SASAMA KA BA?

Linggo ng Palaspas ng Pasyon ng Panginoong Jesukristo

Mk 15:1-39 (Is 50:4-7 / Slm 21 / Fil 2:6-11)

Natitipon tayo upang gunitain ang pasyon ng Panginoong Jesukristo.  Bilang Kanyang nagkakaisang sambayanan, halina’t pumasok tayo sa misteryo ng pagpapakasakit, kamatayan, at magmuling-pagkabuhay ni Jesus.  Pagnilayan natin ang pag-ibig na banal na sumalungat sa dahas, pag-ibig na nagbata ng karahasan, pag-ibig na naglakbay nang may pasan-pasang krus sa Kanyang balikat.  Narito tayo para pasalamatan ang pag-ibig na ito.  Dapat naririto rin tayo bilang pakikiisa sa mga taong biktima ng karahasan dahil sa kanilang pag-ibig na magiting at nakapagbibigay-buhay.

Mahigit na sa dalawanlibong taon ang nakalilipas nang si Jesus ay ipako at mamatay sa krus subalit magpahanggang ngayon ang Kanyang krus ay nakatayo pa rin at ang pagdurusang Kanyang dinanas ay hindi pa rin nagwawakas.  Sa gitna ng buhay ng sankatauhan nananatiling nakatayo ang krus hindi bilang dekorasyong ritwal lamang kundi bilang paalaala na ito ang maaaring sapitin ng mga radikal na nagsasabuhay ng mga pagpapahalaga ng Ebanghelyo.  Kamatayan ang maaaring hingin ng mundo bilang kabayaran sa pagtangging maging maka-mundo at, sa halip, maging maka-Kristo.  Tayong mga nagwawagayway ng mga palaspas ngayong araw na ito, nauunawaan ba talaga natin ang ibig sabihin nito?  Handa ba tayong mamatay kasama ni Kristo o iiwan din natin Siya?  Laan ba tayong mamatay para kay Kristo o kabilang ba tayo sa mga pumapatay sa Kanya?

Subalit maaari ba sanang naiwasan ni Jesus ang kamatayan sa krus?  Puwede ba sana Siyang lumihis nang daan nang hindi dumaraan sa Kalbaryo subalit makapagpapatuloy pa rin sa Kanyang paglalakbay?  Maaari bang matahimik na lamang Siyang namuhay sa lalawigan ng Galilea sa halip na tila baliw na binangga ang politika at relihiyon sa Jerusalem?  Talaga bang kailangan pang humantong sa krus ang mapagpatawad Niyang pag-ibig sa atin?

Maging malinaw sana sa atin ito: Hindi si Jesus ang naghanap ng krus; ang mundo ang nakahanap ng krus bilang paraan para iligpit si Jesus.  Hindi imbento ng Ama ang krus; nilikha natin ito.  Hindi plano ng Diyos ang krus; solusyon ito ng mundo sa problema nitong si Kristo.  Hindi tayo higit na minahal ng Diyos dahil sa krus; sa halip, kahit pa may krus mahal na mahal pa rin tayo ng Diyos.  Ang krus ay hindi dahilan ng pag-ibig ng Diyos sa atin; ito ang ibinunga ng pag-ibig Niya sa atin kahit pa tayo ay mga makasalanan.  Ang tunay na pag-ibig ay mapagtaya.  Itinaya ng Diyos ang Kanyang sariling Anak sa ngalan ng Kanyang pag-ibig sa atin.  At sa pagkakaloob Niya sa atin ng Kanyang bugtong na Anak, ipinaubaya Niya Siyang tutuo sa ating mga kamay.

Hindi hinihingi ng pag-ibig ang krus, ngunit sa buhay ni Jesus ang pag-ibig ay humantong sa krus.  Yaon ang kinahihinatnan ng pag-ibig na mapaglimot sa sarili.  Pasya ng pag-ibig na huwag iwasan ang pagdurusang kaakibat ng pagtatalaga ng sarili.  Patuloy na nagmamahal ang tunay na mapagbigay-buhay kahit pa sariling buhay ang ibigay.

