Cradle to the grave and beyond ......
CRADLE
TO THE GRAVE AND BEYOND …..
Mario
D’Couto
As Stephen Covey would say, “Begin with the end in
mind”, while the season of Christmas is marked with joy, exchange of gifts,
visiting friends and family, holidays and all the good stuff, it’s also a time
to reflect, a time to reflect the day that Our Blessed Lord came into this
world to redeem humankind and while it’s nice to experience the good things about
Christmas, it’s important not to loose focus of why Our Blessed Lord came into
this world as Man.
To start with, everything that Our Lord said and did ultimately
pointed out to the Cross, for the Cross was a symbol of His love and a sign of
our redemption. Christ entered into human existence under a form which was not natural
to Him as the Son of God. This assuming of a human nature was a humiliation, an
emptying, a stripping and a kenosis of His glory. The fundamental renouncement
of His Divine glory created a physical condition of life which made Him appear
like a man; His suffering and death were the logical consequences of this
humiliation. As God He could not suffer; as Man, He could.
It’s interesting to note that in the Gospels, Our Blessed
Lord always addressed Himself as the Son of Man. No one else ever called
Him by that title but He used it of Himself at least 80 times. His existence,
both eternal and temporal are found in this statement. The first time Our Lord
ever referred to Himself as the ‘Son of Man’ was when He was recognized
by His disciples as the Son of God. Sometimes the title ‘Son of Man’ is
used with reference to His coming on the last day to judge all humankind; at
other times, it referred to His Messianic mission to establish the Kingdom of
God on earth and to bring forgiveness of sinners; but more often it refers to His
Passion, Death and Resurrection. Hidden in it was His mission as Saviour and
His humiliation as God in the weakness of human flesh. As a king might take
another name while travelling incognito, so the Son of God took another name, ‘Son
of Man’, not to deny His Divinity but rather to affirm the new condition He
had taken. Since He was humbling Himself and making Himself obedient, even to
death on the Cross, the title ‘Son of Man’ stood of the shame, abasement
and grief which is the human lot. It was descriptive of what He became rather
than of what He is from all eternity.
Because the name implied not only humiliation but identification
with sinful humankind, He never used the term after He had redeemed humanity and
risen from the dead. He had left behind Him the oneness with unredeemed
humanity. That the lowliness of His present condition was what He wished to
emphasize became evident from His oneness with the woes and miseries of men.
For instance, if men were homeless, He would be homeless too.
Since the truth He came to bring was reserved for those
who accepted His Divinity and not something to tickle ears, He never used the
phrase ‘Son of Man’ as the source of that truth. The truth He brought
was Divine Truth, final and absolute. Hence He avoided using the term ‘Son
of Man’ in relation to His Divine nature which was one with the Father. But
when it came to judging the world, at the end of time, separating the sheep
from the goats, holding the scales of virtue and vice in each soul, that privilege
and authority was His because He suffered and redeemed humankind as the ‘Son
of Man’. Because He was obedient unto death, His Father exalted Him as
Judge. Knowing what was in man, as the ‘Son of Man’, He could best judge
humankind.
Though Our Blessed Lord identified Himself with humanity
as the Son of Man, it was in all things except sin. Yet for the fact that He
was incarnated as the Son of Man, the consequences of sin He bore and this is
not restricted only to what happened on the Cross but we see it in many other aspects
of Our Blessed Lord. His prayer to let the chalice of suffering pass from Him, His
endurance of hunger and thirst, His agony and bloody sweat, His endurance of
false charges of being a winebibber, a glutton; His endurance of worry, anxiety,
fear, pain, mental anguish, hunger, thirst and agony during the hours of His Passion
– all these things were to inspire humankind to imitate Him. Nothing that was
human was foreign or unknown to Him.
The human family has its trials and so He sanctified them
by living in a family. Labour and work done by the sweat of the brow were
humanity’s lot and so He, the ‘Son of Man’ became a carpenter. No single
human affliction which befalls man as the result of sin escaped His oneness
with it. Human infirmity touched Him so
deeply became deafness, dumbness, leprosy, insanity were the effects of sin,
not in the person afflicted but in humanity. In the death and burial of
Lazarus, He saw the long procession of mourners from the first to the last and
the reason of it all: how death came into the world with the sin of Adam. Within
a few days, He knew that He was the second Adam or as the ‘Son of Man’,
He would take on the ‘sins of the world’ and thereby put an end to death.
