Pour out your soul in the presence of the Lord: "Beloved Jesus, most holy God, with all my heart I want to renew my life before You, handing over all that I have and all that I am to You. Help me to be better, teach me, heal me and free me from all the sins I have not yet been able to free myself from. Come to the aid of my weakness, Jesus. You who took on the human condition and know by Your own experience what I feel, what I think, what leads me to sin so many times, and how I fail to keep myself firm in a resolution with You. Yet even if it be necessary, I want to make this resolution a million times over and never give up — for You did not give up on dying on the cross for my sake. And so I make this resolution now: I want to abandon all my vices — pornography, prostitution, alcoholism, drugs and everything that numbs me; in short, everything that has been an opening for sin in my life and that draws me away from You. Sustain me with Your holy hands and strengthen me by the power of Your sacred and holy Blood. Amen."
Beloved of God, Jesus is wonderful. His power is infinite; there are no limits to His action in our lives and on our behalf. Jesus is the most beautiful expression of God's love, for He reveals a God who is able to come down to our level, humbling Himself, and even more, taking on death on a cross:
"Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross." (Phil 2:6-8)
Jesus is the certainty of what God is able to do for us sinful men, for He spares no effort and never fails to give us life, and life in abundance through Christ (cf. Jn 10:10), if we accept it. From the life of Christ we have the most beautiful example to be followed and lived and applied in the daily life of every Christian; from the death of Christ we have exemplified — when He died on the cross — that which He preached throughout His whole life, and the fullness of love in the words He spoke: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (Jn 15:13); and from the resurrection of Christ from among the dead we have the example that moves us to remain with Him, as Saint Paul said: "If we have died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself." (2 Tm 2:11-13)
In today's post we want to dwell on the work of Christ; His actions, His attitudes, His conduct, His deeds and what He accomplished; and with this to raise a question that it is you who will answer for us (in the comments): WHAT VALUE HAVE YOU GIVEN TO THE WORK OF CHRIST?
Jesus has always existed! He is one with God and is the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. He is the Word of God, who was with God in the beginning and is God Himself.
"All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father." (Jn 1:3-5.9-14) When the fullness of time had come, Jesus descended by the Holy Spirit into the womb of the Virgin Mary and was made man (cf. Gal 4:4). The Father sent Him with a mission, a purpose for the earth, and He freely accepted it, without weighing the consequences, because of the benefits this work would bring to men. And as we saw in this passage from the first chapter of the Gospel of Saint John, Jesus is the light that came into the world to enlighten all men, but men did not accept Him; not even His "own" received Him. Jesus was aware of all this that He would have to go through to complete His mission.
The Son of God is born among the animals in a stable, is adored by the three wise men, and from His earliest days His family is forced to flee to protect His life; they wanted to kill Him from the moment He was born, but it was not the time. Jesus is raised in the family of Nazareth with the Jewish teachings of His father Saint Joseph, who was a carpenter, and of His mother Holy Mary. At twelve years of age, lost from His parents, He stays in the Temple teaching the doctors of the law, but understands that His hour had not yet come.
When He reaches the age of 30 He is baptized by Saint John the Baptist in the river Jordan and begins His public life. What did He do from the age of 12 until 30? Preparing for His mission! Learning and living what He would have to teach; what He learned from His parents on earth and what He learned from His Father in Heaven. Jesus prepared for 30 years for His mission; and you, how long have you been preparing for yours? GOD HAS A MISSION FOR YOU, A PURPOSE FOR YOUR LIFE!
After being baptized, Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the desert (cf. Mt 4), and after that moment and a prayer in the presence of God the Father, He chooses His disciples and begins to work His miracles.
The event in the image above reminds us of the Wedding at Cana, where He worked His first miracle, as Saint John relates to us (cf. Jn 2:1-12).
A miracle is Jesus' number-two specialty! Because His number-one specialty is to love… Jesus loved everyone! He discriminated against no one. He held no prejudice about anyone's values or way of living; the Lord simply loved! And loves! He loves the poor, the sorrowful, the resentful, the prostitutes, the thieves, the drug dealers, the murderers, the impure, the licentious, the children, the young, the old, those who know Him and those who do not. And because Jesus loves, He heals, frees, restores, purifies, forgives and sanctifies. That is how He did it, and that is how He goes on doing it!
Jesus never stopped showing His love for the people through the healings and miracles He worked. The one who narrates it to us is Saint Matthew, the former tax collector:
"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them." (Mt 4:23-24)
And the physician Saint Luke also narrates to us, after the episode of the choosing of the twelve apostles:
"And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came forth from him and healed them all." (Lk 6:17-19)
Wherever this wonderful man passed, marks were left, and the traces of God that He left along the way were His footprints of love. The ground that Jesus trod as He walked from village to village reflected the brightness of His glory and His love. Jesus breathed love, spoke with love, healed with love… None of His actions were empty; there was always a touch of His holiness and His love in them.
His disciples walked with Him for three years and were formed in His teachings and in His radical way of authentically living the Word of God and love in its fullness. He disturbed many; many doctors of the law were left perplexed and speechless because HE LIVED WHAT HE PREACHED, very different from many in that age and in ours today. And the humble found themselves supported, protected and healed.
At the Last Supper He gave precious and unerring counsels for a true conversion and a faith rooted in the heart of God. He showed, explained, gave examples, taught and loved the apostles to the utmost in that moment. He washed the feet of each one, looked into their eyes and did what He knew best: He loved, loved, loved, loved to the very end. Where no one had ever imagined: Jesus loved until He could love no more! In this love He showed — and would soon show — the MADNESS OF GOD'S LOVE FOR US!
