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March 30, 2023Abu Dhabi.Meditazione sulla Pasqua cristiana
Introduction
We are fast approaching the solemn celebration of Easter. Next week will be Holy Week which accompanies us in a more intense way to the great Easter celebrations. In reality, Easter is not simply a celebration among many others. It is the foundation of the Christian faith. The Christian faith is a paschal faith which finds its foundation in the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Everything in Christianity starts from that morning on the day after Saturday when the tomb where Jesus was buried is found empty by some women and apostles. In a mysterious but real way, Jesus appears to them. In his resurrected body the wounds of passion are clearly visible. From here springs the Christian announcement: Jesus Christ, the crucified, is risen; he is truly risen!
An ancient Christian hymn reveals the meaning of Easter to us, and that we find at the beginning of Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It is a fundamental Christological hymn that summarizes the Christian faith.
Though he was in the form of God,
Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.
He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name,
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
St. Paul probably took up this hymn from the Christian communities who had already recited these words to celebrate the mystery of Jesus' Passover.
Because of next week's Easter celebrations, let us try to underline some fundamental aspects of the mystery of our faith. It is important to be aware of the central mystery of our faith. Above all, it is necessary to realize that we are not only considering events that occurred in the past, but realities that are happening again now in the sacraments that we celebrate. The Christological hymn of Saint Paul helps us to deeply understand the paschal mystery.
It is a Christological hymn. Therefore, at the center of everything is the figure of Christ.
St. Paul is primarily concerned with clarifying the identity of Jesus Christ.
The gaze on Jesus is at the same time from above and below: from God to man and from man to God.
First, Jesus is presented as having a divine nature (from above) - The Christian faith affirms that Jesus is God - yet this divine nature is not a reality that he keeps for himself, but he has appeared in human form and has assumed human nature. St. John says in his Gospel that the Word of God was made flesh, and he became a man. In this perspective, we can say that Jesus Christ presents himself to us as God's company to man in his daily life. He brings divine life into the world.
Jesus Christ humbled himself
Saint Paul uses two powerful words to indicate this movement of God towards man: Jesus Christ emptied himself and humbled himself. They are two expressions very dear to the first Christian community, which recognizes in faith that Jesus of Nazareth is, in reality, the son of God, who became man for our salvation.
Emptying oneself corresponds to the Greek expression of kenosis. This means that Jesus Christ came among us, truly becoming a man, hiding his divinity to be met by men and freely welcomed.
The humility of which Saint Paul speaks corresponds to the fact that the son of God humbled himself. That is, he indeed assumed the human condition. He subjected himself to time and space.
The first step of this humility of the son of God is manifested in his incarnation. He was born of the virgin Mary. He needed everything, food, water, and a home. Jesus grew up over time like all human beings. He was a humble worker for many years, learning the art of carpentry from St. Joseph.
Both the fathers of the Church and some medieval theologians used a particularly strong expression to indicate this mystery: the Word of God became shortened. The eternal word of God is communicated through the brevity of a human word. Why did the word of God become a human word? In order to be listened to by men and women of all times.
At the beginning of his public life, he starts preaching of the kingdom of God and forms a community of disciples who share his mission. But as seen from all the evangelical stories, Jesus' active life tends towards the mystery of Easter, his death, and resurrection.
So much so that modern scholars and scriptures say the gospels are nothing more than narratives of the Passover with an extensive introduction.
Therefore, this emptying and humiliation occur above all in the paschal mystery. The Christological hymn of Saint Paul tells us that he became obedient to the point of death and death on the cross.
So there is a profound unity between his birth, his becoming a man like us, and the paschal mystery.
A father of the Church, Gregory of Nissya, affirms that Jesus was born precisely to be able to die for us on the cross for our salvation. In fact, as God, he could never die. But by becoming a man like us, he could shoulder the human drama of finitude and death.
Jesus Christ for us
Another characteristic that the Christological hymn of Saint Paul highlights is Jesus' obedience to the heavenly Father. He became a man, humbled himself, and emptied himself in obedience to his heavenly Father to do his will and to carry out his mission of salvation. Jesus becomes obedient unto death and death on the cross.
Here Saint Paul, after having presented to us the movement from God towards man, now presents us with the movement of man towards God. In fact, in the obedience of Jesus, we see at the same time the path of man towards God.
This makes us understand that Jesus' whole life is determined by his relationship with the Father, whose will he wants to fulfil at every instant. He is one with the Heavenly Father.
And what is the will of the Father? Our salvation, the salvation of humanity and the whole world.
For this reason, in our profession of faith, we say that Jesus Christ came down from heaven for us and for our salvation and became man.
In the same way, all the literature of the New Testament, when it describes the paschal mystery, Jesus' death on the cross, affirms that all this happened for us and for our salvation.
We must consider these two simple words: Jesus died for us on the cross.
First of all, the expression "for us" means "in our favor". He gave his life to the end for the love of us. Jesus freely gave his life for us.
A great medieval theologian, Saint Anselm, says that Jesus gave his life for us spontaneously, not forced, but out of love for all of us.
The cross and the Eucharist
From this perspective, it is crucial to consider the deep bond between the Eucharist and the cross. In fact, before dying, Jesus institutes the sacrament of the Eucharist precisely to show the meaning of his death for love. Without the Eucharist, we could not understand the Christian meaning of death on the cross. Without the Eucharist, the death of Jesus would be a death that occurred due to a grave injustice. It was the unjust condemnation of an innocent man. The cross would appear to be an irreparable evil.
