Scripture Reflection March 8, 2009: Sharing Christ's Cross

Scripture Readings:
Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18
Psalm 116
Romans 8:31b-34
Mark 9:2-10

Whenever I hear the story of God testing Abraham by asking him to slaughter his son Isaac with a knife I find it hard to understand how God could ask such a thing from him. Abraham and Sarah had been waiting so long for this son, going through many struggles. Finally God blessed them with this child, Isaac. How can God ask Abraham to kill the child that He Himself gave him? It doesn’t make sense. Still Abraham doesn’t ask questions. What did he think? What was going on in his heart? And what did the author want to say with this story? It is a story that shows Abraham’s deep and solid faith in God’s love. Abraham trusted his Lord without limit. Maybe he had this firm conviction that Isaac was a gift from God and didn’t belong to him…

In a certain way I find myself in this story, thinking of those moments in my life when I felt really close to God. Even if they are rare, I hope we all have experienced those moments of grace where the heart is full of gratitude for God’s calling and his continuous blessings. In those moments I’m more than convinced that my whole life is a gift from God and I feel a desire to generously give it back to him, ready to do anything he may ask from me. I feel that I really want to entrust my whole life to God, handing it over to him as in a big ‘bag’. But then I realize that God wants to make sure that I know what I am doing and that it is my free will. He opens the bag and shows each single piece, asking me: Are you sure you want to give me this and this and this? Are you sure you want to give me your career? Financial security? Your friends? Your health? Your job? Your independence? And more than once I have made a step backward and told Him: “Well - let me think about it…!”

God instead never made a step back from his love for us. God himself shows us what it looks like to give everything. He himself does what he asked from Abraham. God doesn’t keep back his Son! He sends his Son to save mankind. Jesus came to live on this earth, He suffered and died – out of love for us! Can there be a greater love? We can say with Paul in his letter to the Romans: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” God alone gives us our greatest dignity, nothing else matters. We can be sure that God would do anything for us. God has paid a high price to redeem us and he will never condemn us. Christ himself will intercede for us with the Father.

The Gospel story about the transfiguration is like a ‘fast forward’ to Christ’s passion and His glorification in the resurrection. As disciples of Christ, we are called to witness His glory. But Christ’s glory doesn’t lie in the miracles and not even in the event of the transfiguration, but in his laying down his life for us. How often would we prefer to stay on the mount Tabor, like the apostles? Instead we are called to face the Cross with Jesus and to proclaim his earthly life and his death on the cross as the manifestation of the glory of God.

God gave us the greatest example of how far love can go. To encounter the cross doesn’t mean so much to bear heavy burdens and sufferings. The sufferings are part of human life – of every human life. But we can believe that by sharing Christ’s suffering and taking our cross, we encounter God’s greatest love. Many times we will feel as if God is taking something away from us. We will encounter all kinds of difficulties in our relationships, in the sufferings of our loved ones, in illness, difficult financial situations or the death of someone close to us. Let’s take serious God’s invitation to LISTEN to His Son, especially in those moments. We certainly need a heart full of confidence and trust in God’s love to understand His message for us. We need His grace and we need to be ready to let go. But if we recognize our difficulties as Christ’s cross, our suffering can be an encounter with Jesus, who came to be with us in the dark moments of our lives. If we are ready to share the cross with him, we will experience the love and the freedom of Christ’s presence in every suffering. And we can believe that in one way or another it will lead us with Him into the glory of His resurrection.

Birgit Oberhofer