Lord one day, I'm going to have some questions. The first one is Did have to be so hard?
I can imagine Jesus showing me his own wounds and saying Yes.
Think about the words of the Prophet Isaiah today:
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
That's one of the songs of the Suffering Servant: a prophesy of Jesus. It's basic to our faith: Jesus suffered to atone for our sins, and then overcame that suffering to rise from the dead, and bring us to new life. He took defeat and remade it into victory.
That's the theology of the cross, and we live in the shadow of that cross every day. The worst thing in the world that can happen, has happened--we killed God. We did that.
The only thing in heaven made by the hands of man are the wounds of Christ.
We did that.
God the Father could not directly experience the reality of human suffering. He could walk with us only so far in His full majesty. He had to come down from heaven to be born of our Blessed Mother, to walk these hard and dusty roads with us, to sweat and hunger and thirst and weep ... and bleed. Just like all his children.
And by doing that, he said to us The world is dark. But you are not alone in the darkness. I am here too. That darkness will fall on you. It's important to know that the darkness is not empty, and it is not meaningless. It is the shadow of the cross.
In the gospel today, Jesus asks John and James: can you drink the cup I will drink?
They believe they can because they think the cup is filled with wine. Wine was a sign of joy and abundance. Sure, we'll drink with you as we rule by the side of your throne in the places of honor!
Jesus's throne was the cross, and the places on either side of that throne were occupied by condemned thieves. And the wine he drank was bitter vinegar on a sponge. But just as the waters of the old covenant were turned into wine at the Wedding in Cana, so will the wine be turned to the blood of the new covenant by the sacrifice of Jesus.
John and James don't get it yet. They don't yet know what's at the bottom of that cup. Jesus knows what's in that cup. In the Garden at Gethsemane he will beg his Father to take it away.
Don't judge John and James harshly. They'll understand--by the end. About ten years after the incident described in today's Gospel, St. James the Great will die by the sword of the Roman Emperor Nero. That will be his cup to drink.
St. John, his younger brother, the Beloved of the Lord, will be the only apostle to escape a violent death. But this doesn't mean he is spared. We read in the Church Fathers that John was so infirm in his old age that had to be carried down to greet the congregation, and then only had strength for a few words. He will endure the pains and indignities that come with age and illness. That will be his cup to drink.
And by that point no man on earth understood what it meant better than St. John the Apostle, the author of the fourth gospel. By then, he knew--At that bottom of that cup are bitter dregs--pain and suffering and death—but that's not all there is.
Pain and suffering and death do not get the last word. Christ gets the last word. And that cross becomes a battering ram destroying the doors of death when he rises to new life.
When God touches something he makes it holy. On the cross, God touched suffering, and he made it holy. He sanctified it. He gave it meaning. Jesus knew it wouldn't be easy standing up under the lash. And it wouldn't be easy carrying the cross. And it wouldn't be easy watching his friends abandon him. None of that was easy, any more for the Son of God than it would be for you or me.
And right now, it's not easy for us, when life scourges us, and heavy burdens weigh us down, and we lose those we love. It's not easy, but it can be holy. It can be holy because those who suffer are particularly close to Jesus.
To be close to God is to be close to the fire. And if you find yourself in the darkness, that means you're in the shadow of the cross.
It's hard to see, I know that. Cancer and unemployment and loneliness and violence and loss are the tragic fruits of a fallen world. God doesn't send them. But he does send the caregivers, and the communities that support us in our suffering, and the loved ones who stay by our side. God does not send evil, but, in the words of St. Augustine, "He is able to bring forth good out of evil."
St. John Paul II said, "On His cross the Son of God accomplished the redemption of the world. It is through this mystery that every cross placed on someone’s shoulders acquires a dignity that is humanly inconceivable and becomes a sign of salvation for the person who carries it and also for others."
The people of God are also the body of Christ. When we suffer, we participate in Christ's suffering. When we find ourselves in the shadow of the cross, we are joined in a special communion not merely with Jesus, but with all those who have much to endure: the poor, the sick, the oppressed, the frightened, the abandoned. Let us pray for them. Let us be there for them. Let us lift them up and bind their wounds.
In good days, let us be the Christ who serves and comforts the suffering. And in bad days, let us be united, in a special way, to the Christ who saves us by the cross, because just as we were baptized into his death, so were we also baptized into eternal life.
Sunday October 17, 2021