Reflection - Finally Dead

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/032416-chrism-mass.cfm

IS 50:4-9A

MT 26:14-25

There are a few chapters in the book of Isaiah that have come to be known as the suffering servant section. It concerns a prophetic figure who suffers for the people; and that figure, from early New Testament times has been thought to be embodied in Jesus. Early in the section we are given these verses:

     The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught,

          that I may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary.

     Morning by morning he wakens,

          he wakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.

     The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious,

          I turned not backward.

Scholars understand the words to refer to Jesus, the incarnate Son of God; and when the text speaks of Father giving his servant the "tongue of those who are taught" and an "ear to hear as those who are taught." the author is unknowingly referring to Christ's Incarnation. He, the eternal Son, living as the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus, the Christ, is given the words of life for benefit of those who are weary. He has his ears opened so that he can hear both the people and his Father --- something Jesus continually calls upon the people to do. The passage continues by fast-forwarding to the years of Jesus' public life including the days of his passion.

     I gave my back to those who struck me,

          and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;

          I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

     For the Lord GOD helps me;

          therefore I have not been confounded;

          therefore I have set my face like a flint,

          and I know that I shall not be put to shame; (Isaiah 50:4-7)

These verses echo the words of Psalm 22, which itself is a poignant anticipation of the words Jesus quotes verbatim as he is dying on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"  

The Psalm continues: "But I am scorned by men, despised by the people.

All who see me mock me; they curl their lips and jeer; they shake their heads at me" "they divide my garments among them; for my clothing they cast lots." And, like the verse from Isaiah, the Psalm ends on a positive note: "those who seek the LORD will offer praise" says the Psalm. And then we arrive at the verses where he endures affliction, and he does not return the abuse he has been given for he knows "the Lord GOD helps me."

Further on in these Isaian chapters about the Suffering Servant we are given more extensive information on the suffering this servant endures.

     He was despised and rejected by men;

          a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

          and as one from whom men hide their face;

          he was despised,and we esteemed him not.

     Surely he has borne our griefs

          and carried our sorrows;

          yet we esteemed him stricken,

          struck down by God, and afflicted. 

      But he was wounded for our transgressions,

          he was bruised for our iniquities;

          upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,

          and with his stripes we are healed. 

     All we like sheep have gone astray;

          we have turned every one to his own way;

          and the LORD has laid on him

          the iniquity of us all.

     He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

          yet he opened not his mouth;

          like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

          and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

          so he opened not his mouth.  (Isaiah 53:2-7)

To me this has always seemed to be a sad, mournful passage. I have frequently wondered exactly how it should be understood. Recently I was at a presentation in which the instructor unknowingly offered a vantage point of clarity. He was not addressing this or any other Scripture teaching, yet his words awoke in me an insight into Isaiah that I had not previously considered. I would like to share that with you. But first, I must set the stage for you to follow where we are going.

The presentation focused on dealing with the wounds we receive in life, including those for which no one is responsible and no one can be rationally blamed. No matter the cause, wounds hurt, wounds prompt anger, wounds can arouse feelings of guilt or shame. Consider for a moment the multiplicity of sources from which wounds may spring.

Even before you were born you may well have been wounded. And, just like wounds that come after your birth, these early wounds may have been physical or psychological, minor or traumatic, inconsequential or life-changing. Moreover, these same kinds of wounding events continue throughout our lives. A parent is harsh and cruel. A sibling is obviously favored. There's a tragedy in the family for which you, illogically, feel responsible and guilty. You are humiliated by a teacher offering justifiable criticism. You're confused by a parent's indifference. You're excluded from the 'in-group' clique. Circumstances lead you to believe you are bad or unworthy or inadequate.

You don't even have to rely on others to wound you; you can wound yourself, repeating in your mind the mistakes of the past. I shouldn't have said such a hateful thing. I shouldn't have acted like an idiot. I shouldn't have taken what I didn't pay for. I shouldn't have been so lazy, so careless, so cruel, so bad, so selfish, so . . . whatever, and so on. 

Even the physical world we live in can wound us. A tornado, a flood, a hurricane, a fire destroy's the family home. A parent, a sibling, a spouse, a friend is suddenly gone because a rock fell, a man was driving drunk, a flash flood went through a campground, a snow-covered roadway turned to ice. The list is endless. 

Now the point here is not to encourage depression or to arouse a sense of fatalism. Nor is it my purpose to teach a half-baked course in psychology. Rather, the intent is to call to mind what we already know so as to make clear  the insight I would like to share and the connection I see between our wounds and Isaiah's Suffering Servant.