The restoring of physical health to humanity cost Him something as the restoring
of spiritual health would cost Him His life. In the first instance as the Son
of Man, He felt as if an energy that was lost to Him went into humanity. We
see this in the woman who touched the hem of Our Lord’s garment where He realized
that power had gone out from Him despite the crowd that surrounded Him (Mark
5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48)
A sanctifier must be one with those whom he sanctifies. The
very separateness in characters between the two parties makes it necessary that
in some way they should be one. There must be point of contact, one with the
other. He who is like his brethren will have more power over them than one who
is not like them. Hence, in order to be a sanctifier, Our Blessed Lord had to
be a man like His unholy brethren. He would make them holy by reproducing in
His life the lost ideal of human character and bringing that ideal to bear on
their minds and hearts.
Acting as sin – bearer did not in any way
alter His relationship with His Heavenly Father. His Father manifested a
singular love to His Divine Son by allowing Him as the Son of Man to taste
death for others. The family tree of earthly ancestors was not really important;
what was important was the family tree of the children of God He planted on
Calvary.
The
miracles Our Blessed Lord worked were not some kind of magic tricks. Rather they
were meant to transform, change and to reveal Who He truly is. He never worked
miracles for Himself but as credentials for His Person. They were manifest
signs that He had a special mission for the realization of God’s work among
humankind.
The
miracles of Our Blessed Lord moved within a sphere of redemption. They were not
merely manifestations of power but an index of man’s deliverance from something
else, namely, sin. The miracles done by Our Blessed Lord were meant to provoke
faith in His claim as the Messiah and the Son of God as He said, “There is
enough to testify that the Father has sent Me, in the works My Father gave Me
to do and to finish – the very works I have in hand” (John 5:36) and there
were indeed many miracles done by Our Blessed Lord for as St. John explains, “if
it were all to be recorded in detail, I suppose the whole world would not be
able to hold books that would be written” (John 21:25). Hence in the moral
order there were miracles of redemption from other manifestations of sin such
as fever, leprosy, blindness and even death; redemption of nature in the
quelling of the sea and making the winds His servants.
It
is also because of this that Our Lord was not just a moral Teacher but Our
Redeemer. Great teachers give instructions to their disciples but no teacher
ever made his death the pattern of theirs. No earthly teacher could foresee the
manner of his death nor was death the reason why he came to teach. Socrates for
example, in all his wisdom never told the young philosophers of Athens to drink
hemlock juice because he would die by it. But Our Lord did make His Cross the
basis of His first instruction to His Apostles. Since they, the Apostles,
missed the point, they were not able to understand the true vision of Our Blessed
Lord. Even when He acted as a Teacher, He made the Cross to cast its shadow
over His Apostles. The sufferings they would endure would be identical to what
He would endure. He had been called the Lamb of God Who would be sacrificed for
the sins of the world and since they were identified with Him, He warned them
of a similar fate when He said, “Behold, I am sending you like sheep among
wolves …” (Matthew 10:16)
He
made it clear to the Apostles that since He came to die and not live, they too must
be prepared to die and not live. If the world gave Him a Cross, they too must
expect one. Yet, the power to do harm would never affect their souls for His
own Resurrection would be a proof of that, something which they could be assured
of. The body can be injured without the consent of the soul but the soul cannot
be injured without its own consent. The only thing to be feared is losing, not
human life but the Divine life, the soul which is given by God for as He said, “Do
not fear those who kill the body; but cannot kill the soul. Fear Him rather who
is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28) and “What
does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” (Mark
8:36)
Our
Blessed Lord also forewarned His Apostles that those who accepted Him would be
hated by the members of their own families. The Gospel would stir up strife
between those who would accept Him and those who would reject Him. The unconverted
mother would hate her converted daughter and the unconverted father would hate
the converted son. A man’s bitterest foes would therefore be from his own household.
Yet they were not to think that all this was a loss for there is a double life,
namely, the physical and the spiritual. Tertullian (one of the
Fathers of the Church) noted that when the Romans put the early Christians to
death, the pagan appeal was always, “Save your life, do not throw your life
away.” But as He would lay down His life and take it up again, so too what
they would loose biologically, they would save spiritually. What was sacrificed
to Him was never lost, as He said, “Whoever gains his life will lose it but
whoever loses his life for My sake will gain it” (Matthew 10:39). The Cross
was no accident in His life and so would it be for those who followed Him.
