Homily for 11 Mar 2016

11 Mar 2016

The Agony of Jesus on Holy Thursday night wasn’t his first agony.  Already, days before, we see him grapple with the inevitable.  He didn’t want to go to Jerusalem, because he knew the Jews would try to kill him there.  And, yet, when his “brothers” went off to the city, he changed his mind—out of love for their well-being, and in obedience to the larger plan of his Father.

And when I go to visit people who are very ill, I see a similar struggle.  Death might still be a long ways off, and yet, they’re starting to grapple with the inevitable.  They don’t want to face death.  And yet, their Christian faith encourages them to accept the inevitable with trust in God, with hope in the promise of eternal life, and in loving obedience to the voice of God, which says from the other side of death: “Come to me.”

I don’t imagine any of us are planning to die today, or tomorrow, or next week, or next year.  But, at some point, the inevitable will come, and we may find ourselves grappling with that.  May it bring us some peace, though, to remember that Christ has already been there: he knows very well the agony.  But he also knows—better than we do—what lies on the other side of death; because he’s already there.

Just as God the Father was there for him, so he and the Father are there waiting for us.  The agony of life and death is, well, agony.  But there’s something sweet in store . . . for those who remain faithful to the end.