Puwede sanang hindi na lang nagpunta si Jesus sa Jerusalem.  Puwede sanang sinunod na lamang Niya ang payo ng Kanyang mga alagad na binalaan Siya tungkol sa maaari Niyang sapitin sa Jerusalem.  Siya na mismo ang nagsabi sa kanila na sa Jerusalem ay dadakpin Siya ng mga Pariseo, mga eskriba, at mga matatanda ng bayan, pahihirapan, papatayin, ngunit magmuling-mabubuhay sa ikatlong araw.  Gayunpaman, sa halip na iwasan ang Jerusalem, heto’t buong hayagan at ingay pa Niyang pinasok ito.  Hindi Siya pakubling pumasok o kaya ay sa likod ng lungsod dumaan.  Hindi Siya hatinggabi dumating nang walang makapansin.  Pumarada pa Siya!

Mulat na mulat ang mga mata, sadyang dumiretso si Jesus sa mga bisig ng Kanyang mga kaaway.  Hinarap Niya ang kapangyarihang nakaambang pumatay sa Kanya.  Dahil dito, itinambad Niya sa ating harapan ang pagdurusa ng mga naninindigan laban sa mapang-aliping uri.  Kung iiwasan ni Jesus ang paghihirap, kakailanganin Niyang iwasan ang makibanggaan sa mga maykapangyarihan.  Magbubulag-bulagan Siya sa tunay na paghihirap ng tao at kakailanganin Niyang makipagsabwatan sa katahimikang mapaniil.  Ngunit dahil iyon nga mismo ang ayaw Niyang gawin kaya’t ang pag-ibig ni Jesus ay naging biktima rin ng pagdurusa.  Iisa lang ang paraan para matakasan ni Jesus ang pagdurusa: ang maging manhid sa paghihirap ng iba, ang talikuran ang lahat ng pakikipagkapwa-tao.  At hindi iyon ang Kanyang paraan.

Kumusta naman kaya ang paraan natin?  Paano tayo magmahal?  Hanggat hindi tayo nagtataya, hindi tayo tunay na nagmamahal.  Kung hindi nakapagbibigay-buhay ang pag-ibig natin, huwad na pag-ibig iyon.  Kapag iwas tayo nang iwas sa paghihirap, mapagbalatkayo ang pag-ibig natin.  Minsan nasasabi natin sa minamahal natin, “Ang hirap mo talagang mahalin.”  Pero dapat idugtong pa natin, “Kaya mahal na mahal kita.”

Ngayong Linggong ito, ginugunita natin ang pagpasok ni Jesus sa Jerusalem sa liwanag ng Kanyang pasyon.  The passion of Jesus is about His passion to love before it is about His suffering and death.  Hindi natin sinasalubong si Jesus; sinusundan natin Siya.  Hindi natin dapat isadula ang Kanyang pagpasok sa Jerusalem; dapat nating tularan ang Kanyang pamumuhay.  Ang palaspas ay hindi pantaboy ng masasamang espiritu; ito ay tanda ng ating paninindigang tumulad kay Kristo at magmahal gaya Niya.

Bilang mga Kristiyano, nakatalaga tayo na maging isang sambayanang hindi lilimot sa pasyon ni Jesus.  At kapag ang isang sambayanan ay nagpapasiyang alalahanin ang pagdurusa, ang alaala nito ay nagiging isang protesta.  Mahigpit na hinihingi ng pag-alala sa pagdurusa ang pagsisikap tungo sa isang bukas na hindi lamang pag-uulit sa nakalipas.  Kaya nga’t ang alaala ng pagdurusa ay mapanganib:sa paggunita sa paghihirap ng nagdurusa ay may pagprotestang hindi na dapat muling maulit ang paghihirap na iyon.  Hangga’t may nagdurusang walang-sala, itinutulak tayo ng alaala ng paghihirap ni Jesus na makibaka laban sa lahat ng masama.

Sasama ka ba?

THE FIRST LESSON

5^th Sunday of Lent

Jn 12:20-33 (Jer 31:31-34 / Ps 51 / Heb 5:7-9)

Our first lesson in life was about letting go.  The first education we all received was on separation.  Birth is letting go.  Unless mother and child let go of each other, both will die.  