If
Our Lord had come for some other purpose than Redemption from sin, it would not
be the crucifix but a picture of Christ on the Mount as the Teacher that would
be held in honour. If the Cross was not eventually to be a glory and a triumph,
men would have drawn a veil over that ignominious hour to which He was
pointing. If He had died in a bed, He might have been honoured but never as a
Saviour. The Cross alone could show that God is all holy and therefore hates
sin; the Cross also showed that God is all love and therefore died for sinners
as if He were guilty.
The
prophets often spoke of the shepherds who preserved a flock in good pastures as
distinct from false shepherds. God is depicted by Isaiah as carrying His sheep
in His arms and by Ezekiel as a shepherd looking for His lost sheep. Best known
is Psalm 23 where the Lord is pictured as leading His sheep into green pastures,
this would come at a price which was laying down His life on the Cross. He was not
the Good Shepherd because He provided economic plenty but because He would lay
down His life for His sheep. Our Lord tells us that His death is neither accidental
nor unforeseen nor does He speak of His death apart from His glory nor of the
laying – down of His life without taking it up again as we find in the Gospel
of St. John, “For this reason, the Father loves Me: because I lay down My
life so that I may take it up again. No one takes it away from Me. Instead, I
lay it down of My own accord. And I have the power to lay it down. And I have
the power to take it up again. This is the commandment that I have received
from My Father” (John 10: 17 – 18)
Through
the Cross, Our Lord would draw all people to Himself (John 12:32) not merely
those to whom He was speaking for His Kingdom was to be the entire world itself.
His death would accomplish what His life could not for there was more in it
than heroism or devotion. What would draw would not be the surrender to death
but the laying bare of the heart of God’s love. The love of God was made
visible in sacrifice. On Calvary, He would prove Himself man by dying on every other
man dies but He would prove Himself Divine by dying as no other man died.
Through
the Cross, Our Lord ended the tolerance extended to the ‘prince of this
world’ who exercised dominion over humankind. The Cross would finally
convince humankind of sin as law or ethics could never do. It would show what
sin really is: the Crucifixion of Divine Goodness in the flesh; but it would
also show them Who forgives sin, namely, the One they lifted up. Through this,
His reign would be from a higher sphere of heaven where He would draw His
subjects to Him and become the ‘Lord of all’.
While
Our Blessed Lord came into this world to redeem the whole of humankind, at
first, His plan of redemption was restricted to the Jews as we find when He
said to His Apostles, “Do not take the road to gentile lands and do not
enter any Samaritan town but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”
(Matthew 10:5-6). It was only later that His mission was rendered universal so
as to embrace the whole pagan world as well. Yet despite this first mandate to
the Apostles, Our Blessed Lord had several contacts with pagans and even worked
miracles for them and we see this highlighted on three occasions, namely with
the Centurion (Luke 7:2-10), the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman (Matthew
15:21-28) and the young man possessed with a demon in the land of Gerasenes
which is opposite Galilee (Luke 8:26-39).
Now
besides these instances being exceptions to the Divine Plan that salvation must
first come to the Jews and that He must limit His teaching for the time being
only to the lost sheep of Israel, there were other instances where pagans were
closely associated with Our Blessed Lord implicitly where each of those moments
had some reference to His Passion, Death and Resurrection. These include the
visit of the Magi at the time of His birth (Matthew 2:1-12), the Greeks who
came looking for Jesus through the intercession of Philip and Andrew (John
12:20-22) and finally at His Crucifixion (which can be seen in all 4 Gospels). It
was precisely at the Crucifixion that the Kingdom of God for the entire world would
be realized.
Up
to the point of Calvary, men had been taught by preaching. After Calvary, they would
be taught by His Resurrection and Ascension. The principle of universality
became effective. It was the death of Christ that broke down the wall of partition
between Jew and Gentile to reveal the universal mission of the Messiah which
had been dimly hinted at in the Old Testament. It took Golgotha to universalize
the mission of Christ.
Had
Our Lord been only a preacher or a teacher, the faith would never have been
propagated al over the world. The Gospels are not an epic that belongs to a particular
people but a Redemption as wide as humanity itself. The principal distinction
between the Old and the New Testament was in regard to scope. The former had
been restricted almost exclusively to a single nation but the blood of the New
Covenant shed on Calvary broke down that wall of partition between the Jews and
other nations.
