The Way of the Cross

Friday last week, we heard a presentation reflecting on the Lenten season. Particularly, we meditated on 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2, which says:

“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.  For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.”  I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”

As an ambassador of Christ, I am wanting, I know. I have been not so good in representing Himself. I have been so self-reliant which defeats the dependency to the Father that Jesus portrayed when He was here on earth. As long as I am hurting no one, I thought doing things on my own is okay.

But am hurting myself.

Yes, I realize that now. Whenever I turn away from what brings me life—the only Person who could bring me life—and try to do things my way, hoping things that worked for me then, the familiar patterns I embraced whether to feel secure or important, will still continue to be useful for me. I have to let them go or I would not learn to trust in the One who love me most and learn that He really does. This would mean greater focus on my interior life and my relationship with Him. Greater exercise of prayer even when it seems like there’s no one there because faith compels me to believe that He is with me even when it doesn’t seem so.

“He knew no sin”

That verse made me think and ask, “If You knew have no personal knowledge of sin, how could you empathize with us who are riddled with all wrongdoings? How could You know the burden of sin and its consequences when You never sinned?”

“God made Him to be sin for us”

It means that Jesus became a member of this sinful race, though he sinned not. As I pondered on this, I began to see that even when Jesus did not sin, He must have experience being sinned against—big time! Human as we are, it is in those moments when people sin against us big time that we tend to take on vows—self-protective oaths we promise ourselves—to deliver ourselves from such hurt and to defend ourselves from further hurt. In other words, we try to become our own saviors, isn’t it?

It can take the form of walling others out, of ruthless ambition, of taking things (and even people) under control, of endless leisure, of drowning in pleasure, etc. It can be as subtle as simply being nice to everyone to please everyone and no one will be angry anymore. Or be a pain in the neck so that no one will come close enough to hurt you. In the end, we haven’t really saved ourselves but enslaved ourselves to fear instead. And we fear that we will be found out sooner or later. That kind of life is no life at all but a kind of living death. For the wages of sin is death.

“…so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. “

What exactly is the righteousness of God? Jesus in His human nature and with such divine power must have been very tempted to simply will the death of all His enemies—of all those who revile, rebuked, ridiculed, ripped Him of His clothes and His dignity… “If you are the Son of God…” the devil never left Him, I am sure.

Do we not have the same temptation as well? If I am truly a child of God, if God really loves me, this could not be happening to me. And then we take things into our own hands. That’s when sin comes in. That’s the difference between us and Jesus.  Jesus trusted even in the point of death that He was able to defeat it and in defeating death He also defeated fear.

Our greatest fear that usually gets us to sin is that nobody really cares. Because of all the sins done against us, it is easy to conclude and operate in the assumption that that is true. Beneath every singular longing is such fear lurking behind.

That is why Jesus had to come, give us the evidence that that isn’t so. That even when the whole world seem to turn against us like the way He endured, even when it seems all is lost, even when there seems to be no one left standing beneath our own crosses let alone bear our crosses with us… even when there is misery and suffering and no one hears our cries… no one sees the pain, the tears, the sweat and blood… God knows. God cares. God turns evil into good in the end.

So, what is the righteousness of God? I believe that means MERCY. It is awfully hard to say “I forgive” and be merciful when I cannot trust God loves me and be utterly convinced about it in my bones. It is by far easier to speak curses and negativities and think only of oneself amidst our hurts. But the way of the cross is the path of righteousness that God showed us through Jesus.

“we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain”

Everything is grace, St. Therese said that before. Everything that has happened has been filtered through God’s love for us. Not easy to accept amidst sinfulness. But when sin abounds, grace abounds even more, right? So there is still grace, there will always be grace. However, God can do so much only as much as we cooperate. That is, as much as we can trust Him to lead us along valleys of tears and darkness—along our own stations of the cross; so that in the end, we no longer fear but free to fully give ourselves to Him and become as Mercy Himself.

The Love Story

I had a great dinner with a friend at Gateway Figaro last night and was blown away by her recounting of a love story—her own love story with her now fiancé but more than that, it was really her love story with Love Himself, her first love.

I was one of those privileged to know the promise that was given her some eight years ago. A prophesy that I and some other friends usually remind her in our chats over coffee or dinner. A hope that was fulfilled in a whirlwind romance perhaps but it was really the perfect way of courting this friend who actually categorically demanded from God a courageous knight in shining armor or in our vernacular “isang matapang na lalaki.”