Our first birthday was not only painful; it was also frightening.  Pushed out from our mother’s womb, we were dragged into the world of adults.  And for a welcome, we were given a good spanking, with the exact intention of making us scream our hearts out.  We cried while everyone around us was either cheering our mother or staring at us with eyes wide with joy.  Though, eventually, we were returned to our mother, we were surprised to notice that we already occupy a space that was different from hers.  This was how we began our individuality.  This is how it goes for everyone.  And the rest of life is a series of letting go for us all.

We experience birth pangs more than once as we face a whole chain of indispensable losses throughout our lives.  The truth is we die more than once before we breathe our last.  We die to being babies.  We die to being toddlers.  We die to being adolescents and eventually to being adults.  Concomitant to these, are still many other forms of dying.  St. Therese of the Child Jesus said, “We die our little deaths each day.”

Every dying demands renunciation.  We let go and lose something, including our selves, in every act of dying.  But it is only through losses are we transformed, do we adapt, grow, and make gains.  As many say, “No pain, no gain.”  But we like better what St. Francis of Assisi said, “It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

Physical death, however, has such finality that the Jews see death as the end of everything.  In the Judaic worldview, a dead person goes to sheol – the world of the dead – where no communication is possible between the dead and the living.  The decay of one’s body in death makes communication with the living impossible, for humans relate with their bodies.  Kapag wala na ang katawan, tapos na ang usapan.  Kaya po siguro sinasabi natin, “Huwag mo akong talikuran kapag kinakausap kita.”  Ang pagtalikod ay pagkawala ng katawan, katapusan ng pag-uusap, wakas ng pakikipag-ugnayan.  

Something is similar to this is when we are quarantined for some communicable disease.  Afflicted with some contagious illness we cannot communicate and relate with others, we are in fact forbidden to mingle with them, lest we contaminate them with the virus we carry.  Worse, this is condition may even be like “hell” for many of us, Filipinos, because, as Archbishop Chito Tagle once commented in a Lenten recollection some years back, “Filipinos do not die of contamination but of isolation.”

Sleeping is another experience similar to dying.  When we sleep, we become unconscious.  Our body may be alive, but still we cannot communicate with the living.

In both cases – getting sick and sleeping, there is a temporary end to our communicating with the living.  But for the Jews, death is the end to all human relations and its effect is final and permanent.  Dying, for a Jew, is falling into an eternal abyss.

Jesus changed all that.  Today, we hear Him say, “…unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  Death is no longer the end but the beginning.  Dying is not losing life at all, but is actually gaining abundant life.  Death is not the termination of human communication; rather it is the highest form of communication among human beings if the dying is life-giving to others.  Death is not the end of relationships; it is, instead, the summit of human relationships if the dying gives life to others.

During the Last Supper, Jesus institutionalized this teaching through the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.  When He broke bread and proclaimed it to be His body and He poured wine and declared it to be His blood, Jesus was teaching the Apostles that His death would not be the end of their relationship with Him but the beginning of His more intimate bonding with them.  He was explaining to them the meaning of what they were about to witness just a few hours after that Last Supper: His brutal passion and death that would render His body mangled and bloody.  His death would be for them and for those would come to believe in Him through them, the very source of life.  By His dying, indeed, He destroyed our death and by His rising He restored our life.  Thanks be to the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist by which we eat His flesh and drink His blood, and therefore share in His life.  The death of Jesus communicated His life to us and deepened our bond with Him in a covenant that is more perfect than the one envisioned by the Prophet Jeremiah in the first reading today.

Indeed the loss of Jesus is our gain.  His death is our life.  At the centre of the Christian story is Jesus’ radical act of self-forgetfulness.  Can we, who call our selves Christians, also forget our selves and think of others more?  Jesus is the grain of wheat that died in order to bear much fruit.  Are we, who claim to be disciples of Jesus, also willing to die for others?

The life of Jesus is our life, too.  As He lived so must we.  Let us be men and women for other, ever becoming more like Jesus Himself to them.  Let us live for others, always empowering them to become like Jesus, too.  If we need to die for others, let it be so; but may we never forget to live for others first.

Our first lesson in life is about letting go.  Such is also the great lesson we must learn in following Jesus.  And before we even try measuring how much we have already given up for Him, let us not forget what He gave up for us: Himself.

