Gonzaga Witness

Issue date: 4/28/09 Section: Faith

I am always astonished by the essence of Easter; the understanding of which grows and changes every year. There are two parts to Easter, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. It wouldn't be Easter without either. If the Resurrection's focus is on Jesus' divinity, the Crucifixion reminds us of his humanity. Taking a human form and dying on the cross is God's response to human suffering, transforming our sufferings into his own, thereby giving them new meaning.
I gained a new understanding of the Crucifixion last year that came to my attention while watching The Passion of the Christ for the first time. In the film, Satan haunts Jesus' road to Calvary every step of the way, a constant reminder that Jesus has the power to avoid the cross if he should so choose. Satan tempts Jesus to go against the Father's will, and Jesus, despite his ability to choose otherwise, decides to die for the salvation of mankind. When I think of the crosses I encounter in my life-things that try my patience or test my courage-there is seldom a time when doing God's will does not mean some immediate good for me. Doing good, in the words of a famous how-to book, generally wins friends and influences people. On the rare occasion that doing the right thing is not immediately rewarding, it brings joy into a person's life because it brings them closer to God. Jesus' cross, however, is different. Because Jesus is divine, it is contradictory to say that doing the Father's will by dying on the cross caused Jesus to attain any "good" that he did not already have. Unlike the rest of us, who grow closer to God and gain some level of joy by doing His will, Jesus' act of submission to God did not result in any personal character building.
The crucifixion did not benefit Jesus; it benefited us, the sinners, even the ones who crucified him. This makes Jesus' sacrifice one of pure self-giving love. Suffering nothing for his own sake, but all for ours, Jesus gives us the opportunity to emulate his selflessness in our suffering. Jesus is the answer to our cry, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" By becoming a man and suffering alongside us, rather than revealing that we had separated ourselves from Him through sin, God reminds us that He has not left, nor will He ever leave, our sides. And through Jesus' suffering, he transformed the meaning of suffering forever. When Jesus rose from the dead, he demonstrated love's ultimate power over suffering, sin, and death. He also showed that God has taken the initiative in offering us salvation. As the Christ figure Aslan in C.S. Lewis' book, The Silver Chair, says, "You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you." Christ's suffering not only speaks to the value of selflessness, but also endurance, and the good that comes from both. Though we may not see good come out of our suffering, good can arise for others when we suffer well. When we endure our crosses with faithfulness to God and kindness to others, there is no telling who will be touched with God's grace. Picture the cancer victim who suffers and yet inspires others by enduring with a positive attitude, or the parents who give up their Christmas presents so that their children have something under the tree. True to form, human beings learn from these experiences, learn to center their lives around helping and loving others. Just as the crucifixion extended salvation to Man past, present, and future, our sufferings can help people beyond those of which we are aware, even those we have never spoken to or seen. The mystery of a faithful suffering is that, like Jesus', it reaches beyond our immediate circle and blesses many. Faithfulness and love are contagious, triumphing over sin, death, and suffering. We want to be good, deep down, and God sends out His troops, His people, to show us how. "If I have faith, it is because I have met faith," says Madeline L'Engle. "A Christian is someone who knows one." (L'Engle And It Was Good) When people talk about giving up their suffering for someone else's sake, this is true Christianity. This is what Jesus did. He took on the cross and did for us what we were too weak to do for ourselves; he followed the Father's will to the fullest. By doing so, he broke the hold sin and death had on the world since the Fall, showing us that they were no longer final ends, only one step in the process before reunion with God. By being raised from the dead, he was able to "be with us always...even to the end of the age." We no longer are separated from God except through our own sin, and through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, God is reaching out to be with us through "this veil of tears."
By choosing to recognize the good in others lives and in his own, rather than the negatives, Jesus ministered to many in his life and each one of us in his death. By letting forgiveness be his last sentiment toward the very people who had caused him suffering, he willed each of us into resurrection with him. Imagine being filled with a love like that, the kind of love which smiles back at a sneer, embraces a slap, forgives a betrayal, and heals not only the victims, but the offenders as well. That is the love the Jesus pours into each of us. Sometimes we accept it; sometimes we don't. That is the love that leads to a death with Jesus, but also to a resurrection above suffering, sin, and death.

Maria Hassett is a Senior

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