That actually means someone who will pursue her relentlessly no matter what as much as someone who will actually tell her of his intentions—of his desire for her—outright no matter what. And we actually thought such valor no longer defines the men of today. Ah, but when love is real, we both thought then, you would not let it pass without even giving it a try. No, you would not simply allow that to happen. And so it happened, he did told her about his feelings, about his love, about how she captivates him, about everything that his heart holds for her… and that captured her heart with a start.

Listening to the account of my friend was like watching a cocoon transform and take wings. I was not so much moved by the romanticism involved. There was actually almost a nil mention of that part. But both of us—yes, herself included, were actually giddier in that we thought was just a fairy-tale is actually what has happened exactly.

The Lord guaranteed her of a man who will be almost exactly as she is, riding on a bike together, and together pursuing their mission to the poor through their own professions. It was so specific, yet since because of our own human limitations, we also doubt whether we interpreted that correctly or we simply are hearing what we wanted. And yet, here she is before me telling me of THAT man. That he actually exists and that they are now together as a couple.

It is the little things, she tells me, that made her know he is THE one.

It’s the way he is able to finish her sentences, the way that he was able to relate to her all her stories because besides being both involved with developmental work of some sort, loving the outdoors, having a heart to serve the needy in distant places, they also went to the same school in elementary but never had a chance to know each other then. It’s like he has known her all his life and yet they’ve just met.

One time, he insisted buying her a second-hand bike, which all the more convinced her of the rightness of this man for her—her being the reigning queen for scouting bargained second-hand items and him only reinforcing that more. Early on, he got her a “malong” – an ethic outfit—from his vacation in Davao—something that she would really love to wear yet she does not even told him that.

My friend has in mind the gown of her dreams—an out-of-the-box ethnic inspired modern wedding dress, which some of her friends thought no man would permit such craziness and yet they already went to a seamstress to know how much it would cost to create such intri-crazy.

He was not only appreciative of what she does of her life—the life of a missionary doctor—braving militant groups, ethnic rivalries, epidemics, poverty, riding through rough roads, escalating heights to arrive at mountain villages… He knows exactly what that means because he himself lived that life. That made him curious about her—awed perhaps, which begun this whole magical affair borne out of a common love for social relevance. It was rather an uncommon and unromantic picture to start with. But it was a picture of maturity, of knowing what kind of partner actually suits you and your lifestyle… of knowing yourself first, before knowing the ONE.

They have the same principles in life especially in raising kids, how many kids to be raised, the values that they share, the dreams they would like to weave together as a family… This man step up to what she is in her simple spirituality. She made him want to be a better person in the way that she reflected the love of God in others perhaps but most of all, in the way that she exudes that love within her. She made him wanna know God more maybe not as much as he wanna know her yet; but he started to pray fervently with and without her the holy rosary while away in a middle eastern country and that is a very encouraging to say the least.

He, on the other hand, made her feel like a princess–one thing that this girl really needs especially since she has that tendency to forget herself in her outpouring of herself to others. It is really time, as he once said, that someone take her of her too and that she allowed him to do that. She was afraid of him backing off from knowing her frailty. He was emboldened all the more to show how much she means to him instead. Nothing could be an obstacle for this man to love her it seems. What could my friend princess ever hope for a knight?

I was near tears out of sheer happiness for her as she related to me these stories, building on one another, fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle. What was once a perplexing promise is now being set before our very eyes. My heart overflows with wonder, admiration, and surprise listening at the fulfillment of God’s plan and purpose in her life more than anything.

It was really happiness, pure and unadulterated, that is the gift that God has wrapped for us in His time. I see that happiness glistening in both our eyes even as I was simply listening and she was there to simply tell. It was no gospel story from the Bible and yet it is good news, a promise of God fulfilled. I wonder whether Mary and Elizabeth felt the same way when they met during the Visitation as Mary blurts out her Magnificat.

Darleth or Daniela was no Mary or John, Luke, Matthew, and Mark. But like just any other gospel story–a story where God is involved–it tells a lot about who God is, His faithfulness and His love, His majesty and splendor in astonishing us (He never runs out of surprises indeed!), it captures our hearts to respond to the love story God courts us with.

It made me hold on to the hope of His own promises being fulfilled in me. It requires, of course, that He be involved in my own story. But that is another love story.

POST SCRIPT:

After that light dinner with Daniela, we both went to our weekly prayer meeting. During the said activity this was one of the prophecies given which strengthens my conviction about the faithfulness of God. The verse came from Hebrews 10:23 and it says:

Let us continue to hold firmly to the hope that we confess without wavering, for the One who made the promise is faithful.