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First Sunday of Lent (C): Read Lk. 4, 1-13
Since last Wednesday, much attention has been devoted in many quarters to the film “The Passion of the Christ”
of Mr. Mel Gibson. I have not yet seen it. Still, it seems clear that valid points are not absent on all sides of the debate
that has been unleashed in its regard. There is one point, however, which offers a particularly important opportunity to preach
about Jesus. I would like to take that opportunity and use it as a way to help understand something of today’s Gospel
reading.
It has been said and written that the film in question fails to offer us a proper context for understanding the violent
suffering and death of Jesus. More of His teaching and scenes from His public life recounting His marvelous deeds, as well
as an understanding of his conflict with the religious leaders of the time, would, it is said, have helped make the film more
meaningful. The point is well-taken and well-intentioned. However, from a strictly theological point of view, it is, I believe,
mistaken.
The reason for this is simple and it appeals, at least to some extent, to our own experience. The biographies of great
people are usually, and perhaps exclusively, written only because they have accomplished some great deed in their lives. Take
Mother Teresa or Maximilian Kolbe or any great figure of the secular world you like. If their words are remembered and quoted,
it’s only because their deeds have made a profound impression upon the human spirit. This is all the more so in the
case of Jesus. Had He not died and risen for our sakes, His many penetrating words and marvelous deeds, or miracles, might
well have faded into the shadows of history. Of course, as believers, we cannot relegate Him to the same level as other human
beings. His deeds, especially His passion, death and Resurrection, are not just marvelous: they are salvific, redemptive and,
thus, transcendent. All Jesus said and did before what He Himself called His “baptism”, meaning His passion and
death, only has any meaning or power at all because of what He suffered. It is not all that precedes the passion which gives
context and meaning to it: rather, it is the passion which gives context and meaning to all that precedes it. Had the apostles
never written or even said a word about what went before, the mystery of Jesus would still be proclaimed in the simple account
of the passion and resurrection. St. Paul recognizes this when, in First Corinthians 15, he articulates the heart of Christian
tradition in the following words: “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died
for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance
with the scriptures …” (vv.3-4). This is what we call the kerygma,
the heart and essence of the Gospel and of the whole of the Bible. That heart is not the Sermon on the Mount except insofar
as that Sermon is fulfilled and lived out by Jesus in His passion. Nor is it His parables of forgiveness, His healings or
His exorcisms, except insofar as all of these receive their fulfillment in the destruction of sin, sickness and death in the
crucifixion of His mortal body on the Cross and in its Resurrection to immortality.
The heart of the Gospel is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and all other parts of the Gospel text foretell
it, unfold it, lead to it and receive their wisdom, light and power from it. The Gospel is not an ideology or a biography;
it’s not a chronicle or the transcription of a lifelong press conference; it is not written for us to manipulate it
to suit our selfish interests or justify our partialities, crusades, wars, oppressions or social programs; it is not for our
aesthetic gratification, either in art, music, architecture or cinema. With due respect to all these, it is not any particular
artist’s work nor the sum of the work of all artists. For good or for ill, the Gospel text has been, and will be, used
by men and women for the purposes mentioned. But the Gospel does not belong to them as artists for art’s sake: the Gospel
is for the salvation of all. Indeed, the Gospel is not so much a text about Christ
the Savior as it is the Savior Himself. Just as the meaning of anyone’s life
is found in the fulfillment of their vocation and mission, the meaning of the life of Jesus Christ is found in His suffering
and death for our sins and in His Resurrection for our justification. And since Christ is our life, then the meaning of our
own lives is the Gospel. It is thus at least ironic that some, perhaps out of fear, ignorance or even pride, would seek to
appeal to the wisdom of Jesus as a way of avoiding or diluting the Cross of Jesus, for His wisdom is in fact His Cross. It
follows that the heart of the meaning of our own lives is to be found in the passion, Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. It
is into these that we are baptized; it is into these that we must plunge our own trials and tribulations as individuals and
as Church. Jesus surely did reveal Himself as a child; later, as a man, He revealed Himself to be the epitome of meekness,
understanding and compassion in His public ministry. But, albeit to our great dismay, Jesus most fully revealed who He was
as He hung on the Cross. There, the God of evangelical folly revealed Himself as willing to suffer the rejection of mankind
and, yet, to go on loving him just the same. A love faithful in the face of murderous hatred, unto death and beyond death,
is eternal love, is divine love, is the love of Jesus. Neither miracles nor eloquence saved us, but only the merciful love
of Jesus Crucified, our wisdom, our holiness, our power and our sanctification.
