Palm Sunday - Jesus' passion shows us love

“Jesus' passion teaches us what love looks like.”  I put a check mark next to this sentence in the commentary I was reading.  I did this to indicate how important the sentence is for understanding the last days of Jesus' life prior to his death and resurrection.

The word “passion” used to describe Jesus' condition at the end of his life calls attention to his suffering.  This word has so many different shades of meaning in English.  But its Greek root,”pathos,” means suffering.

So how can suffering teach us what love looks like?  What does Jesus' suffering mean for us?  Perhaps we should begin by saying what it does not mean.

Jesus' suffering does not mean that God made him a scapegoat on our behalf.  That point of view suggests that God only could forgive our sins if someone who was much better than we are—without sin—agreed to die in our place. Our sins should have condemned us to eternal suffering. Yet, God's anger at our sinfulness could be placated by Jesus' suffering and dying in our place.   This is NOT why Jesus chose to suffer!

But how should we understand his suffering?  First, his suffering grew out of his Incarnation.  Jesus took our human nature upon himself.  As the church had believed since very early times, Jesus was fully divine AND fully human, although without sin.  He chose this path out of love for us, so he could fully understand what being human really means.  Theologians call this human finitude: Jesus lived in solidarity with us, especially with our limitations, including our suffering.  That why we pray when we—or someone we love—is suffering for Jesus to be with them, to strengthen, to comfort, and to sustain them.

Also, Jesus' manner of suffering showed us how to face the fear of what evil and sin might do to us.  In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus spoke to God from whom he had come:  “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want.”  To finish what he had come to do—to defeat the power of death, to give us the possibility of eternal life—Jesus had to continue on the path to his arrest and crucifixion. To his sleeping disciples, who could not stay awake to pray with him, he said, “The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”

Perhaps when our times of challenge come, we would rather follow Peter and, out of fear, deny who we truly are—who God has called us to be.  On the other hand Jesus' example can lead us resist injustice without resorting to violence and to become advocates for people in need—the least among us in our society's eyes.  April 4, Wednesday of this week, is the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.  He worked to confront racism and to overturn the laws and practices in our country that kept African-Americans from full participation in our society. This is the sort of love that Jesus' passion teaches us.

And finally, Jesus' passion showed how God's love can break through the wall of our separation from God. Feeling abandoned, as we often do in our suffering, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God's answer to that cry was to reveal God's self.  As Jesus cried out and breathed his last, the curtain of the Temple, which closed off the holiest space in the Temple, was torn from top to bottom.  As Jesus' passion came to an end, God's love reached across the chasm of our sinfulness and through the curtain of our attempts to deny God's love for us—our attempts to shut God away.  Reconciliation—God's reaching out to us with divine grace as we suffer the effects of our sin and that of others—that's what love looks like in the end!

Yes, Jesus' passion teaches us what love looks like.  Love looks like standing in solidarity with those who suffer.  Love looks like standing up to injustice, despite the fear one might feel, and never resorting to violence.  Love looks like reaching out in forgiveness to offer reconciliation.  And yes, the love Jesus' passion teaches us can come at a steep cost.  It cost him his life.  Are we able to bear such a cost?  Are we able to bear our cross?