He was raised, and we will all be there one day

Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor.

A reflection on the daily readings, for Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent, by Father Perry.

By Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor

+ If he said it once, he said it again for sure —

“My hour has not come.”

And until that precise hour — not 60 minutes, but the hour of his death, entombment, and resurrection — that was the hour.

Until then, although the pressure was on, things would not begin to happen.

But in both readings today, both Jeremiah the prophet and Jesus the Christ were feeling the heat.

The “hearing of whisperings,” and the denouncing and the watching for missteps, Jeremiah felt the pressure; and yet he continued to trust and depend upon God for his strength and his safety.

Jesus, too, never faltered in his absolute belief and confidence in his Father. And even when that was the very issue to some —

“You, a man, are making yourself God.”

And for that they justified their reasoning for picking up rocks with the intention of stoning him to death. One would think it can’t get any worse. But of course it does.

The liturgy keeps increasing the threat and danger, for this Holy Week will give us a double whammy. And we will hear proclaimed, the Passion of Christ first by Mark (in this Cycle B year), and then by John.

It will sting! It will hurt! It will drag us into the horrific events that Jesus himself (in John) describes as his hour.” And we will once again celebrate the death and resurrection of the Lord.

And although we repeatedly said in Psalm 18 today, “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice,” we know that Jesus had to go through this death.

And such a horrific one it was. And it becomes clear that God did not deliver Jesus from death, but rather through death.

That passage showed who and how Jesus was and is for us even now.

As the psalm elaborates chillingly —

“The breakers of death surged round about me,
the destroying floods overwhelmed me;
The cords of the nether world enmeshed me,
the snares of death overtook me.”

There was — as we will hear in John’s Passion — a momentary cry of abandonment —

“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

We’ve all been there, too!

And yet he was raised! He was raised! And we believe — through it all — we will all be there one day, too!