GOD’S MASTERPIECES

4^th Sunday of Lent

Jn 3:14-21 (2 Chr 36:14-16,19-23 / Ps 137 / Eph 2:4-10)

We are God’s work of art.  We are masterpieces of His love.  Not only did He create us in His own image and likeness, but, as St. Paul the Apostle in the second reading today reminds us, God, who is rich in mercy, also restored us to life with Christ, raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavens because of His great love for us.  Moreover, in another letter of Paul, the Apostle asserts that God gave us Jesus, His only begotten Son, not when we were His friends but when we were yet His enemies (Cf. Rom 5:8-10).  Indeed, we are God’s labor of love.  With Christ Jesus as the Apex, we are the shining glory of His creation.

But our persistent sinful lifestyle changes all that, destroying not only His work of love that is our selves but the rest of creation as well.  There is hardly any living with Christ, being raised up with Him, and sitting with Him in the heavens in our constant sinning against Him and against one another.  Sin makes us ugly.  In sin, all is labor but no love.  While we are indeed supposed to be the shining glory of God’s creation, does sin not turn us instead into the ignominy of creation and the embarrassment of God?  It does!  And as we realize and accept our guilt, we are sincerely sorry, beating our breast – mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa – and covering our faces in shame.

God, however, does not delight in us being humiliated by our sins.  Likewise, He desires not our self-pity.  He hopes for our repentance and rejoices in our conversion, but He never wants us to live in guilt and shame for all eternity.  In Jesus, His Son, He has given us not only a Savior.  He gave us Light itself.  Sinners that we are, living in darkness, with the Psalmist we pray, “In You, Oh Lord, is the fountain of life; and in Your light we see light” (Ps 36:9).  That light is the Lord Himself, Jesus who is the Light of the world.

A Pharisee and, at the same time, an ally from the Sanhedrin, a religious-political senate of the Jews, visits Jesus in the Gospel today.  His name is Nicodemus.  His visit is nighttime.  Covered by darkness, Nicodemus meets THE Light.  A respectable teacher that he is, Nicodemus nonetheless fails to understand the Light, for how can one in the dark grasp the meaning of the light unless he steps out of his darkness and be enlightened.  Thus, Jesus, who is THE Light, enlightens him.  Showing Nicodemus the only way out of the darkness of sin, Jesus says the summary of the entire Bible: “…God so loved the word that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).  God’s love for us is the only way out of the darkness that we imprison our selves in by our persistent sinful lifestyle.  Jesus says further, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him” (Jn 3:17).  Clearly, THE Light comes not to humiliate us, much less, punish us, but to redeem us.  But we are not passive recipients of THE Light, for Jesus continues saying, “Whoever believes in Him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (Jn 3:18).  THE Light comes but we must embrace it if we truly want to be freed from darkness.  I heard some people whisper to their dying loved ones, “Follow the light.”  But such an advise must followed by the living before by the dying.

Do we really follow THE Light?  Do we embrace THE Light?  But equally important to ask our selves: What kind of light is that which we follow and embrace?  Baka naman hindi si Jesus ang light na ‘yan.  Or are we what the verdict that Jesus mentions in the Gospel today describes: people prefer darkness to light because their works are evil (Cf. Jn 3:19)?  For, indeed, if we do enjoy doing evil why should we want to come to the light?  The light exposes our filth and strips us of all our hypocrisies.  Following and embracing THE  Light, who is Jesus Himself, means knowing the truth and being truthful; in other words, living the truth so that our works may be clearly seen as done in God (Cf. Jn 3:20-21).  Do we strive to know the truth?  Are we truthful?  Jesus is THE Truth as much as He is THE Light.

There is more than about God’s love in the Gospel today.  The same Gospel expresses God’s hope as well.  God, who, more than anything else, is a loving Father to us, hopes that if we really believe that He loves us more than we know we would come out from our chosen darkness.  Moreover, God hopes that, having stepped out of our darkness, we may come to know Him not only more but even better: that He is a loving God and not a punitive deity, a caring Father and not a detached Creator.  Dwelling in darkness causes us to mold God into our own image and likeness; thus, hugging the dark, we guess wildly what God is like.  On the contrary, living in the light forms us more into the image and likeness of God; thus, embraced by Jesus the Light, we truly become God’s priceless works of art, a labor of His love.

