The Road to Jerusalem, The Road to the Cross

Holy Week starts out in a big whirlwind of festival: Jesus making his way into Jerusalem to the adoration of the crowds. His whole ministry led up to this grand entrance, the entrance of a King. But it was only the beginning.

Jesus shares a meal with his closest friends, and he is betrayed. He spends the night in a garden where those keeping watch cannot stay awake. He is taken into custody and denied three times. He is condemned, tortured, and crucified.

Could anyone in the jubilant crowds at his entrance into the city have foreseen that this would happen? Were the people in that first crowd the same people calling for his crucifixion? None of it seems to make any sense: why would Jesus, knowing this would happen, allow it to be so? Why the triumphant entrance, knowing what was to come?

Our faith is profoundly difficult to comprehend. Today, Good Friday, we come to terms with the death of our God, and there is no real way to make sense of it. We have theologies about why Jesus died and what his death accomplished. But in our hearts we will never be able to fully comprehend it. The love of God in this act of sacrifice is too great for the human heart to grasp.

Tuesday, Week of 4 Lent

“The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working still, and I am working’” (John 5:15-17).

In this story, Jesus heals a man who had waited by a pool for a long time: Jesus tells him to take up his pallet and walk, and the man does. The authorities first complain to the man that he has done it, because he has violated the Sabbath laws. The man then points out that he was told to do it and was healed, and the men’s anger turns to Jesus.

By even the strictest accounts, Jesus has done nothing to violate the law because he didn’t even lift a finger to touch the man, instead curing him with his words of command. It never ceases to amaze most of us that Jesus would get in trouble for healing on the Sabbath at all. Isn’t healing always a good thing?

The Sabbath is an important day, because it allows us to remember that God rested on the seventh day, and gives us a chance to fulfill the obligation of worship. But the Sabbath is first and foremost a gift – “the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath (Mk 2:27). If that gift descends into ritualism devoid of compassion and life, then the gift ceases to be so, and becomes a kind of prison. God never intended any law to take precedence over love, and any worship of God without that love is empty. As God always loves, so too are we called to put love fist. Love does not take a break. Love does not take a backseat to ritual observance.

We are called on the Sabbath, and on every day, to worship God by living with love. We are called to try and make people’s lives better each and every day. By learning to put a living love ‘before’ worship, we infuse each moment with a new kind of worship that is embodied in how we treat each other. Each day is the Sabbath day if we live it as a gift from God and an opportunity to do God’s work.  

Feast of Saint Joseph of Nazareth

“And he said to them, ‘How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’” (Luke 2:49)

The story of Jesus being lost in the temple, and his response when his parents find him, is both difficult and easy to wrap our heads around. On the one hand, God is his Father, so this is a completely legitimate response that illustrates Jesus’ relationship with the Father and the events which are to come.

On the other hand, when Joseph heard it, it must have felt like he was being stabbed in the heart. Here is his son, the boy whom he has loved and parented, glibly throwing off a line about his ‘real’ father. It’s every adoptive parent’s nightmare: that the child might one day (probably, though not necessarily, in anger) dismiss their words and concerns using their ‘birth’ parent as leverage.

Joseph’s road must have been a hard one. First, his betrothed shows up pregnant, and he has to put her away. When it turns out she hasn’t been unfaithful, he agrees to take her as his wife anyway. He starts down a long – and lonely – road where his firstborn son isn’t his flesh and blood. And he knows it. And Jesus knows it. Still, he raises his son with love. And Jesus innocently stabs him in the heart.

Joseph must have had moments, and even long periods of time, when he forgot Jesus wasn’t his. He must have had many painful moments when he remembered. With another Father in Jesus’ life, one with an absolute claim to the child’s love and loyalty, Joseph could never have the opportunity to be Jesus’ only father.

It must have been hard. It must have been lonely. But through it all he raised Jesus as his own; he was called by God, raised up, to love this child. Joseph is an example of humility, courage, and sacrifice, and there is much we can learn from him.

“Oh God, from the family of your servant David you raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son. Give us grace to follow him in faithful obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever” (BAS).

