Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

Easter Surprise

A few years ago I saw a bumper sticker that said, in a kind of good news/bad news way: Jesus is coming . . . and he’s really ticked off! But one of the amazing things about Easter is the fact that there is no “bad news.”

Of course, if anyone had a reason to be angry, it would have been Jesus. He could’ve been angry with the leaders who got the crowd to call for his death, the Romans who knew he was innocent but scourged and crucified him anyway, or the disciples who abandoned him. That would have been no surprise. But the risen Jesus spoke no words of anger. Every time he appeared, his greeting was “Peace” (“Shalom”), and he wasn’t interested in punishment and retribution. That was a surprise, and a big one.

We need to remember that fact when so many so-called Christians apparently believe in a God of wrath and vengeance. That’s why the real truth deserves to be stated over and over again — Jesus has risen, and guess what . . . he’s not mad! Alleluia!!!

My Part in the Passion

Holy Week begins with the reading of the Passion narrative on Palm Sunday, when people in the church take different parts, such as the narrator, Christ, and the crowd.

If we use that taking of parts as a template for the whole of Holy Week, we might ask ourselves what specific part we would take.

We could choose from Jesus, Peter, the apostles, Pilate, the Roman soldiers, Simon who helped carry the cross, Nicodemus, the women who stayed loyal to Jesus, or the religious leaders who rejected him. Since I am a part of the “clerical caste” of the Catholic church, maybe I should think about that last group and what I can learn by reflecting on them.

The religious leadership of Jesus’ day was afraid of Jesus and what his message would demand of them, for they’d find themselves in unfamiliar waters when it came to understanding God, themselves, and others. Their intellectual and religious skills, acquired over years of study and practice, would have to change if being holy meant going beyond strict observance of the Law and Jewish ritual. The sad truth is that Jesus threatened those religious leaders who, ironically, should have been the first to accept him.

Reflecting on them leads me to ask myself if there’s anything in the gospel that makes me nervous or threatens me, like it did the clerical caste of Jesus’ day — things that call into question my understanding of what holiness means. Could my way of being a publicly religious person somehow keep me from real faith in Christ as it did those men so long ago? That’s what I will be thinking about this Holy Week.

Sundown

Tears of the Lord

The story of the raising of Lazarus comes near the end of the public life of Jesus. Throughout his ministry, Jesus had revealed the compassion of his Father by bringing freedom to people who had been imprisoned by illness, blindness, fear, isolation, condemnation, and death itself. All Jesus’ miracles were acts of compassion.

The raising of Lazarus, however, was different in that Jesus was calling back to life a man whose death and burial he had himself mourned. Lazarus was his friend; John’s gospel tells us that Jesus was very close to him and to his sisters Mary and Martha. “See how he loved him,” said those who witnessed his tears at the tomb.

“Jesus cried.” These words say as much about Christ as any volume of theology because they assert that Jesus is not simply aware of suffering and loss; he has felt them himself and been moved, literally, to tears, just as we are when the pain and loss are too great.

At a funeral I attended a couple of weeks ago, the church was full of people who were feeling sad and helpless in the face of their loss. The readings and sermon on that day reminded the congregation that God is not helpless in the face of death. To believe this is a consolation.

But Jesus’ tears show us that, in Jesus, God has experienced our sorrow and pain as well. That doesn’t make God’s power any less, but it brings him closer to us in our times of grief. And that, also, is a consolation we can rightly treasure.

HOT OFF THE PRESSES – – – ONE CUP REFLECTIONS

After 10 years of writing the inside back cover for Marquette Magazine, I decided to gather all 32 pieces together in one place.

The collection is now available at the Amazon Kindle store. Click the picture on the right sidebar and you’re there.

And don’t worry, you don’t need a kindle to read it— you can easily download a free app from Amazon that will deliver it to any number of non-kindle devices.

Fr Frank