If you want to know Jesus, you need to know that He loves you. He loves you so much that He was willing to die for you.
Read chapter 23 of the gospel according to Saint Luke here.
Since the fall of Adam and Eve, humanity was plagued by sin. Sin begets sin. People who are hurt go on to hurt other people, creating a cycle of violence that no mere human being could stop.
Only God could defeat sin. And God had to defeat sin on earth, on sin’s home turf. God had to send His fully divine Son Jesus to earth and have Him become fully human in the Incarnation. The Word of God become a tiny baby in Mary’s womb. Fully human, he would experience all the trials and temptations human beings are subject to. He had to take them on in order to defeat them. Fully divine, He would never succumb to sin, never meet violence with violence, always turning the other cheek, never backing down, always loving the men and women He created even as they reviled Him.
We see the love of Jesus displayed throughout His life but nowhere do we see it more powerfully than in His Passion.
When the Pharisees lied about Him, He was silent.
When Herod demanded a show, He did not oblige.
When He was mocked by the guards, He did not fight back.
When He was scourged by the guards, He accepted their unjust punishment.
When He was forced to carry the cross, He accepted help from Simon the Cyrenian, and without a trace of self-pity, He comforted the women who mourned Him.
When He was nailed to the cross, He meekly laid down, and allowed the soldiers to pound the nails into His hands and feet.
As He slowly and painfully died on the cross, gradually succumbing to asphyxiation, His arms cruelly outstretched, His Precious Blood pouring out from His body, He begged His Father to forgive those who killed Him, along with the criminal dying beside Him who turned to Him and begged for mercy.
With His final breath, as He had always done, He entrusted Himself fully to His Heavenly Father.
We are all Barabbas. We deserve to be separated from God forever because of our sins. But Jesus took our place. We can take up the cross like Simon the Cyrenian and join Jesus in His work of salvation. We can follow Him like the women and accompany those who are suffering. We can turn to Him and ask for mercy like the good thief and be with Him in paradise. Or we can turn away from Jesus, who loves us so much that He was willing to die for us, to defeat the terrible enemies – sin and death – that we could not defeat ourselves.
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)
Image: Christ Carrying the Cross by el Greco (downloaded from Wikipedia Commons).
Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day for the salvation of souls.