The free decision of Jesus to embrace in action the will of divine love, rather than the will of human or diabolical
self-love, is another way of speaking of both the agony in the garden and of the temptations in the desert. Thus we see how
today’s Gospel reading is woven into, and finds its fulfillment on, Calvary. Satan seeks to take divine
words, the words of Scripture, in order to lure Jesus away from the divine will. But Jesus masterfully unveils the deceitful
manipulation of Satan by revealing the true interpretation of Scripture. Scripture alone is not enough: it must be interpreted
according to the mind of Christ, given to us in the Holy Spirit working in the Church’s Teaching Authority. Of course,
Jesus does not defeat Satan by the power of His words and interpretation alone: indeed, as the Gospel reading says, “the
devil departed from Jesus [only] for a time.” That time was the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life. During that time
Jesus said no word to defend Himself: He only acted,
He fulfilled the words and their interpretation in His deeds, and by His death He defeated the devil definitively. After the
death of Jesus, Satan would return to Him no more.
It is sure doctrine that the texts of the Gospels were not only written after the death and Resurrection of Jesus,
but that the material included in them was selected and ordered by the Evangelists in the light of those events, and under
the influence of the Holy Spirit. To read the temptations of Christ, or any other Gospel episode, in isolation from the passion
and resurrection of Jesus, will prevent anyone from understanding the full depth and implications of those episodes. The greatest
temptation of Jesus was “not to drink the cup the Father” had given Him. Here is the meaning of all the other
temptations He received; here lies the greatest power working against Him in His passion. Just as the full flowering of the
faithful love of Jesus took place on the Cross, so the full force of the power working against Him was revealed upon it. It
was a force which now sought to dissuade Him, no longer with sweet words and enticing rewards, but with violence, physical
and spiritual, as extreme as the hatred of Satan for God. The seeds of discontent with Jesus shown from the beginning of the
Gospel are revealed in all their lacerating viciousness throughout the final hours of His tragic, yet saving demise. And if
He died thus because of our sins, it is our sins, and our sins alone, that killed
Him. Dramatic art may offend our sensibilities, but we need to ask ourselves if our sensibilities are not ultimately rooted
in our reluctance to admit the full, horrible impact of our sins, big and small, on both the flesh and on the Spirit of the
Savior. Of course no-one likes to see that impact in flesh and blood, and some might rather deny they have sinned at all,
itself the greatest sin of all. Nevertheless, Jesus, whose very name, given before His birth, already signaled His saving
death, could not allow Himself to be thwarted by our sensibilities, even although He understands them more than we do ourselves.
He had, in the words of the Gospel, to suffer grievously at the hands of men, be killed and, on the third day, to rise again.
Without His iron will and iron wounds, there would be no Gospel and we would still be without hope of forgiveness.
In life, it is never wholesome, by definition, to focus solely on partial truths. To do that is the meaning of heresy.
To focus solely on the paschal mystery of Jesus is not, however, such heresy, because
that mystery is the be all and end all of Jesus Himself. In it is revealed not
only the Son of God, but the Blessed Trinity itself, its Heart torn open and its love poured out in passionate, life-giving
surrender to us sinners. Simeon prophesied that Jesus would be a sign of contradiction for the rising and falling of many.
We should not be surprised, then, if the kernel of His story, however it may be depicted, fulfils that prophecy. But, with
the resolve of Jesus Himself, we should seek in the midst of all controversy to be compassionate, understanding and loving,
and then our Christian witness will not be a satanic caricature of Jesus, but a heartfelt imitation of, and participation
in, the reality of the Passion of the Christ.
Msgr. Peter Magee
Sunday, February 29th, 2004: St. Matthew’s
Cathedral, DC – 10.00 am
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