With
that being said, it would seem that what I have written so far may seem out of
place given the mood and the theme that the season of Christmas is associated
with which is joy, gifts, sweets and all the good stuff but as I mentioned at
the start, to reiterate the words of Stephen Covey, “Begin with the end in
mind”, when we understand the reason of Our Blessed Lord becoming Man, we
will be able to appreciate the season of Christmas for what it truly is, which
is to save us from sin. In this regard, I am reminded of the image of Our Lady
of Perpetual Succour.
The image of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour is an icon, painted on wood and seems to have originated around the 13th century. The icon depicts Our Blessed Mother holding the Child Jesus. The Archangels Michael and Gabriel, hovering in the upper corners, held the instruments of the Passion where St. Michael (in the left corner) holds the spear, the wine -soaked sponge and the crown of thorns and St. Gabriel (in the right corner) holds the cross and the nails. The intent of the artist was to portray the Child Jesus contemplating the vision of His future Passion. The anguish He feels is shown by the loss of one of His sandals. Nevertheless, the icon also conveys the triumph of Christ over sin and death, symbolized by the golden background (a sign of the glory of Resurrection) and the manner in which the angels hold the instruments i.e. like trophies gathered up from Calvary on Easter Morning.
In
a very beautiful way, the Child Jesus grasps the hand of the Blessed Mother. He
seeks comfort from His Mother as He sees the instruments of His passion. The position
of Mary’s hands – both holding the Child Jesus and presenting Him to us –
conveying the reality of Our Lord’s incarnation, that He is true God who became true Man. The face of Our Lady is grave and sorrowful with Her eyes
directed not at Our Blessed Lord but at us. One can infer through this that She
is pleading with us to avoid sin which has caused Her Son to suffer so much for
us. Her gaze makes us a part of the picture and the pain it portrays, which
seem to indicate that She is trying to tell us, ‘Will you not love My Son, Who
has loved you so much?’
People
do not begin with a conscious hatred of the Light because Truth is as native to
the mind as light to the eye. But when that Light shone on their souls and revealed
their sins, they hated it just as the bank robber hates the searchlight the policeman
has turned on him and that’s because they had perverted their nature by evil
behaviour. His truth stirred their consciences and they despised it. All their habits
of life, their dishonesties and baser passions roused them in violent
opposition to that Light. Many a sick man will not undergo a medical examination
for fear the doctor may tell him something he does not like. Our Lord is not a
Teacher who would expect or ask people to parrot His sayings; He was a Saviour
Who first disturbed their conscience and then purified it. But sadly many would
never get beyond hating the Disturber. The Light is no boon except to those who
are men of good will. This is not to say that they were perfect. On the
contrary, they had their failings, shortcomings and their struggles with
various vices but at least they strive to live virtuously. When a man has lived
in a dark cave for years, his eyes cannot stand the light of the sun; so the
man who refuses to repent turns against mercy. No one can prevent the sun from
shining but every man can pull down the blinds and shut it out which in other
words is to say that God is ever present, He is the beginning and the end and that
is not going to change irrespective of whether people accept or reject Him and
so the aspect of ‘pulling down the blinds and shutting it out’ only goes
to emphasize the aspect of human freedom, to obey Him or not. Such is the power
of human freedom where each individual always has it within himself to accept
or reject the grace, love and forgiveness of God and when a person is able to
master himself (with God’s grace), he would be able to attain inner peace as
opposed to being susceptible to a thousand agitations which only give room for
more fear, unhappiness and disappointment. It is only when one has reached this
level that everything else can be enjoyed which is the ability to be patient in
the midst of adversity, trial and persecution which we see in the Passion, Death
and Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord where at the end of the three hours on the
Cross, He would so possess His soul that he would render it back to the
Heavenly Father.
All
in all, Our Lord’s exposure to the Cross for the sake of love was quite
different from a stoic acceptance of it when it came. He accepted the Cross not
as a martyr but as the Victor for He voluntarily entered the gate of Calvary
for the sake of righteousness which is why we can say that every moment of His
life had the Cross in it; His teaching had value only because of the Cross.
The
blind who refuse to admit the existence of light can never be healed. The deaf
who deny the existence of sound will never hear and so is it with sinners who
deny the existence of sin who in turn cut themselves off forever from Him Who
came to redeem. As the Physician, as the Divine Healer, He could do no good to
those who denied guilt and sin which is why only those who truly felt the need
for God and not the self – righteous would benefit from His coming. As we
celebrate the birth of Our Blessed Lord, let us not forget the purpose of why
He came amidst all the fun things that happen around us, always keeping the
end in mind. Wishing you, your family, and all your near and dear ones a
happy and blessed Christmas! 😊
