(This is the author's reflection on the 7th Last Word in the St. James' Parish church in the Holy Week of 2001).
I received one of those calls in the middle of the night. At two thirty in the morning, my mother’s voice was calm when she said: "Our house is on fire and it is almost totally burned down." The tone of her voice at least told me that my dad and my brother were safe; it also meant that it was too late to do anything.
We arrived there half an hour later amidst the sirens of the fire trucks and the whirring sound of their water pumps. There were still the yellow flames gutting down our parents’ home of 30 years. If you have ever been in a fire, then you know that what you do is to just watch helplessly until the last burning coal is doused by water, and then the firemen and neighbors all go away.
Daylight arrived, and we went inside what used to be our home, but all you could see was black.
As in most major tragic episodes in one’s life, it took a few hours before things sank in. I remember thinking: I am sure the Lord must have made a mistake, or some guardian angel was sleeping on the job. My parents were 73 years old, and God could not possibly be asking them to start all over again and build a new home. My parents are good people, very active in Church work, and prayerful. My wife and I also had our fair share of serving our parish. We both left our corporate jobs a year ago to take full time study and attend to our Church apostolate, so I stood quite justified when I felt both indignant and puzzled.
Naisip ko: Ang lupit naman ng Panginoon.
In Luke's gospel, Jesus’ very last words were: “Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.”
Specifically, Luke tells us that Jesus
“called out with a loud voice” when He said those words. So it must have sounded like this:
FATHER, INTO YOUR HANDS, I COMMIT MY SPIRIT!
This is unusual because a crucified man dies of slow exhaustion before lapsing into unconsciousness. Thus, these were not words of resignation, like the calm at the end of a storm. Instead, these were words of affirmation, a decision to keep the faith in the Father, despite all suffering and pain, declaring for everyone to hear: “I know I am not alone. Father, You are with me and I decide now to stay committed to you.”
Such a decision may seem natural for Jesus who had that close relationship with the Father. But can we ever imagine the test that this relationship went through before this conclusion?
Crucifixion is the worst way to die. You are hanged naked, you die slowly and it is not uncommon for some victims to last for a few days just hanging there. That is why they are scourged and beaten, out of sympathy, to weaken their resistance and spare them from a long suffering before death. There on the cross, when his most trusted friends were nowhere to be found, Jesus must have faced the most testing of temptations: to doubt the fidelity and love of the Father, to give up and decide that He’s had enough, and that this was just too much.
My personal pains and sufferings, though nowhere near that magnitude, evoked a similar feeling. Sometimes, the Lord just asks too much. We see many people suffer without justifiable reasons, and we encounter victims of tragic events?
We ask “Why does God allow this to happen?” Jurgen Moltmann says that that question is the question of an observer, not a sufferer. Instead, the sufferer hurls the question: “Where is God?” Nasaan Siya? At kung nandiyan Siya, bakit nanunuod lamang Siya?
I found an answer to that question when I came across this passage from the novel titled
“Night”, by Eli Wiesel, a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp.
Here is that passage, based on the author’s first hand experience:
“The SS hanged two Jewish men and a youth in front of the whole camp. The two men died quickly, but the death throes of the youth [since he was not heavy enough] lasted for one half hour. “Where is God? Where is he?” someone asked behind me. As the youth still hung in torment in the noose after a long time, I heard the man call again, “Where is God now?” And I heard a voice within myself answer, “Where is he? He is here, he is hanging there on the gallows…”
There lies the powerful lesson of the cross. I believe Jesus died on a cross to tell us in no uncertain way that He knows exactly what human pain is. He’s been there, done that. He is not an observer, but feels for us when we are in pain and are suffering. He does not stand apathetic nor watch from a distance, but the cross shows that He is involved with us, is near us, and empathizes with us. He wants to let us know that wherever and whenever we suffer, there is the privileged place where He could be found.
And His very last words tell us that it is precisely through our most difficult and tragic moments, when the Father seems absent, that we should cling to His promise that we are never alone, that He is with us… silent, but keeping vigil.
And just when you are ready to say you’ve had enough, Jesus tells us to do what He did: to stay committed to the Father.
We commonly look at the Cross as the dark side of Jesus life and the Resurrection as the glorious side. I don’t think so. The cross is the worst of human stuff, but Jesus our God is part of it. It tells me that our God is not a distant God but one who works and moves with me as I go through the trials, pains, and sufferings in my life. It tells me that when I cry, Jesus cries too.
And when we are in pain, somehow Jesus feels that too: from the pain that comes from a hurtful word that wounds our ego or breaks our heart, or the pain of failure when something was almost a success, to the pain of being told that the person you loved most has cancer, or is into drugs, or wants a separation, all the way to the pain of senseless suffering when a child at the prime of her life dies in a car accident, or the pain of poverty of the family who has no hope in the world of ever being able to make ends meet, or sim-ply the pain of an old man or woman, alone, in an old age home.
What is your cross? A problem child or an absentee parent, a very broken home, a sickness, a physical handicap, a deep financial crisis, an addiction, or the pain of a lonely and broken heart. If you are feeling that God is absent and has abandoned you in your walk with him, I invite you to remember his feet nailed on the cross. And when you are feeling cold and desperate and lonely, I invite you to remember his arms hanging on the cross. Know that Jesus knows exactly how you feel. Take on the attitude of Jesus on the cross: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And if we do, then we will also resurrect through our pain and suffering.
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