[Pearls Ep 165: Bringing Sunday into the week.]
In Friday’s reflection on Palm Sunday (click here to watch or listen), we noted that Christ is bound and determined to come to us just as He was bound and determined to enter Jerusalem even though His enemies were there, scheming and waiting to pounce.
Literally nothing can stop Him. As St. Paul says, “for what can separate us from the love of God?”
With one exception.
There is one – only one – force on earth capable of resisting God the Almighty.
It’s a terrible force. Almost irresistible.
You’ve encountered it.
Often.
In fact, you can encounter it today, even at this very moment. Just tell yourself you won’t check your phone for the next hour.
Then sit back and watch in awe as all the powers of darkness muster themselves within your very being to drive you to pull out your soul-sucking-device.
We actually just tested this on Karen (I’m no fool – I let her be the Guinea pig!) It was about 45 seconds before she absentmindedly went to check her phone.
Our fallen nature – with its weakened will – is the one thing that can thwart Christ, because He won’t violate our free will.
And our fallen nature wants nothing to do with the cross. It’s not for nothing that only Mary and John, the beloved disciple, remained with Jesus.
That’s the challenge we face. Because the path to liberation passes through the cross. Psychotherapists know this in the ordinary realm. If someone is suffering from a phobia, what’s the solution? To face the fear.
Facing a fear, or overcoming a vice is hard – we naturally become accustomed to the chains that bind us. Change is difficult, and we fear the attempt may just make things worse. Facing up to a wounded relationship might kill it off all together. The solution to financial problems might require painful decisions. And so on.
And make no mistake, the enemy knows all of this and wants you trapped. Whatever the wound or trial or attachment is, there are demons coiled around it. They’ll come up with every good reason why you shouldn’t deal with it, or numb yourself to it, or distract yourself (Youtube anyone?), to avoid it.
So we must overcome our natural aversion to the cross. Christ tells us as much – “whoever would be my disciple, must deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me.”
Christ mounted the cross so that through Him we could obtain the grace and the strength to embrace our own. That’s not psychobabble. That’s simply how it works. Take it from someone who knew – St. Paul, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor 1:18)
When we pray with Christ at the foot of the cross, and join ours to His, there is tremendous power. All we have to do is make the smallest act of will to call on Jesus and trust in His sovereignty, and we make the way for Him to enter.
So, when we are facing something that seems insurmountable – anything from even a little habit we can’t seem to break, to forgiving someone who betrayed us, to dealing with the suffering of a loved one – the path to victory is by way of the cross.
Ours and His.
Holy Week blessings –
Steve and Karen Smith
Postscript: Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem Mt 21:1-11
When Jesus and the disciples drew near Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives,
Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find an ass tethered, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them here to me. And if anyone should say anything to you, reply, ‘The master has need of them.’ Then he will send them at once.”
This happened so that what had been spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled:
Say to daughter Zion, “Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had ordered them. They brought the ass and the colt and laid their cloaks over them, and he sat upon them. The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and strewed them on the road. The crowds preceding him and those following kept crying out and saying:
“Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest.”
And when he entered Jerusalem the whole city was shaken and asked, “Who is this?” And the crowds replied, “This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.”