That moment past, the hour of Christ had come! The moment for which He came to the earth, to accomplish His Work, to complete and bring His work to its fullness! It began with the announcement of the betrayal of one of His apostles, Judas Iscariot, who sold Him for thirty pieces of silver.
Jesus began His highest hour, suffering agony and sweating blood on the Mount of Olives, being abandoned by the friends who had been with Him in every high moment of His mission (the apostles Peter, James and John), and praying to the Father:
"My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." (Mt 26:39)The feeling of loneliness consumed the heart of Christ. The blood He sweated showed the supreme anguish in which He was living. Then Judas arrived with the soldiers, betrayed Him with a kiss, and Jesus was arrested (cf. Mt 26:48-49) like a criminal.
Before the authorities Caiaphas, Pilate and King Herod, the mighty King of Kings Jesus Christ shows Himself humble and small. The frailty of a God who holds the whole universe in His hands, a sovereignty and authority far greater than any human being, and who makes Himself small. All of this seems a contradiction, but it was because Jesus wanted to show that the greater strength is not brutality or what appears great before the eyes, but that true strength comes from within, from the heart, which cannot be seen with the eyes alone. Christ remains meek and humble before what happens to Him.
At the moment of the condemnation the chief priests and the people prefer Barabbas the murderer to Christ. This is the way we repay God for all that He does for us! Are we not doing this today? And the greatest proof that we repay God in this way is the way we treat one another. Jesus said: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." (Jn 15:12)
And what do we do? We kill one another, we hate one another, we hold on to revenge and wish evil upon one another. We need to learn to love one another! We do not need to like one another — which means to share the same preferences about music, clothes, and so on — but we need to love one another, which means to die for the other, to wear ourselves out, to give ourselves away.
Unfortunately, besides the direct rejection of Christ, we are always choosing the "murderers" when we fail to love one another, as children of God, as human beings who deserve dignity and respect, regardless of what we have done or failed to do.
The feeling of rejection penetrated the heart of Jesus and tore it in two! Christ was despised and treated like an outcast. Perhaps those who had been healed of sickness and freed from disease by Christ were there in the midst of the people crying out for the death of Jesus. Many times we are like this! People who will not own up to their failures, to the reasons their lives go so badly, and still have the nerve to throw the blame for their own unhappiness onto God. How many do this!?
The feeling of humiliation enveloped the heart of Jesus and made Him feel even more the weight and anguish of what He would undergo in His Great Hour. As if that were not enough, Jesus is struck a blow…
Then they take Him to be scourged… Jesus receives and lives intensely, for hours, this moment of the scourging. According to Saint Bridget, it was exactly 5,480 lashes that Jesus received. He shed much blood, broke many ribs and bones throughout His body, cut all the skin from His body and was left as raw flesh, tore out one of His eyes, tore His hair, and His internal organs — kidneys, intestine and stomach — burst! (cf. Mt 27:26)
Jesus was mocked and received spitting, punches, kicks and much violence at the moment of the crowning with thorns, which came after the scourging:
"And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe; they came up to him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' and struck him with their hands." (Jn 19:2-3)
Then they forced and compelled Jesus to carry His cross:
"And he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha." (Jn 19:17)
The 60 kg weight of the cross falls far short, for that was not all there was upon that cross; present there were all the sins of humanity, all the sufferings, pains, traumas, diseases and all the misfortunes of the whole of humanity, weighing down the cross of Christ. That is why He fell three times, as though representing the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It was for our sins; it was out of love for us that He fell.
The falls did not make Him give up His journey with the cross; rather, they strengthened Him and gave Him the certainty that He could fall as many times as necessary, because He was doing this for the whole of humanity. Nothing can shake Christ and take Him from His focus, His goal. We need to learn from Jesus: the falls and stumbles in our lives should be an impulse to begin again, more enthusiastic than before, because we come to know ourselves more and more with each fall. And we come to understand our need for God more and more!
Jesus reached Mount Calvary and was nailed to the cross. In what manner? In the worst possible way… Jesus is pierced in His right hand with those nails of the time, which were not even as round and precise as the ones we know today. It was a tremendous tearing of the hands and feet of Christ!
As if the pains were not enough, they had to wrench the body of Christ out of joint to reach both sides of the cross. The body of Jesus on the wood of the Cross is the most blessed fruit of Heaven and earth upon the dry tree of the Cross. There on the wood our salvation was brought forth, with the pouring out of all the blood of Christ.
All the blood of Christ poured out on the cross… Behold the price that was paid for our salvation! And the blood of Christ opens heaven for us! This is what we had to reveal to you in this post: Jesus, dying on the cross, fulfilling His mission, suffering for us, giving us the certainty of salvation, opens the heaven that was closed, descends into hell and brings out all those who were held captive from the Old Testament, and takes them with Him to heaven, prepares a place for us and awaits us in heaven. How wonderful! Jesus opened heaven for us! Behold the most beautiful work Jesus could do for us. The least we can do is to accept this blood, this salvation, and ardently long to meet this wonderful God in heaven.
Let us take hold of the redemption of Christ:
"Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Is 53:1-6)
What a most magnificent work of love Christ accomplished for us! Who could do the like of Him? Who can give us this demonstration of love, or even one resembling it? We recommend to you two songs, that you may pray and reflect upon them:
"Foi por você" by Anjos de Resgate: http://youtu.be/9P9RL1K3Ysg
And "Santa Cruz" by Banda Arkanjos: http://youtu.be/b2SAbO-ZlVQ
Jesus rose again! He broke the chains of death, restored all the laws, gave us the example of love, did and goes on doing everything He can for us, and awaits us, patiently… Let us surrender to this work of Christ, which ought to move us, and let us accept all that His pain, crucifixion, death and resurrection bring for us, for our life, for our living.
May God bless us and teach us to take up our mission as Christ took up His!
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