But in the perspective inaugurated by the Eucharist, the meaning of this death changes profoundly. On the eve of his passion, Jesus gathers the twelve apostles and celebrates the Jewish Passover, within which he inserts a new rite. The Jewish Passover was the memory of the liberation from Egyptian slavery through the sacrifice of lambs. By celebrating this rite, Jesus now indicates himself as the true lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, thus bringing to fulfilment the ancient prophecies.
In the Eucharistic supper, Jesus anticipates with his disciples what, after a short time, he will accomplish in the solitude of the cross. He takes the bread and the wine and identifies them with his broken body and sheds blood. In this way, he shows the true meaning of the cross.
What would have been simply a meaningless injustice is completely transformed and becomes the most excellent gesture of love. In obedience to the Heavenly Father, Jesus welcomes the cross as a communication of the greatest love: to give one's life for one's friends, as Saint John says in his Gospel.
So, in the Eucharist, Jesus shows us that his life is for us forever, in our favour, and never against us.
At the same time, we must recognize that the apostles who participated in the last supper are directly involved in Jesus' gift of himself. In fact, he invites them to eat the bread he broke and drink from his cup. In this way the apostles, and with them, all God's people, are involved in Jesus' mysterious hour, the hour of his passion.
Soon after the resurrection of Jesus, the apostles will begin to meet with the faithful to repeat the gesture made by Christ at the last supper. In this way all the faithful participate through the Eucharist in the mystery of Easter, they are invited by Christ to welcome his love and to allow themselves to be transformed by this immense gift.
Jesus for us: “exchange of places”
But we must deepen another aspect of the mystery of the cross in this meditation. Death on the cross is not a death like any other. The cross was the infamous gallows reserved for those who had committed the greatest crimes.
How is it possible for the innocent to take the place of the sinner? How can the immaculate Jesus take the place reserved for a criminal?
In this case, the expression "for us" which describes the paschal mystery, does not mean only in our favour but also "in our place". On the cross, Jesus, the innocent one, took our place, the place of sinners. Jesus, on the cross, suffered for our sins and those of the whole world. He took upon himself the sin of humanity and nailed it to the cross.
The fathers of the Church express this mystery with a radical expression: with the incarnation and with the cross, there was an "exchange of places": Jesus took our human nature wounded by sin, and in exchange, he gave us his divine life.
Jesus took the sinner's place and suffered the death on the cross of those who turned away from God.
In this way, the lie of sin was definitively unmasked. Jesus on the cross confesses to the heavenly Father the sins of all humanity, and the path of salvation opens up for all humanity.
Jesus exalted
At this point, we can go back to the Christological hymn of St. Paul to the Philippians, which after describing his death on the cross, totally changes his language: Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.
In this way, we are faced with the announcement of the resurrection. After the descent to the death of the Cross, the exaltation of the son of God is now announced. His resurrection inaugurates a new era. The way to salvation reopens. Man is offered forgiveness of sins and the way to become a child of God.
Therefore the son of God became a son of man so that every son of man freed from sin might become a son of God, a sharer by the grace of God's love and divine life.
In this way, it is manifested that death on the cross was not a meaningless disaster but was the highest manifestation of God's love. In the paschal mystery, God manifests himself as the mystery of infinite and merciful Love: the Father sends his Son for our salvation in the power of the Holy Spirit. Crucified and risen Christ gives the Holy Spirit for the remission of sins and for every man to become a new creature and participate in the divine life.
Christians are made participants in the death and resurrection of Jesus through the sacrament of baptism. For this reason, baptisms are celebrated every year on the vigil of Easter, and Christians renew their profession of faith in God.
In this way, thanks to baptism and the Eucharist, Christians are called to already live in this world, life in the joy of the resurrection. If it is true that Christ will return at the end of time in glory and there will be the resurrection of the dead, it is nevertheless equally true that Christians are called to live a new life in Christ right now. Through the humble witness of daily life, Christians are called to communicate reliable hope to all: we are not destined to die but to the resurrection because the God revealed to us by Jesus Christ is the living God who loves life and calls everyone to eternal life. We are therefore called to live every circumstance of life and every relationship from the perspective of the resurrection.
Mother Mary
I conclude this meditation by turning our thoughts to the Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, Mother of God, and mother of the new life that sprang from the paschal mystery.
As we know from the scriptures, Jesus enters the world through the motherhood of the virgin, through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Mary follows all of Jesus' childhood. She appears several times during Jesus' public mission. But above all, according to the Gospel of John, Mary is right under the cross with the beloved disciple of Jesus.
Right from the Cross, Jesus entrusts his beloved disciple and all of humanity to the Virgin Mother: “Woman – said Jesus to Mary – this is your son”.
The same Mother of Jesus will then be present after the resurrection of her son in the first Christian community, as the Acts of the Apostles tell us.
Our Lady is present in a particular way when the apostles will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Mary always accompanies the Church and all humanity toward the full manifestation of God's love in the world.
Let us ask Mary, our mother in faith, to accompany us on our journey. May the Mother of God help us contemplate Easter as an infinite mystery of Love.
May Mary help us be faithful disciples of her son, brothers, and sisters of all, promoters of a more human and fraternal world, waiting for the kingdom of God to manifest itself in fullness.