"When I am lifted up from the
earth,
I will draw everyone to myself.”
In
today’s readings, each one of them, we are presented with a paradox:
it
is only through pain and suffering in our life that we can come to the
joy and
happiness each one of us is seeking for our life. Take the
Gospel
reading, for example. Just a short time before this scene, Jesus
had
raised Lazarus from the dead. This event
caused great notoriety for Jesus in the positive sense, such that when
he went
up to Jerusalem
for the Passover celebration, he was greeted with acclaim and welcomed
into the
city by enthusiastic crowds. They even took palm branches,
normally used
to welcome great conquerors and held them up to him as they cried out, “Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel.” Jesus was at the
pinnacle of his success and his glory was seemingly assured. Even
the
sophisticated Greeks wanted to meet him.
Yet, to all this acclaim, Jesus responds in the negative -
mentioning
death and implying that pain and suffering were to be his at that very
hour. Only then would he be glorified by the only one who really
mattered
- the Father. Jesus was not lifted up by his success; he was
lifted up
through his pain, suffering and sorrow.
Why does life have to be that
way? Why does God let us suffer? Why
does it seem at times that God leads us
to suffering and then abandons us? The fact is that God does not
abandon
us. Indeed, God glorifies us under one
condition - that we do not abandon Him. The mystery of our
suffering and
God’s part in it lies here. God asks us to live our life with
hope and
trust in Him. Let’s try to understand this through the example of
a cup.
In his meditation book, Can
you drink the cup? Henri Nouwen
offers us a cup to represent our life - the real life that we live in
the here
and now. This is an image Jesus frequently uses himself, where
the cup
may be one of sorrow or joy or the cup of salvation - a blessing
cup.
What we need to get into our minds and our hearts, is that no matter
what our
cup contains, we must drink it to the full - meaning that we must live
our life
to the full - we have no other life. I know many times this is
very
difficult and we can look at our life in a very negative way. We
may be dealt
financial problems, physical or mental health problems, or relationship
problems. We might not like the way we look, the way we are
built, or the
color of our skin. We may want to be smarter, more popular,
stronger,
etc.
There have been many of these
situations in my life. I recall that when
I was in college, I was a
scrawny kid. All the same, since I had to earn money to pay for
my room
and board at school, I took a job in construction, which paid a lot
more than
any other job I could get. For the most part, I got along with
the guys
on the job. Nevertheless, one hot day, I was working in a ditch
with a
pick and shovel, filling a wheelbarrow as I worked. It was so hot
that I,
like most of the guys there, took off my shirt while working. In
comparison
to them, I was puny and I knew that. As I struggled to lift the
full
wheelbarrow to go dump it, I heard the laughter. My scrawny body
was a
joke to those guys and my struggling with the wheelbarrow was hilarious
to them
- “Hey slim, do you need a man to do that for you?”
I was humiliated even as I got the job done.
Such events in our lives do say
to us that we don’t measure up, that we are
lacking and thus our life is wretched. Thus, we are tempted to
avoid
living it - we try to find an escape, indulge in fantasy, living
someone else's
life - that of a sports hero, a rock or movie star, or some other
celebrity.
However, Nouwen tells us to
take the cup that God has given us and hold it in
our hands. Ask yourself - can I drink this one - can I do it even
if it
involves suffering, pain and disillusionment? We are asked to
remember
that it is God who has given us this cup.
What are we going to do with it? We have Jesus’
example. He
too reached a point where he wanted the cup to pass from him - but he
took it
and held it - he rejected that temptation to let it go. In
addition, in
taking it, it caused him great pain, as he knew it would; but then,
with God,
it brought great joy, both to him and to those who chose to be with him.
The object lesson of this is
clear. We are correct when we say that
suffering and pain are not meritorious - they do us no good in
themselves. It is only when we are in God - that is, when we have
unconditionally put our hope and trust in God, will our sorrows lead to
the joy
that God intends for us. The mystery of suffering in God, is
knowing that
God does not want us to suffer. Yet
paradoxically, suffering is the only and necessary way to glory for us
as human
beings.
Not only are we to take our own
cup and hold it, we are to lift it up for all
to see. We lift it up, in times of celebration, as a toast saying
L’Chaim
- To Life - to the joys of life. We lift the cup up in
community, so
that if it has become a cup of sorrows, it then can become a source of
healing
rather than something intolerable, which happens when we try to keep
our
sorrows to ourselves, alone. It is only in community that our cup
of
suffering becomes the cup of blessing, leading us to a deeper
joy. That
is the lesson we learn from Jesus - to lift our cup to share with
others - to
share our joys and our sorrows - and in that way this cup becomes a cup
of
salvation leading us all to glory.
Yes, sorrow and joy are in our
cup. If
we live our life in God, if we drink this cup to the full in God, we
will come
into God’s glory accompanied by Jesus. Let us ask God to help us
live our
life to the full as the cup of Jesus is lifted up for us in this
Eucharist. For through Him, with Him, in Him, in the unity of the
Holy
Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, forever and ever.