Many of us have a hard time imagining themselves as God’s masterpieces.  That is because they have not fully come out of their elected darkness.  Most of them, if not all, are afraid of the light, even if that light already means Jesus.  If some people are afraid of the dark, still some are afraid of the light.  Jesus assures you and I today that there is nothing to fear.  The purpose of the light is to enlighten, not to blind.  Jesus wants to take us out of the darkness of sin, let us allow Him to hold us by the hand and lead us unto a life renewed, a light re-kindled.

As the edict of Cyrus, king of Persia, was for the Israelites exiled in Babylon, so should Lent signal the end of our own exile in sin.  We are not meant for darkness.  We are destined for THE Light.  No one hides a masterpiece in the dark.  No, an obra maestra is placed under the light, for all to see how lovingly its maker created it.

HIS OWN SON - HE DID NOT SPARE!

2^nd Sunday of Lent

Gen 22:1-2.10-13.15-18 / Ps 11 / Rom 8:31-34 / Mk 9:2-10

When salvation history was just starting there was an empty womb.  Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was barren.  Her womb should be just that: empty.  Yet despite this impossibility – plus the impressive arithmetic of their ages – both Sarah and Abraham hoped that someday they would have even just one child.  They prayed and waited for God’s positive reply not only despite these impossibilities but also no matter how long it took God to give in.  Their prayerful waiting paid off, Sarah conceived and gave birth to Isaac whose name literally means “laughter”.

But what followed after some years was certainly not a laughing matter.  God, for some unbelievable reason, wanted Isaac back.  He did not only want Isaac back; He wanted Him as a burnt offering!  And as if that was not enough for Isaac’s parents to lose their minds, God ordered that Abraham himself should slaughter his own son, Isaac.  But Abraham’s response to God’s command was even more unbelievable: he agreed.  In the way the Bible narrates the story to us, Abraham apparently did not even argue with God.  No protest from him is recorded.  No anguish madness is heard nor seen from him.  There is not even a mention that he discussed with Sarah, his wife, God’s horrific demand.  Thus, we may even wonder if Sarah ever knew it.  And if Sarah knew it, would the story be different?  We can only speculate because it seems that the secret was Abraham’s alone.

Quietly, with his son-soon-to-be-his-victim, Abraham trekked the road to Moriah.  Did he drag his feet, with the heart bleeding every step of the way?  Then breaking the silence that perhaps was uncomfortably unusual between them, Isaac asked Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.  “Look,” Isaac continued, “the fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”  Abraham answered (Oh, could he even look at his boy straight in the eye?): “My son, God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.”  Indeed, God Himself will provide.  Poor Isaac, he was not aware that he was that lamb to be slaughtered and burnt for God.  Do our hearts not bleed?  Father and son were both headed for Mount Moriah, but only the son to his death…at the hands of his very own father…and, more disturbing, Scripture has it, as commanded by no less than God Himself.

When they arrived at Mount Moriah, did Abraham explain to his son what he was about to do to him before he seized him?  Or did he just grab him right away?  We also do not know, for the narrative is quiet about it; and its silence is really very deafening and overly disturbing.  All we know is that when the altar was built and the wood arranged, Abraham, with a knife in his hand, was ready to cut his son’s throat before he set him to fire as an offering to God.  But suddenly God seemed to change His mind: He stopped Abraham from laying his hand on the boy and, instead, poured upon him blessings as a reward for his obedience.  And seeing a ram, whose horns were caught in a nearby bush, Abraham then offered an animal sacrifice – rather than human – to God. 

True, this story describes Abraham’s unconditional, total, and strong faith in God.  But there is more than just a statement on Abraham’s faith in God here.  I believe, this story also takes up the issue on human sacrifice. 

We must remember that Abraham lived in the most ancient of days when human sacrifice was a prevalent religious ritual.  In Abraham’s story, God appeared to be approving human sacrifice but, as it turned out, He was actually abolishing it.  That God eventually stopped the ritual murder of a person – Isaac – and an animal – a ram – is sacrificed in his stead clearly speaks for this argument.  Thus, from then on, as far as the Judaic religion is concerned, animal sacrifice replaced human sacrifice. 

