The second is like it:* You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
-Gospel of St. Matthew chapter 22, verses 37-40.
Well, Holy Week is upon us. The week that changed the world. The most powerful event in human history and salvation history took place on this very week. That event is the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. For those that do not understand, no explanation is possible. For those who do, no explanation is necessary.
With this entry, I am not going to try and please all of the people all of the time. Some of you may like what I have to say, others might wonder if I had lost my mind. Now that I have said that, what I am going to do is meditate here on the events of Holy Week and what they mean to me. My favorite gospel in Sacred Scripture has always been the Gospel of Matthew. No, it is not because the gospel was written by my namesake. It is because it is the gospel that shows off the most of Jesus' humanity. Yes, He is truly God, but He is also truly man. The two natures cannot be separated.
Now, I will beg your pardon, especially if you are well-versed in the Bible and in theology. Chances are you will forget more about Scripture than I will ever know.
What I write will be focusing on Jesus the man, as opposed to Jesus, the Son of God. I wonder many things about Him, and I wonder what was going through His mind from Palm Sunday to the time He breathed out His last on the cross at Calvary. Could He have gone through the same emotions we would if we were in His situation? Did He suffer any anxieties? Did He get angry? Did He ever have it in His mind that what He was doing was not worth going through?
First off, I have to say yes. He was true God and true Man. Being a man, Jesus was susceptible to all of the same emotions the rest of us humans are. You had to figure there was anticipation and anxiety on His mind. He was every bit of a human as you and I are, just without the stain of original sin. Emotions are not sins, so you must be wondering what He was feeling. What sets Him apart from the rest of us was how He responded to it.
Scripture tells us He had moments of emotion just like you and I would have. Consider the death of His friend Lazarus in John chapter 11. The shortest verse in Scripture: And Jesus wept. His friend was dead. The Son of God wept for the loss of His friend just like you or I would. But, what made Him different was, of course, how He reacted to it. Instead of going into hysterics or a deep depression, we read "“Father, I thank you for hearing me.
I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me. And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” Jesus had thanked His Father, and explained why He was doing what he was doing, to show the people that He was who He said He was, that he was not fooling around.
We all have our days where we are angry. Be it we are cut off in traffic, dealing with difficult people at work, or the guy at McDonald's got our order wrong, we have many little things that make us want to go into a rage. Even Jesus had one of those moments, but while we obsess and moan over little problems in the grand scheme of it all, He was driven to his actions by love for His Father and His Father's House. Matthew 21:12: "Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those engaged in selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And he said to them, “It is written: ‘My house shall be a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves.” For sure, Jesus had quite a good reason for His rage in the Temple, because what was supposed to be a place for contemplation and prayer was being turned into a marketplace. If He saw the TV preachers who supposedly proclaim His word today, I am sure Jesus would have the same reaction. Yet, He had a moment where He was angry, just like you and I do.
However, while many moments of Jesus's public ministry were documented in the Scriptures, there are times when I wonder, what was going on in His mind? That was not documented for the most part. I am apprehensive about talking on this matter because I do not want to be seen as a blasphemer or trying to write a new gospel. That is not the case, so just indulge me. This is meant to be a meditation, trying to contemplate the major moments of Jesus' ministry as if I was there in 33 A.D. watching all of this happen as an outside observer. How would we react if we were in those circumstances, if we were like a journalist trying to report on these incredible events in the Jerusalem Post? To do that, we have to at least try to stand in His place.
It is difficult for someone like you or I to put ourselves in His position, because He was a man greater than any of us could hope to be. I know if I was Him, I would probably be starting to grow weary of it all. To have twelve men follow you around and claim to be obedient and hanging on your every word, but at the same time also question every thing you tell them like an incorrigible child...no thanks! I'd be telling them to shut up and listen or I'm asking my Father to find someone to take my place. Thank God it was Jesus who was chosen for this mission by His Heavenly Father, because only Jesus was the right man for the task. You or I? We could not handle it.