Fourth Sunday in Lent

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16-17).


If you had to sum up the entire Gospel in two sentences, this would be it. The Gospel tells us that God loves the world - in fact, He loves it so much that "while were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). God does not judge our worthiness of Christ's sacrifice by our purity, or adherence to the law, or perfect actions. No one among us is without sin. In Christ, God judges us by the standard of his love for us. In giving his only Son, God opens the door to salvation by loving us first.

The Gospel tells us that we are saved not through deeds of righteousness but by faith (Rom 5:1); through belief, we shall have eternal life. This does not mean that our actions are without consequence: John goes on to tell us that the light has come into the world (Jn 3:19), and that "he who does what is true comes to the light" (3:21). Our actions are an aspect of faith, the part that embraces goodness as the guide of our decisions. While no one is perfect, living in faith means going toward and living within the light. If we are willing to stand before God openly, acknowledging our faults while striving always to hit the mark, we embrace the lives of faith that lead to eternal life.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus comes to save us, and not to condemn us. God desires that we have eternal life through him. Like the lost sheep, he seeks us out wherever we are and wants to bring us home safely. Like the father of the prodigal son, he looks forward to our coming with openness and forgiveness. God does not send Jesus because He desires to punish us. God sends Jesus because He want us, through the Son, to have true and eternal life.

Friday, Week of 3 Lent

“You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is one, and there is no other but he; and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:32-33).

This year, Montreal has been a city of protests. We have seen Occupy Montreal pitch their tents, we’ve seen various labour disputes, student protests, protests against police brutality, and pro-democracy/anti-corruption marches. Some of them have turned ugly, but for the most part they’ve gone well.

What they all have in common is that they are motivated by a call for some kind of justice.

Social justice is an important part of the Christian gospel. Liberation theologians refer to it as God’s ‘preferential option for the poor:’ God, and Jesus, always comes down on the side of the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the disenfranchised. God never sides with the powerful over the weak. As Christians, we are called to work toward social justice, not just for ourselves, but for others.

If we understand the two great commandments as Jesus has put them forward, we understand that all our work for justice is empowered and enlivened by our love of God and our love of neighbour – true Christian justice is empty and impossible without it. By loving God with all our heart, we receive from Him the love and courage required to take the sometimes difficult actions that justice demands of us. Justice that is more than just an equation, but a living compassion and solidarity, requires the strength of the whole human spirit bolstered by faith in God’s justice.

Loving God with all the understanding demands of us that we ask ourselves what God desires of us when we pursue justice: “Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). We are called to be reflective about the reasons why we seek justice, which gives us greater strength of conviction. We do not stand alone, but with God at our sides.

Loving our neighbour as ourselves demands of us that we work on behalf of causes that do not directly benefit us. It may be that sometimes we are called to work against our own interests for the greater good. No one ever said the Gospel would be easy.

These things – these loves – are more powerful than any activism for its own sake could ever be. Let us pray for and engage in justice for love of all God’s people.

“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being of full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:1-4).

Thursday, Week of 3 Lent

“But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20).

We spend a lot of time in Lent thinking about Jesus’ Passion, obviously, and also about the things he said – his instructions, the clues he gave about who he is and what was coming, the Sermon on the Mount and various other directives to his followers, parables illustrating how to live our lives. What has been less talked about so far are the acts Jesus did during his ministry.

While we tend to think of Jesus primarily as a teacher, and see him through the lens of Incarnation-Crucifixion-Resurrection-Ascension, it’s important to remember that the people who lived during his lifetime knew him very differently. While some undoubtedly thought of him as an important teacher, I have a hunch that he was primarily known as a powerful miracle worker.

The most well-known and important of his miracles are not his healings – though those are ubiquitous. They are his exorcisms.

Though exorcism and demonology have fallen out of favour in modern times, they are immensely important in Jesus’ ministry. Many times in the gospels, possessing demons are the first (and sometimes lone) voices speaking up about Jesus’ identity as Messiah. The demons recognize and proclaim him for who he is. We are presented with a picture of the world in which two ‘principalities’ are at war: heaven and hell, God and the devil, are battling it out for control. Jesus has immense power over the demonic and casts out demons using varied techniques which were familiar in the ancient world. (If anyone actually wants to read my insane paper on ritual exorcism in the gospel of Mark, give me a shout.)

