By Father Jeremy Miller, O.P.

(Editor’s note: Father Miller was suddenly called home to Philadelphia b a critical family illness which impeded the writing of a sixth meditation on the Cross and the Covenant. He offers in its place the following meditation and asks of our readers a prayer for his family. The author resides in the Dominican community at Holy Cross. He teaches theology at Emory University and assists in various archdiocesan projects. He was born in Philadelphia and educated there.)

An unexpected and unwanted event of “cross” prevents me from finishing this Lenten series as it was originally projected. There will be this week no meditation rooted in this Sunday’s readings, but I share with you something I did previously, slightly adapted. Perhaps the God who has been directing all of us through this Lent meant it to be this way.

That line from Scripture, “Did you not know that the Christ HAD to suffer these things,” must boggle our minds. How could it be that a God who loves us, who controls destinies, who wishes us whole and unbound, suffered and died like He did? If we experience suffering in our lives, not the kind we know will pass quickly and whose purposes we perhaps glimpse, but that more terrifying kind which baffles us and drives us to ask, “Why, why?” then we catch a glimpse of the enigma of the Lenten Jesus.

Why did he meet opposition? Why did so many disciples leave Him at the end? Why did he feel abandoned? Why was His message rejected by nearly all? Why was He tortured? Why did He feel isolation in His last hours, in the garden, on the Cross?

Maybe these meditations, maybe the Lenten readings, have been reminding us of this dark and uncomfortable feature of His life. More simply than just knowing of it, or being reminded of it, some of us can feel it, because such types of pain and uncertainty are the dark and uncomfortable features of our own lives.

There is a German play which captures part of the mystery of the Lenten Jesus. Just after World War II, Guenter Rutenborn, a Lutheran pastor, wrote a play called “The Sign of Jonah.” The scene is a courtroom, and the atrocities of the war are on everyone’s mind. Each witness called to the stand blames God. God is guilty because He made this humanity. He foresaw all the gross acts of humanity and yet He still created us, and even more, permitted the Holocaust.

The Judge, in a moment not unlike Pilate’s, resigns his chair and tells the courtroom, that they can, if they want, assign the punishment to God. The people begin crying out in anger: “Let Him become a man; let Him become a Jew; let Him see how it really is; let Him feel the leprous wounds; let Him smell our human stench; finally, let Him be falsely accused; let Him be without help, without supporting friends; and let Him die like that, forsaken by all. THEN HE WILL KNOW.”

There are archangels in the courtroom, playing defense lawyers for God. Until this moment, they have been silent. Their silence has been numbing, representing the silent God in the face of the blasphemy and anger thrown at Him. Then one speaks up, named Gabriel. He accepts the people’s verdict.

“I will go,” he says, “and announce to a Jewish maiden that she is to bear a son. He will grow up in poverty, move among you and see your sick, hear your angry voices, be rejected in every possible way, and end up being falsely accused. He will die in extreme agony, without friends, without support. And this man will be God. He will feel it all. He will know what you want Him to know.”

This line of meditation could be carried further, but it is this solidarity with Jesus we need to ponder, and then ponder its deeper issue. Let me complete the line of Scripture given above. “Did you know that Christ had to suffer these things to enter into his glory?” It is for YOU to ponder in this last week of Lent, but I share with you a story of someone who also pondered and in his Lenten sorrow saw beyond. The man is 71 years old, a retired plumber, and for me a lifeline to a former covenant. He wrote me of his recently deceased wife.

“Marie is with those of the long sleep, where her ancient mothers dwell, she and her two sons. December 12 of this year. I have long asked the Lord that she pass before I, lest she know the loneliness of the old. He answered. His price is sorrow.”

“If by chance by visa is heaven-marked and she is not there, I will not enter. Or finding she is lower than I am, I’ll plead the Celestial Power I descend, that we be equal. Failing, I will steal her to the shadows where caste is not known. There I will remind her of her beauty and tell I her love her, as of old.”

“Be tranquil in the grace of the Lord,” he told me at letter’s end. And at this meditation series’ end, I say his words to all of you.