In Lent, we are reminded of Jesus’ intentionality in going to the cross. The Gospel of Matthew records that Jesus took his disciples to Caesarea Philippi – a Roman/Gentile area – and chose that as the spot to ask them the question, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13). It was Peter, the one who stood out as the leader among the twelve disciples, who confessed Jesus as the Messiah, but also added another title to Jesus – “He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:15-16). To confess that Jesus was the Christ was to confess that he was the promised Messiah of God. To confess that Jesus is the “son of the living God” was to confess Jesus’ divinity.
Immediately after this, Matthew records
one of the three times that Jesus pulled his disciples aside (that is from the
crowds that often followed him) and he told them very specifically what they would
soon witness – his suffering and death.
“From that time Jesus began to
show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be
raised” (Matthew 16:21).
We must ponder what and why Jesus
did this. He did not want his disciples
to think that what was about to happen in his upcoming suffering at the hands
of the religious leaders and the Romans was because they were in control. No, he was intentionally going to Jerusalem
to suffer, die, and be resurrected on the third day. Jesus was in control of his life, and his
death.
I think it’s important to
understand that Jesus’ intentionality in suffering was a divine act of mercy –
a sacrifice that is based on God’s divine love for his people suffering under
the slavery of their captivity by Sin.
The Apostle Peter reminds us as he decades later recalls what Jesus did.
“Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be
born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead… knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from
your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with
the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:3, 18-19).
Jesus turned towards Jerusalem on
purpose. He went to be the lamb who
would shed his precious blood as a sacrifice for our Sin. The Apostle John saw it too: “We know love
by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives
for one another” (1 John 3:16). John,
Peter, the others heard it from Jesus in the Upper Room on Jesus’ last night
with them. Jesus told them: “No one
has greater love than this than to lay down one's life for one's friends” (John
15:13).
Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem was
intentional, purposeful, and without hesitation. To love is to be willing to die for another. To live Christ-like is to live intentionally,
and not just for one’s self.
Raymond Kolbe was born in 1894
into a poor Polish farm family. He was a normal boy who got into trouble and didn’t
always do what he was supposed to do. His
mother grew exasperated with him and one day yelled at him, “Raymond, what
will become of you?” Raymond, even as
a young boy, heard his Mother’s words and they haunted him. One time at Church, he prayed, “What will
become of me?” He had a vision of the
Virgin Mary holding in her hands two crowns, one white, one red. She looked at him with love and told him the
white stood for purity and the red for his life as a sacrifice. She then asked him, “Do you want them?” Raymond Kolbe said “Yes”. Shortly after, Raymond Kolbe decided to
become a Priest. He was ordained to the Franciscans
in 1918 and took the name of Maximilian.
He wore the crown of purity not just in terms of chastity, but also in purity
of intentions – purposes for living and ministering that he intentionally lived.
The red crown first came to him in
1938, when he was arrested by the Gestapo for his anti-Nazi rhetoric. Released, he and his brothers organized a
shelter for Jews fleeing the Nazi persecution.
He was re-arrested in 1941 and eventually sent to Auschwitz prison camp.
In Auschwitz, the Nazi extermination
camp, this Franciscan priest, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, volunteered to take the
place of a Polish soldier, Francis Gajowniczek, who had been chosen to be a
victim of a retaliatory execution for the escape of a prisoner. Fr. Kolbe told
the Nazi commandant: “I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to
take his place because he has a wife and children.” The commandant obliged,
returning Gajowniczek to the camp (in which he survived) and confined Kolbe and
nine other chosen prisoners to a starvation bunker. After being deprived of
food and water for fourteen days, the Nazi’s impatience with Kolbe and the three
others who were still alive decided to finish them off with lethal injections.
Father Kolbe put on his Red Crown as a martyr who died, living Jesus’ words – “no
greater love, than to lay down one’s life for a friend” – even a friend he
did not know.
In Lent, we live to die to self,
and to live unto God, serving the people God puts around us.
Peace
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