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April 17, 2019Who killed Jesus?
Today's Gospel sets the stage for the greatest drama in human history, the Passion of Jesus Christ. As a child, it was very easy for me to see Judas Iscariot as the man responsible for the death of Jesus. Yet, in recent years, I see how such an oversimplification makes the Passion of Christ too sterile and void of a deeper truth, namely, my role in the suffering and death of Christ on the cross.
On the cross, Jesus suffered not only the physical pain of crucifixion brought upon him by the historical characters of the Passion, but also bore our sins with all the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain that came with being the Savior. A spiritual director told me recently, "The only way I have a savior is to realize how much I need one." We need Jesus to die on the cross. We yell, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" not out of anger but out of a need to be saved. Our brother St. Thomas Aquinas writes how Christ's passion was not only sufficient in saving us but a "superabundant atonement for the sins of the human race" (ST III 48.3).
So, as we enter this holiest day, the Triduum, I invite us all to move beyond the question "Who killed Jesus?" and focus on how the reality of this cross, this person, who saved our lives!
