Father Csaba’s reflection on the gospel , Saturday 28 September 2019
Success and failure ! God created man from the dust of the earth . We are creatures born out of light, mud. The beautiful features of our Creator God shine from time to time , but unfortunately the dark shadow of the earth appears as well . Our life is a colourful homespun fabric of virtues-sins , successes-failures. Within ourselves , in our surrounding we regards light , life in high esteem , we are glad when life , magnificence fills our life . Many are asking why did God allow sin, evil, the suffocating darkness ? This question is not only of interest to us simple folk , but an eternally reoccurring stumbling block of our belief in God .
In today’s gospel at the peak of His successes is talking to His disciples that the Son of Man has to suffer. This prophecy of Jesus is so shocking for the disciples , that they do not even dare to talk about it , let alone ask Jesus questions regarding this .
Wy does Jesus tolerate sin ? How can He allow us people to commit sin ? In fact how could Jesus Christ allow that His people knowingly and willingly commits the most unimaginable sin , the sin of the murder of God ?
The gospel also gives an answer to this : “God so love the world that He gave His only Son for it .” The essence of love is freedom ! Love only exists where there is a real possibility for decision, choice . That is why He is not restricting freedom, taking away the possibility to commit sin from us , the opportunity to make bad decisions! The same way as our forefathers had the opportunity at the very beginning to choose between good and evil, the same way the people of Jerusalem have an opportunity to choose between Jesus and Barrabas . What is marvellous and serves as an example for all of us ,is that Jesus ‘ love of His people is not affected by people’s decision . Our Redeemer there on the cross , with nails in the palm of His hands is praying for us ! He is not threatening , He is not talking about the truth cursing , but with merciful love offers eternal salvation to one of the participants of Good Friday , to the brigand on His right hand side , who loudly proclaims that he really deserves to die on the cross.
No matter how beautifully Jesus would have spoken about this infinite love , because without Good Friday we would have never understood His teaching , the essence of love ! The theory is totally different and it is also totally different on the Golgotha dying between heaven and earth , His teaching , without saying a word, about the final victory of love . I am looking at the wood of the scandal , the cross and I think how great it would be if we could , dared to decide by love ! How great it would be , if starting from today always standing behind Jesus , we would only walk on the way of love , regardless where that road leads us , because the way of love is the way of salvation , the only way leading us to the wedding feast of God !
With love ,
Father Csaba
translated by dr k.e.
The Word of God
And all were astounded at the greatness of God. While everyone was amazed at all that he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, "Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands." But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.
Luke 9:43-45
