Christ’s Passion foretold

Saturday,
September 28, 2013
25th Week
in Ordinary Time
First Reading:
Zec 2: 5-9, 14-15
Gospel: Lk 9:43-45.

And all were astonished by the majesty of God. While they were all amazed at his every deed, he said to his disciples, “Pay attention to what I am telling you. The Son of Man is to be handed over to men”. But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)

I had a friend who became a victim of a dubious marketing strategy at a Mall in Cebu. An agent posted at the entrance of one store inside the Mall told her that she was an instant winner in a raffle draw by random counting of passersby. To claim her prize, however, she had to enter the store to register. She went in smiling but came out grumbling because she was asked to buy an expensive item from the store to validate her win. She felt deceived.

Reflecting on her story I turned to the experience of the apostles. Did they feel deceived when they were told of the need to suffer in order to win eternity? The disciples may have felt deceived because they were expecting a political Messiah, and all they got was one who merely taught them to look at the oppressive status quo from another perspective for purposes of deriving spiritual merits therefrom. If it is true that Judas Iscariot was a member of the “Sicarii”, a cadre of assassins among Jewish rebels determined to drive the Romans out of Judea, Judas must have been the face of that segment of the citizenry putting so much hope in Jesus who they thought was the political Messiah that Israel had been waiting for so many generations.

But if they felt swindled, they couldn’t blame Jesus for it since Jesus had laid down his cards from the beginning. “If you want to follow me”, he told them, “you must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow in my footsteps” (Matt. 16:24). In today’s Gospel he told them that not even he was exempt from self-oblation. But nobody asked him for any clarification. Either they did not ask for clarification because they were afraid it could drag them into his ordeal, or they were afraid that such would force them to abandon their expectation of a political messiah. In any case, they only had themselves to blame if in the end they felt deceived.

We too cannot accuse God of deception. In no clearer terms Jesus said: “The Son of Man will be delivered into human hands” (Luke 9:44). If our leader deemed it necessary to be handed over, we cannot expect anything better. —Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM . Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.

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