FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
First Reading • Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm • Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24.
Second Reading • Philippians 2:6-11
Gospel • Luke 22:14—23:56
We begin this Holy Week with a commemoration of Jesus’ victorious entry into Jerusalem. He could have slipped into the Holy City unnoticed with His disciples as he would have done many times before.
But He decided that – on this last week of His earthly life – He would make a splash.
He enters with His disciples waving palm branches and proclaiming, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.” He wanted there to be no mistake. He was entering Jerusalem as King. Though His disciples could not understand it at the time, Jesus was marching bravely to His death.
He wanted the whole city to know that He was embracing His Father’s will that He should die to save the people.
His death was something that He chose. Something that He was determined to endure to save us. As the prophet Isaiah puts it in today’s first reading, “I have set my face like flint, knowing that I will not be put to shame.”
By going willingly to the cross, Jesus changed the meaning of suffering forever. In fact, the story of Jesus’ death teaches us that suffering does not have to be meaningless.
Just consider the story of Simon of Cyrene. He was an innocent bystander – just a part of the faceless crowd like everyone else. But of everyone looking on, he was picked on by the soldiers to carry Jesus’ cross.
The whole time he might have been kicking himself saying, “If I had just gone straight home and didn’t stop to see what was going on, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
From his limited point of view, the suffering he had to go through carrying Jesus’ cross was meaningless. What he couldn’t understand was that he was helping Jesus to save the world.
What he couldn’t know was that his name would be remembered for two thousand years as the man who helped Jesus carry His cross.
We all go through times when we question why we are suffering. It could be that we get sick or are the victim of a random crime. The first question we ask is “Why me?” We might wonder what we did to deserve it. From our limited perspective we can’t see how any good could come from it.
That is when we have to turn to God in simple trust, believing that if He allowed it, it was for some good reason.
During our lifetime, we might never know how our suffering made the world a better place or helped someone else.
But we can be sure that, if we accept our suffering with trust and offer it up for the love of God, good will come of it. And we will be rewarded for our faith, if not in this life, in Heaven.
Our suffering – when endured with faith and love – also has the power to inspire others.
Jesus is the best example of this. Just consider all that He went through. He was ridiculed mercilessly and beaten by the soldiers. He was dragged out to be whipped.
He stood while the crowd called for Him to be crucified. Finally, after being paraded through the streets of Jerusalem, He was nailed to a cross.
Through it all, He remained mostly silent. One of His only words was a prayer that God would forgive everyone involved in His death.
This had to be shocking to the people who heard Him. How could Jesus treat everyone who tortured Him with such love?
There is no doubt that the way Jesus suffered inspired and changed many of the people who saw it.
It was probably the reason that the “good thief” turned to Him and asked to be with Him in His Kingdom.
It was no doubt the reason that the centurion gave praise to God and said that Jesus must have been innocent. And it caused the people who had gathered there to feel sorrow for their part in it.
If we accept our suffering with courage and loving trust in God, we will be an inspiration to others. If we embrace suffering with love, we help others do the same. We help them to find some meaning in what they are going through.
And in the process, we’ve made their suffering that much lighter and bearable.
Suffering is an unavoidable part of life. There is no escaping it. However, our suffering does not have to be meaningless.
If we face our suffering the way Jesus did – with total confidence in God’s goodness and love – we can help play some role in Jesus’ great work of salvation and inspire others to do the same.
