The Passion Week: The mystery of suffering and resurrection
Elie Weisel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and a survivor of the concentration camp, in his book, Night, tells a story of a young boy who was hanged by the SS men. The young boy was going to be hanged together with two other adults. This cruel show was to be witnessed by thousands of other prisoners including Elie Weisel. The child had the face of a ‘sad-eyed angel’; he was silent, lividly pale and almost calm as he ascended the gallows. Behind Weisel, one of the other prisoners asked: “Where is God? Where is He?” It took the boy more than half an hour to die, while the other prisoners were forced to look him in the face. The same man asked again: ‘Where is God now?’ And Weisel heard a voice within him make this answer: ‘Where is He? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows.’”
With the celebration of the Psalm Sunday we are beginning the period that is most sacred in the Christian calendar: the Holy Week. In these eight days we are invited to relive the last days of the earthly life of Jesus. We are invited to live through different emotional states that Jesus went through. In living through these moments, we have an opportunity to contemplate the very mystery of the principal paradoxes of human life itself: popularity and betrayal, fellowship and loneliness, strength of will and weakness of flesh, consolation and pain, support and suffering, death and resurrection. These are not just historical events that we commemorate; they are archetypal experiences that provide existential significance to our own lives – here and now.
In summary, my reflection today has two themes and one underlying question. Two themes: death and resurrection; suffering and wholeness; the meaning of human condition and the hope of transcendence. One question: Where is God in this? What is He like? Where is He?
The contemporary culture, with all the possibilities that it offers for an increased quality of life, falsely allures us to run away from sickness, pain, aging, and death itself. It is not that suffering and death are to be sought as ends in themselves. It is the denial of these human conditions that our inner wisdom invites us to question. The current capitalistic market economy advertises a belief that every problem has a solution, that it is possible to live a pain-free life, and that we can always remain young – provided you have the money. It all appears simple: we could buy meaning and happiness off the counter!
Unfortunately, this culture is also breeding a simplistic image of God and a naïve type of Christianity – in what I call, ‘a paracetamol religion’! This religion is a product of a post-war Western society and is now spreading like a wildfire. This ‘Mcdonalisation of faith’ has the flavour of fast food: it uses the strategies of the market (like franchise and training); it is driven by profit in the name of tithes; it is spread by the very mechanisms of globalisation (like God-TV). It simply promises instant solutions! There is even a Catholic version of it. Its creed is: God solves all your problems! Jesus is the answer! Jesus heals you, removes your debts, gives you success in business, and yes, he even finds you a marriage partner! Just ask for it. (Of course, if the miracle does not happen, it is because you have not been generous to the church – read: pastor; you do not have enough faith; or you are still a sinner!)
In the next eight, holy days – in fact, all of my life – I would like to pass in silence and contemplation in the presence of God. Not asking God to solve my problems. But waiting for the wisdom to accept my human condition. Being open to meaning. I do not want to believe in a god who solves all my problems. I do believe God can solve my problems, but He need not. Not because He does not love me, but because an attempt to solve all my problems might deprive me of my humanity. The God I believe in suffers with me in my suffering. “Where is God? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows”!
The Holy Week simply yet powerfully reminds me that there are times in my life when I am helpless. I am faced with questions that have no answers. Mysteries that have no solutions. Yet there is a meaning and depth in that silence and absence. Because at a particular time in history, God shared that human condition – the mystery of incarnation. Jesus shared in my human condition, including suffering and death. He is not just a victim for atonement. The Father does not demand a sacrifice. Jesus shares in my limitedness. He falls prey to an institutionalised religion and a power-hungry politics. He is a victim of human sinful choices. He does not go to the cross knowing that he will be raised. He goes to the cross aware that there is meaning in the fulfilment of the purpose of life – the Will of the Father. “Where is God? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows”!
The story of Elie Wiesel that I began my reflection with does not have an end. In the context of the untold suffering of the concentration camp, there is only silence! God is there in that suffering. And it is meaningful as it is!
But the story of Jesus does not end with the cross. The Father raises him up, in is own time. There is an end to suffering. There is meaning in the human condition and the hope of transcendence. Yet, the resurrection does not change the history of the cross. It embraces the cross and rises beyond it. The Risen Christ still carries the wounds, but He is alive! There is a similar continuity in my own history of suffering and rising to wholeness. Wisdom is often an outcome of the transformation of trauma.
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest” (Jn 12:24).
In short, the contemplation on the paschal mysteries of the Holy Week – suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus – brings a sense of balance in our lives. An exaggerated focus on the cross might bring about negativity towards life, a false sense of resignation, and fatalism. On the other hand, over-enthusiasm about resurrection (bereft of the cross) could lead us to naïve optimism and a ‘pollyannaism’. It is in the integration of the two that we find meaning for our human condition. God is in my death and resurrection.