Buenas tardes a todos y a todas. El equipo de La Biblia y su Tradición se complace en continuar nuestra reflexión cuaresmal sobre La jornada del amor hacia la cruz. La semana pasada exploramos el ministerio de Jesús desde el punto de vista de su desplazamiento constante por los pueblos de Palestina y a Jerusalén. Vimos el contraste entre Juan Bautista arraigado en el desierto de Judea y Jesús viajando por los pueblos de Galilea. Prestamos atención al llamado a seguir a Jesús por el camino que lo lleva a Jerusalén, a la confrontación con las autoridades y al martirio. Jesús no abandona a sus discípulos, sino que camina misteriosamente con ellos aún después de su pasión y resurrección. Ello indica cuán importante es el caminar en la vida de la Iglesia. Hoy veremos con mayor profundidad el significado de la cruz en el caminar de Jesús, desde el evangelio y la primera carta de San Juan.
Good evening once again. The Bible and Its Tradition team is honored to pursue our Lenten reflection on Love’s Journey to the Cross with you. Last week we sketched Jesus’ ministry as that of a wandering prophet, reaching out to the people where they lived and worked. We paid close attention to the courage Jesus summoned to face opposition in Jerusalem and how a true disciple in the gospels is called to follow on her/his masters wake to the end. But we also reflected on the Risen Jesus walking along with his disheartened disciples and inspiring them to continue the journey after his departure. Today we read the event of the cross in light of St. John’s Gospel and his first letter.
Aside from St. Paul, St. John is the New Testament writer who explicitly develops this idea of Jesus’ ministry as that of a son doing his father’s will while on a mission that involves travel. I recall that when I was a kid, my father would send me with money to the bakery to get warm bread for late breakfast on the weekend. I was entrusted with a bag made of cloth, the approximate sum of money I needed for the purchase and a verbal account of the sorts of bread that were preferable, as well as how many were required. I had discretionary power at the bakery, depending on what might be available or not. But it was crisp clear that I was not to return with pastry I would love, only bread. This anecdote illustrates the human experience we use to talk about Jesus’ relationship to God and the value of what he accomplished on earth. When we say God sent his Son to save the world, we mean Jesus did for us what God intended but couldn’t accomplish in person. Jesus came to us as a Son sent by God the Father with an errand. Only, the errand was not to purchase bread for the Father to eat, rather to offer himself as bread for all of God’s children to be nourished. St. John uses bread, water and light as symbolical goods that Jesus brings to us to share in God’s life-giving power. But Jesus says in St. John’s Gospel that he is the light, the spring of fresh water and the bread that has come down from heaven. So what Jesus has to offer is himself! That is nothing less than self-sacrifice. Hence the cross is the hour of Jesus completing his mission by giving us even his very life, flesh, blood and spirit as a God-sent gift. Thus the sacrifice at the cross becomes the ultimate expression of Christ’s and God’s love for us.
Cristo nos ofrece su vida: en cuerpo, sangre y espíritu, para que vivamos de la vida misma de Dios, la vida divina. El Hijo obedece al Padre y viene hasta nosotros para darnos su luz, su paz y su amor. Cristo nos enseña pues cuánto nos aman él y el Padre al ofrecer su vida por nosotros, al alejarse del Padre para estar con nosotros y vivir con nosotros y morir por nosotros. Ahora bien, Jesús se acerca pero nos llama también para que nos acerquemos nosotros mismos. “Vengan y verán” nos dice en Juan 1:39. Si queremos tener noticias del Padre, si queremos oír su voz y aprender de él (Juan 6:45), nos toca hacer lo que podemos: es decir acercarnos a Cristo, luz de Dios venida al mundo (Juan 1:9). Al caminar de Jesús hasta nosotros en su encarnación corresponde nuestro caminar hacia él en nuestras vidas.
The Son’s journey towards us through the Incarnation calls for our meeting up with him in our lives. “Come and see” (John 1:39), says Jesus to each one of us in St. John’s Gospel, “taste and see” do we sing in our liturgical gatherings.