Step two on that path we're following is an attentiveness to the fact that there is always a response to being wounded. Just as we quickly learn to avoid touching things that are hot, every wound prompts a response and every serious wound teaches us something about life, though that instruction may not always be accurate or truthful. Nevertheless, it is there. 

The next step on our journey is to examine our response. Some wounds are superficial and we lightly brush them aside. Some linger for a time and are then obscured by the other events of life. Some, because they are inflicted frequently or thrust deeply or both, become embedded in our very identity or alter our world view. So, was our response a fleeting response or is it still with us affecting the kind of person we are?

We may think that our woundedness effects only ourselves. But that is far from the truth. Most of the time, when those wounds we have hidden in the corners of our lives are awakened from their darkness, they subtly, even if briefly, wound us again. We are overcome, angry once more and flailing. And because we do not live in isolation, we may, in our pain, inflict wounds on others.

How do we escape these persistent wounds? The cycle goes like this:

•      We have wounds from which we cannot escape.
  
•      Because we are wounded, we inflict wounds on others.
  
•      And, because we have inflicted wounds on others, they are now wounded.
  
•      And because they are wounded, they too now inflict wounds on others.
  
•      Will it, can it ever stop? 

In a moment I want to turn back to the passage on the Suffering Servant. But first I want to remind you of another Isaian verse:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; (Isaiah 9:2) Isaiah is clear: we do not have to live in darkness. We have Isaiah's prophetic word made even more secure by the teaching of Paul: "for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light," he says. These are words of promise. Something can be done. Something has been done. We think the wounds will not go away; we wish they would at least persist silently in eternal darkness. Shining light on those hidden, secreted, still painful wounds from the past is the first step in dealing with and healing them. Bring them into the light. Don't hide them in the recesses of the mind. 

But then . . . What do we do? Simply live with the pain and suffering. Pour salt in the wounds by exposing them instead of isolating them behind bandages of feigned indifference?

Surely he has borne our griefs

     and carried our sorrows;

     yet we esteemed him stricken,

     struck down by God, and afflicted. 

 But he was wounded for our transgressions,

     he was bruised for our iniquities;

     upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,

     and with his stripes [wounds] we are healed. 

All we like sheep have gone astray;

     we have turned every one to his own way;

     and the LORD has laid on him

     the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

     yet he opened not his mouth;

     like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

     and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

     so he opened not his mouth.  (Isaiah 53:1-7)

The one whom Isaiah foretold was one who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He would be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes [i.e., his wounds] we are healed. When we read these words against the background of Holy Week it is natural to assume that the words should be understood as referring to all the sufferings of Jesus' passion. I will not dispute the validity of that interpretation. I would suggest, however, that in the passage lies another truth that is specifically about our wounds and how those wounds relate to Jesus and the cross.

From the historical perspective Jesus suffered precisely because of the wounds of others. In brief, the vision of the Jewish leadership had become distorted by what had been passed on to them, hence, the source of their own woundedness. Understood in that context Jesus most certainly bore the griefs and sorrows of others; they wounded him because they were wounded. He suffered because of the iniquities hidden in the dark recesses of those who condemned him. 

The closing verse tells us even more:

     He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

          yet he opened not his mouth;

          like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

          and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

          so he opened not his mouth.

Jesus did what we cannot of ourselves do; he endured the wounds and he bore the suffering in silence. That is to say, though he was wounded he did not inflict his wounds on others. That's true in the historical sense. But it's also true in the cosmic, eternal sense. What I'm trying to say is that there is an inherent truth here which is even more remarkable than Jesus' silence in the face of his oppression and affliction. In the cosmic, eternal sense, Jesus bears all our griefs and carries all our sorrows. All those wounds we have stuck in some dark hiding place, all those griefs and sorrows we have endured because of humanity's woundedness, all those oppressions and afflictions he wills to takes from us. 

We ask our Lord to remove these wounds from our minds and hearts. He will, for he knows we cannot love our Father with all our mind and all our heart and all our soul and all our strength when we bear wounds like these. 

We ask our Lord to reveal those wounds we have hidden; the ones behind the padlocked doors of our minds and hearts; the wounds we no longer even know and the wounds we dare not even remember. He knows that these are wounds that  obstruct our union with him. 

As the eternal Son of the Father, from his cosmic, eternal throne at the Father's right hand, Jesus picks them up and takes our burdens to himself. He carries them to the cross. There they can finally and eternally die. They will no longer fester within us. We can be made whole; we can be healed. We have only to ask.

St Augustine's recounts for us the full and true meaning of the cross.

     "Brethren, let us then fearlessly acknowledge, and even openly proclaim, that

     Christ was.crucified for us; let us confess it, not in fear but in joy, not in shame but

     in glory." - St Augustine

"But far be it from me [or any of us] to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . "(Galatians 6:14)