WHY JESUS HAD TO UNDERGO THE AGONIES OF HIS PASSION
Over the centuries, many have pointed out that, since Jesus is God, He could have redeemed us merely by shedding one drop of His Precious Blood. According to this perspective, it could be asserted that we were actually saved the day of His circumcision, when the first drops of His Blood were shed. But this is not what the Gospel proclaims, but rather Christ crucified.
A similar misunderstanding is that Jesus had to endure His Passion and Death in order to appease the just wrath of His Father, Who was infinitely offended by human sinfulness. This requires viewing God the Father as one, who severely punishes his children when they disobey his commands. But this is not in harmony with the fact that God the Father so loved the world, even before we repented, that He sent His only Son to live among us and to lay down His life for our salvation. Thus all who believe in Him and are born of water and the Spirit in Baptism are able to share in eternal life with Him (Jn 3:16). Thus it is that Jesus did not lay down His life for us to appease the Father, but rather to please Him (cf., Matt 3:17, 17:5; Mk 1:11; Lk 3:22).
But why was such a cruel and agonizing death required for the world’s salvation? To answer that question, it is necessary for us to note that Jesus’ suffering and assent to Calvary mirrored His descent into the depths of the human soul, which were so perverted by the self-deprecation and desecrating cynicism of sin as to render them largely unable to believe that God was able to forgive them, much less love and appreciate them. Such a descent was required in order to allow God’s redeeming graciousness not merely to deliver a soul from the tragic consequences of its sins and resentments, but also to draw the soul out of the bleak and desecrating darkness and despondency of sin into the marvelous light of His redemptive and regenerative mercy.
This truth was indicated to us repeatedly in the Gospel. Jesus frequently lamented the lack of faith on the part of so many, while exclaiming His joy when He discovered faith being revealed in the lives of others. One of the great deceptions of Satan is the idea that our sins so badly desecrate ourselves that we cannot be loved, much less appreciated. This deception leads to embracing the idea that, while we can manipulate others by good actions into liking us, at the very core of our being, we remain intrinsically unlovable.
The truth, however, is quite the opposite. While we can be and often are unfaithful and even rebellious and perverse, God is always faithful to His original sacred, loving, gracious and grateful commitment to continually beget us in His image and likeness – even as our sins so grievously offend Him and desecrate ourselves, our perspectives and others in so many ways.
In a way, this love was reflected in an incident in the ministry of St. Teresa of Calcutta. A spastic child was going through a terrible fit. When St. Teresa picked him up, the child viciously bit her and clawed at her. But, through this ordeal, she just gently, firmly and lovingly held him, until he gradually calmed down and fell asleep in her arms. No matter what he did to her, she would not stop reverently affirming his intrinsic sacredness and her love for him.
As was indicate above, however, one of the consequences of our sins is that, as they desecrate us and our perspective of ourselves and others, they draw us into a profound but real sense of self-loathing, or even in a profound, pernicious and pervasive sense of self-hatred, the nature of which, if not purged through sincere repentance, will become traumatically evident at our particular judgment. This in turn, leads to other sins. Just as our first parents, after they ate the forbidden fruit, sought to justify themselves and find salvation through excuses and resentments, rather than offer God and His mercy the humble hospitality of sincere repentance, we tend to do the same thing. Furthermore, seduced by Satan, we go even further by believing that, if we degrade and desecrate others enough, we can forget how profoundly we have desecrated ourselves, and thus, like Adam and Eve, we seek to find “justification" by embracing vapid excuses and festering resentments. This terrifying possibility was indicated by an observation made by a spiritual director that Satan has a standing offer for all priests, "I will ensure that you have a very fruitful and fufilling ministry, if only you allow most souls entrusted to your care to remain infected with one unrepented mortal sin, compounded by numerous sacrilegious receptions of the Holy Eucharist."
To enable us to break out of this lethal vicious cycle of abuse, excuses and resentments, Jesus was graciously sent by the Father that we may have life and have it to the full. But He could only fully reveal the transformative depths of the Father’s love, mercy, reverence and gratitude to us by having us fully and tangibly reveal to Him the extent of the evils that festered in and polluted the depths of our souls and relationships.
Here it is important to note the Eucharistic nature of His love for us. While we normally think of love in terms of beneficence and munificence, its deepest reality is both consecrated to and permeated with reverence and gratitude for the beloved – regardless of the condition of the beloved. Sadly, though, since our ability to believe that we could ever be reverenced, loved and appreciated so deeply is severely crippled by the subtle and not-so-subtle cynicism spawned by our sins, we will not believe unless we can actually witness such love manifestly transcending and triumphing over all the festering evils in the depths of our souls.