Jesus pushes back the demonic and limits its power, and is thus recognized as an agent of God – his exorcisms are an important part of his ministry both because they establish his identity and because they reveal his nature. So it isn’t surprising that his sceptics would take aim at them. In this passage, Jesus is responding to claims that he casts out demons not by the power of God, but by the power of the devil (Lk 11:14-23). He answers these charges by saying that a house divided cannot stand: metaphysically, it is impossible for the forces of evil to be arrayed against themselves because only one set of battle lines can be drawn (11:17-19). Since only God’s power can be against the devil’s, Jesus obviously gets his power from God.

Here, we see the heart of Jesus’ ministry: the kingdom of God has come among us because Jesus manifests the power of God. There is no ministry of words or healings or exorcisms without this power. There is no birth or death or resurrection. Everything springs from the power and is enfolded in it. When we try to recognize Jesus, we know him by his acts of power, and we see the kingdom.

In our lives as Christians today we cannot forget that acts are important. We must have the courage and conviction to do acts of power through the power of God as Jesus has taught us. I’m not saying that we’re all called to cast out demons or heal the blind – though undoubtedly some of us are. But we are called to believe the manifest presence of the kingdom. We are called to live our lives in the power of God.  

Wednesday, Week of 3 Lent

“Think not that I have come to abolish the Law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).

I once read a Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet that explained Jesus’ words this way: if a person has a contract the build a house, he builds the house until it is finished. Then, when the house is finished, the contract is over and the man no longer has to build the house. The contract has been ended, but not abolished; it has been ended because it is fulfilled, accomplished. The pamphlet went on to say that this is a perfect metaphor for what happened with Jesus and the Law: Jesus perfectly fulfilled the Law and the prophets, so now the Law no longer applies. No more law for us. Except for the 10 commandments – that part of the Law gets to stay. That’s different because, well, it’s at the beginning, plus Jesus talks about stuff like that.

Well, that’s one way of looking at it.

The other is that Jesus really means what he says: we must keep the Law. And not only that: we must go beyond it. In the rest of the passage, Jesus says that not only must you not murder, but you must not be angry (Mt 5:21-22), you must not insult (5:23), you must forgive your brother before giving your offering (5:23-24), you must befriend your accuser (5:25-26). Jesus does not contradict the Law: he goes beyond it. He means for us to keep the Law, and then some.

Jesus later elaborates on what we are meant to do in following and exceeding the Law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. That is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (Mt 22:37-40).

Since the whole of the Law and prophets grow from and hinge on these two things, keeping – and exceeding – the Law is a matter of following these commandments with our whole being. It may seem simple compared to the manifest rules of the Mosaic law, but the truth is the demands placed on us in these commands is far greater than any rigid adherence to a set of rules could ever be. Truly loving is always harder than following a law.

We’re still left with the question of how to deal with the biblical laws modern Christianity has rejected (and which even post-temple Judaism has to deal without). If Jesus tells us to keep the whole letter of the Law, how do we justify having done away with it? Do we resort to the answer that it is no longer valid because, in Jesus, the house has been built?

The laws which Christianity has rejected have to do with purity – a kind of purity essential to worship in a temple with different levels of purity requirements depending on how close you are to the inner sanctum. The laws which we have rejected, then, all have to do with a certain style of worshiping God, of loving God with our whole hearts, and minds, and souls.

But there are more ways than one to worship God, more than one way to love Him. The way established in the minutiae of Jewish law and related to the temple are one way, and a valid way. They have not been abolished. But Jesus has rebuilt the temple in his body, opening up many new ways to love and worship God that do not depend upon the purity linked with temple worship and sacrifice. Jesus is the pure sacrifice. Worship and love of God are free to evolve so long as they are centered on the total-loving that Jesus lays out in the two commandments.

We would do well to remember, in this age of fractured churches and renewed ecumenism, that God has given us many ways to worship and love Him, many ways to fulfill the Law.