The daily Word of God

Dear friends,

Something of great importance is at stake. Jesus makes the announcement for a second time and issues a stark warning to the audience. “Listen up and understand this.” He is once again addressing the subject of his passion and death. The religious leaders will reject him and kill him. But he always points to the resurrection, which, however, was still far from his comprehension. Pain, death, loneliness, and sickness are painful mysteries that are an inherent part of the human experience. It is challenging for us to fully comprehend this reality and, most importantly, to accept it. Let me be clear: accepting the cross of Jesus is nothing whatsoever to do with a spirituality of victimhood or pain.

After moments of glory, such as the transfiguration and the healing of the epileptic boy, Jesus returns to the destiny that awaits him, ready to make the decision to go up to Jerusalem to die and rise again. He faced danger alone, despised and executed by his enemies in Jerusalem. His disciples react with disconcerting confusion. They are unable to comprehend his words, which seem to them like an obscure language. Seized by fear, they dare not ask him anything. They are still clinging to their ideas of political messianism. Jesus is the Messiah of God because he is “a being for death.” He is the Son of Man, not as a judge but as a suffering man. He is power and victory manifested in weakness. Jesus’ life is the ultimate paradox: he is King and he is servant; his victory is fulfilled in the cross of the slaves; his life is to die, to die, and to give his life for those he loves.

If you want to understand Jesus, you have to have faith and abandon yourself to God. Faith alone reveals that the cross is a symbol of triumph. Those disciples who did not understand the language, after Jesus’s death, gave their lives for him, despite persecutions and torments. A follower of Jesus will face the cross with courage and determination. Love is the first commandment. Love always entails pain and sacrifice for others. Today, we have countless persecuted Christians as a clear and undeniable example. Look at the courageous response of Christians in the Near and Middle East when the cross arrives. In the West, we must understand this language. Alongside Christians who respond, like the apostles, “I will follow you wherever you go,” other believers are afraid to follow Christ with all the consequences. We must not be afraid to “be different,” to be something else in the world, to announce the Gospel values, which are not worldly. We can say yes or say no; but to follow Jesus is to follow the Crucified One.