The "price" that sinful humans demanded to accept redemption from their sins is that the Divine Lover persevere in asserting His love, even as we demonstrated how deeply we are enmeshed in or even committed to sin’s desecrating demonic dynamic. This being the case, Jesus had to pay the price we were demanding. Throughout His Passion, and even beyond it, He continued to plead with each of us – “Please believe how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as my child.” Only by allowing ourselves to be transformed by His gracious love, reverence, mercy and fidelity (i.e., by regularly and conscientiously abiding in His gaze and words of regenerative gratitude) were the gifts of supernatural faith and life, offered through Baptism, able to come to full fruition in our lives and relationships.
Based on the events of His Paschal sacrifice, the following Litany of Christ Crucified to sinners may help in appreciating this awesome and sacred mystery of His redeeming love, mercy and gratitude.
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| Head of Christ by Rembrandt |
“What if we fail to pray with You in the time of Your profound anguish, betray You, or abandon You?”
“Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me and how grateful I am to have you as My child!”
“What if we denigrate You, slap You, spit on You, blindfold You, and ridicule You?”
”Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as My child!”
“What if we slander you as a blasphemer, a revolutionary, a corrupter of souls or any other false charges we can devise?”
“Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as My child!”
What if we join with the corrupt court of Herod in mocking You and all You hold sacred?”
“Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as My child!”
“What if we have You viciously scourged, crown You with thorns, beat those thorns deep into Your head, ridicule You, spit on You and urinate on You?”
“Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as My child!”
What if we have You carry a heavy cross on Your wounded back, ridicule You as You fall into the sepsis of festering feces and garbage on Your way to crucifixion, and beat You to hasten Your way more deeply into even more excruciating pain?”
“Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as My child!”
“What if we sadistically delight in watching Your hands and feet nailed to a cross and taunt You as You writhe in agonizing pain for hours on that cross?”
“Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as My child!”
“What if we deride You, calling You Beelzebub, Lord of the flies, as flies and wasps swarm around biting and stinging Your Body and crawling into Your wounds, ears, nose and throat?”
“Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as My child!”
What if we ridicule Your Beloved Mother, calling her a loose woman for having conceived You before she married Your father?”
“Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as My child!”
“What if, even after You die, we callously desecrate Your Body by stabbing it with a spear?”
“Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as My child!”
After His Resurrection, even His beloved disciples were initially afraid to believe His love was greater than their disloyalty (Lk 24:37), so again from the depths of His Heart, He reverently but quietly asked each of them, “Please believe Me and trust Me, as I tell you how deeply I love you, how precious you are to Me, and how grateful I am to have you as My child! What your sins say about you comes from the Father of Lies. But what I am telling you is coming from the One, Who is both Truth itself and more true to you than you are to yourselves. No longer buy the lies, which leave you despised in your own eyes and in the eyes of others."
But, tragically, many, trapped in the perverted premises, perspectives and priorities spawned by secularism, cynicism and sin, remain unrepentant and contemptuously continue to respond to His plea by taking umbrage at His gracious love and complaining, "How dare You violate my spiritual complacency by loving, reverencing and appreciating me?"
In conclusion, it should be mentioned that a wise spiritual director once noted that, if you really want to know yourself, it is grossly inadequate to look into a mirror. Mirrors of any kind, including psychological tests, can only reveal a few dimensions of the marvelous mysterious and sacred gift you truly are. Instead, authentic self-knowledge requires that you have the faith and courage to abide in the transformative gaze of the One, Who loves you, reverences you and appreciates you most purely and perfectly. And as awkward as abiding in that gaze may seem to be at first, ultimately it is the only way you will be able to discover your true dignity and grow in the joy of becoming, in the mystery of His reverent and gracious gratitude, the uniquely sanctifying gift God has called you to be.
ADDENDUM – Evil is personal, multidimensional and perpetually metastasizing. And it does not only seduce souls into embracing perverted practices, but also into embracing perverting premises, perspectives, paradigms and priorities.Thus it can only be overcome by reparational sufferings of Christ, along with those of the members of His Mystical Body. By the gracious fidelity of the Holy Spirit, the redemptive and regenerative nature of such sufferings become transformative in ways that are personal, communal, omnidimensional and perpetually sanctifying. As the whole Christ, Head and Body, faithfully perseveres in hungering and thirsting for God’s redemptive righteousness to deliver and regenerate all trapped in the deceptions and addictions of evil, the members of the Body must also share in the many forms of prolonged, yet purifying, awkwardness, anguish and pain required for souls to break free from the addictions spawned by the cynicism spawned by sin in the human soul and in human society. Thus it is that in a world, which is deeply addicted to immediate gratification, there is a need to remember that Christians live in the hope of the Resurrection, as they take up their crosses daily and persevere in trusting God to make all things work together for their good and the good and salvation of all those entrusted to their care and their prayers.
Fr. Thomas R. Collins frtrac1@hotmail.com
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