Consider His entrance into Jerusalem. Matthew 21:8-11: "The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and strewed them on the road. The crowds preceding him and those following kept crying out and saying: “Hosanna* to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest.” And when he entered Jerusalem the whole city was shaken* and asked, “Who is this?” And the crowds replied, “This is Jesus the prophet,* from Nazareth in Galilee.” Now, I am sure that Our Lord was amazed by this outpouring of affection and love from the people of Jerusalem, even if He knew it was foretold. Once again...true God and true man. He had to be thinking to Himself that these people are ready to hear what I have to tell them, and they will be willing listeners. I mean, with a reception like that, how could one not? It was basically a regal welcome, a royal procession. The people of Jerusalem were ready for their new king.
Well, the people were! The chief priests, elders, and scribes? Not so much...they were on a mission to prove that Jesus was a fake and a phony. Full of pride and arrogance, they decided to subject Our Lord to a pretty aggressive equivalent of a game of Twenty Questions. At first they questioned the authority of Jesus, but Jesus calmly went about telling parables, and while each parable contained great knowledge and wisdom, at the end of each of the parables, Jesus did not resist the chance to tell the chief priests and the scribes that their authority was soon coming to an end. The way He would do it was masterful. Matthew 21:32: "When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him." Jesus basically just came and put the taxman and ladies of the night in a higher bracket than the priests and scribes. Ouch! Then, in Matthew 21:43, during the Parable of the Tenants, is even more direct: "Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit. The one who falls on this stone will be dashed to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls". Yep. If Jesus had a microphone, He would have dropped it. Yet, even if He did have a microphone, nothing of the sort would have happened. Jesus said what He meant and He meant what He said. No more was needed, no fanfare, no pageantry, no drama. That was that. Case closed. The most humble man that ever walked the Earth would not put Himself above others or brag.
Yet, the chief priests, elders, and scribes were undaunted. They were bound and determined to prove Him a farce. This man had just all of a sudden walked into Jerusalem, had the crowds and the people on His side, and was refuting their questions with ease? Who in the world did this Jesus think He was? He's gotta go. More questions came, more parables followed. Then, the Pharisees thought they had Jesus. They thought that they had the question that would trip Him up. No chance He could brush aside this one:
Matthew 22:15-17: Then the Pharisees* went off and plotted how they might entrap him in speech. They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians,* saying, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status. Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”
Jesus' response pretty much gives away what was going on in His mind here. Even a humble man like Him would have grown annoyed and have thought "Seriously? You guys don't know when to quit do you?" His reply in Matthew 22:18: Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?" He's almost saying "Come on, guys...this is a waste of time. But, if you want to go there..." He replies: Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s.”* At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
Once again, Jesus had turned the tables on the scribes and the Pharisees. Yet, they would keep proving the definition of insanity to be true by continuing their questioning. Once again, even Our Lord had to be growing a little perturbed. Still, the Pharisees and the scribes seemed to be gluttons for punishment. The Sadducees questioned Him about the Resurrection, which is covered in Matthew 22:23-33. After that, the Sadducees cried "Enough!" and were silenced. Jesus had to be wondering to himself that maybe, just maybe, people were starting to listen to his message and will take it to heart. But, the Pharisees decided to take one more bite of the apple and ask Jesus about what was the greatest commandment, and then about whom is the Son of David in Matthew 22:34-46. Then, finally, the wisdom of our Lord had won the day, and "No one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare to ask him any more questions." (Matthew 22:46)
However, after all of that debate, discussion, and argument, you would have to believe that Jesus was quite tired, and his patience quite thin. I know personally that I would be ready to throw hands or ready to cry out "I AM THE SON OF GOD! WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME?" Can you imagine how Jesus must felt when he turned to the Pharisees and Sadducees to denounce them? He must have been ready to call down a lightning bolt on them. Yet, no. Humility turned whatever anger was within the heart of our Lord into probably the most impassioned and emotional sermons of His public ministry, which begins in Matthew chapter 23.
To be continued...
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