If St. John portrays the Incarnation as a daring journey from God’s bosom all the way to us in our earthly predicament, he then also suggests that Jesus’ crucifixion is the means by which Jesus ascends back to heaven and returns to the Father. The cross is portrayed by St. John as a new Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28:12, alluded to in John 1:51) extending from earth all the way to heaven. Through the “lifting up” of Jesus on the cross, the Son of Man is at the very same time being “lifted up” to heaven and the Son is returning to his Father, once his mission is “accomplished” (see the very last words of Jesus in John 19:30.) So when we contemplate the cross with faith – says St. John – we see not a criminal being executed by the Roman empire, rather we see the return of the Son to the Father’s side after faithfully completing his mission.
Según San Juan, la crucifixión no es un momento trágico o deshonroso para Jesús. Aunque sea un momento extremadamente doloroso y difícil, es la hora en que cumple totalmente con su misión y la manera misma como él regresa al Padre. La cruz se vuelve una nueva escalera de Jacob (como en Génesis 28:12, aludida en Juan 1:51), que cubre la distancia entre cielo y tierra para que el Hijo pueda subir de regreso al Padre.
Ahora bien, esa visión de la fe implica también un llamado a corresponder nosotros. Así como al venir el Hijo de Dios nos llama a acercarnos a él, así también cuando el Hijo se va nos llama a seguirle después y nos indica el camino. Hermanas, hermanos, esto es lo más difícil por escuchar que tenga yo que decir esta noche: cuando Jesús nos dice en Juan 12:26 que quien quiera servirle deberá seguirle y cuando Jesús nos dice a nosotros sus discípulos que ya sabemos el camino de regreso, nos está indicando la cruz como vía de comunión con él. Ése es el camino.
Brothers and sisters, do you realize what this departure of the Son by his lifting up on the cross actually implies for all of us who would like to follow Jesus? If Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6), how could we avoid for ourselves the path that leads to the cross? The cross of Christ is the path of the Christian on one’s journey to God.
But there is yet more to it. I would like to end this presentation by looking closely at one very challenging and interesting verse of the First Letter of St. John. It reads: “this is the one who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by water alone but by water and blood” (1 John 5:6). The First Letter has been considered from old to be arguing against Christians who denied the full importance and extent of the Incarnation. Here the verse is stressing the importance of blood over water for the coming of Jesus Christ. The Church Fathers relate these two symbols to the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Yet we know the Eucharist evokes Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, the offering of his flesh and blood. Water is associated as a symbol for God’s word and spirit, as we see in Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4. So we could interpret this verse to mean Jesus ministered not only by teaching through his word, but also through his actions, here powerfully and cogently summarized as his giving up of his life and blood on the cross for us. Jesus was not merely a prophet or sage who taught, his self-sacrifice did make a difference. God’s life reached us not only by word, but also by deed. The wording is bold: Jesus came through water and blood. This may imply I suggest that the Incarnation was not fully accomplished until Jesus spent his very last drop of blood for our sake. He came fully to our humanity and world the moment he had no further life to forego. He was fully incarnate the moment he shared our fate to the death. And through this bold and generous gesture he taught us better than with any parable or discourse the breadth and intensity of God’s love for us. Again, St. John is relentless: we may only show we know God’s love by giving up our own lives for our brothers and sisters like Jesus did.
El hecho que Jesús vino mediante agua y sangre según San Juan nos muestra que a veces tenemos una visión un poco estrecha de lo que es el misterio de la encarnación. No se trata de un evento previo al nacimiento de Jesús, sino del esposar nuestra vida humana hasta el extremo de morir como nosotros y de morir por nosotros. Dios llega hasta nosotros plenamente cuando Jesús expira en la cruz. No puede haber mejor revelación del amor de Dios. Y así también, no puede haber mejor demostración de nuestro ser y entender cristiano que el de ofrecer nuestras vidas por nuestras hermanas y hermanos. Muchas gracias.