We cannot fathom the depth of God's love. It surpasses all human understanding and knowledge. On Good Friday we were mourning and we grieved the bitter Passion of our Saviour and yet the joy of the Resurrection casts out all fear and grief by the supernatural power of Easter Day when the Lord rose from the dead, not merely to comfort us, but to destroy and banish forever the power of sin and Death.
In Holy Week we saw how very perfect is God's love. The Lord Jesus did not force His divinity and authority upon even those who believed in Him, even the Apostles. The perfection of His love is shown in His willingness to perfectly respect our free will. This we would never have expected from God. How can God who is Almighty allow the crowd to walk away when He told them that unless they ate and drank His Body and Blood, they would have no life in them? How can a God who is Almighty and Who is worthy of all our love allow Judas to walk away and betray Him into the hands of those who sought His life? How can a God who is Almighty let His creatures come to Him and yet let them go when they don't understand His mission? Why does He not compel all of those who misunderstood Him or who deserted Him because they were disappointed in Him to know His power? If He loved them, surely He would compel them to love Him!
Yet, no. He allows and permits all to be done to Him, allows even followers to walk away from Him, subjects Himself to human incomprehension, ridicule and failure. In this we see His perfect love, the Cross, the fulfilment of His mission. He allows Himself to be subject to human mockery, misunderstanding, ridicule, cruelty, betrayal and the death of a criminal. He compels nobody to love Him. No, it is we who, instead, tried to compel Him to be what we thought the Saviour should be for God must be, above all, strong, Almighty and demand our love and worship, for if we were God, that is what we would do! What a show of power and strength we would perform if we were God!
Ah, but how different are God's ways to our ways! How different are God's thoughts to our thoughts! How long-suffering and wise and holy and patient and perfect is the supreme love of our God! Freedom fighters fought for freedom, yet the Lord Jesus, Who was more free than any man, because He was and is God, respected and respects our freedom to choose Him, or reject Him, to follow Him or to leave Him. That is all part of His perfect Love and without it, it would not have been, nor would it now be love at all. On Good Friday a bloodied corpse is taken down from a Cross and laid in the arms of His Blessed Mother. How can this be the Body of God!? Is this God? All lifeless, bloodied and bruised, naked, scourged, tormented, tortured and hung on the Wood of the Cross? He could have made it stop, or compelled onlookers to believe and to stop! He does not. He allows the faith even of His Apostles to collapse into a heap on the floor. He allows the Magdalen to weep at the foot of the Cross with the Beloved Disciple, all hope shattered and broken.
Yet, on the Third Day, everything is transformed. The news breaks forth among the Apostles that what was incomprehensible defeat, the Death of the Lord, is now inexpressible and overwhelming joy, for He is not in the tomb. He has risen as He said. His love was perfect for He loved them to the end. Nobody could ever love more, love them more, more perfectly. Even as he had hung on the Wood He forgave his enemies and always prayed for sinners. Yet now the Perfection of God's love is made manifest for despite all that man could do to the Son of God because of his fear and rejection of the Divine Person is overturned, transformed to the Glory of God.
All the evil that the World could do to God is not spat back in the World's face but turned, overturned and transformed to man's favour. The light of the Resurrection fills the whole Church with inexpressible joy. The Blessed Trinity has raised the Lord Jesus from the Dead. He is the Living One and is Alive for evermore. The powers of Hell are bound and chained. The Gates of Heaven are opened! Eternal life is man's destiny! His destiny is union with God forever! Mourning and grief is turned, unfathomably, inexplicably by the power of God, to joy in the Resurrection, to gladness and awe. St Peter who denied the Lord thrice, said he would willingly lay down his life for the Lord, yet for fear he could not. Who could possibly die for God!? Yet Peter will do when God has died and rose again, for him! God has wilted with love and died for the love of men! Now men will wilt with love and die for the love of God!
Let Heaven and Earth rejoice! Christ has risen as He said! Allelulia, for He makes all things new! Allelulia! Allelulia!
1 comment:
A fine set of thoughts. If only the same could be said of the incumbent of the Westminster Archdiocese.
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