But are we not disturbed that while God prevented Isaac’s slaughter, He did not budge an inch to stop the murder of His Son?  Rather, He allowed Jesus’ enemies to do with Him what pleased them.  And even when His Son was already crucified on the cross, uttering His seven final words as mortal life was gradually ebbing away from Him, God did nothing, said nothing, but saw everything.  While He intervened to stop the killing of Abraham’s son, He simply watched His own slaughtered right before His very eyes.  Does that not disturb you very deeply?  It does to me!  Come to think of it, if God could allow His only begotten Son be brutally murdered by His enemies without a fight, what assurance do we have therefore that He will come to our rescue when we our selves need Him?

Ironically, God’s not sparing His own Son, St. Paul the Apostle tells us in the second reading today, is the very assurance we have that God will not refuse us anything He can give.  Because God can do all things, God therefore will give us all things, for in giving us Jesus, His Son, God already gave us everything He had.

Indeed, Lent should make us consider more not what we give up for God but what God gave up for us: His only begotten Son.  Whatever things we offer to or people we let go for God are already thanksgiving offerings to His immense love for us and not bribes for Him to love us more.  The cross is not the cause of God’s love for us.  The cross, rather, is the fruit of His love for us.  Jesus’ crucifixion did not add anything to God’s love for us, for He already loved us even before the cross, even without the cross, and even after the cross.  The cross, rather, proved that God indeed loves more than we know, for not even death on the cross stopped Him from loving us.  God, who loved us first, gave up His only begotten Son for us even before we give up anything for Him.

In Gen 22:14, we read that Abraham called the place where God gave him a ram to take the place of Isaac, his son, as holocaust, Jehova jireh, which means, “The Lord will provide.”  On another mountain called the “Skull”, Golgotha, God provided us our Lamb of sacrifice: Jesus Christ.

After Jesus ascended into heaven, His disciples gradually saw His words and actions during The Last Supper as replacing animal sacrifice with the bloodless sacrifice of the Mass.  Jesus is now the sacrificial lamb, not only replacing the old animal sacrifice, but also ending all other sacrifices – animals and humans alike. 

Furthermore, in Christ’s Eucharist, the sacrifice is offered not only to God but also to us.  Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is our thanksgiving to God.  But, at the same time, Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is also God’s gift to us.  Having offered Himself to the Father, Jesus then commands us to eat His flesh and drink His blood.  Jesus is not food for God; He is the food for us!  Now, Jesus is the Lamb OF God, not the Lamb FOR God.  Thus, we proclaim Jesus as the Lamb OF God who takes away our sins, and not the Lamb FOR God who pacifies a wrathful, angry, vengeful, punitive God.  In Jesus and through Jesus, the Lamb of God, we see that God is for us, as the second reading today proclaims, and we know we loved indeed and are given eternal life by God.

But let it not be said that God willed the death of His Son.  Yes, He allowed it but did not plan it.  The death of Jesus was not the Father’s will.  Rather, the death of Jesus was a consequence of His fidelity to the Father’s will.  The Father’s will is that we all receive fullness of life through His Son but because of our sins the giving of fullness of life became so difficult as there stood between God and us the cross.  Because of our sins, Jesus died so that He may give us fullness of life.  The death of Jesus was not God’s invention; it was our creation.

But not because God lifted no finger to spare His Son from death, rather allowed Him to die, it meant that God really did nothing.  God, having seen His Son’s obedience, foreshadowed by the obedient faith of Abraham, applauded His Son, as it were, and the Son could not but rise.  God accepted His Son’s obedience and made Him a surpassing blessing to us.

Thus, in the Transfiguration story that we once again read in the Gospel today, we heard the Father’s voice commanding us: “This is my beloved Son.  Listen to Him.”  That same voice commanded Abraham to offer His Son as a holocaust when salvation history was just starting.  That same voice stopped Abraham from slaughtering His Son and taught all those who regard Abraham as their “Father in Faith” that God does not delight in human sacrifice.  That same voice that did not speak in Calvary has actually spoken already before Calvary.  On Mount Tabor, the mountain of transfiguration, it already said: “This is my Son, My beloved.  Listen to Him.”  Do we listen to Jesus?  And because listening, shema, for the Jews mean obeying, lesmuah, do we really obey Jesus?

In the name of love, God did not spare His own Son for us.  If we are truly grateful to Him, should there be anything we dare refuse God?