If you recall (see Petunia if you don't), today's subject is the 2nd sorrowful mystery which is the Scourging at the Pillar. I think nowadays we're completely indifferent to it. Most of us saw 'The Passion', if you didn't see it (or even if you did) go watch this illustrative 4 minute clip. You just watched the movie. One of my Professors, one of the main authors at cosmos-liturgy-sex, said that the problem with this movie is that it wasn't nearly violent enough. And I couldn't agree more. Let's face it, the saddest part of the movie were those flashback clips. But nevertheless it still got the R rating. As Professor put it, the movie tried to show us the horror of sin which is something we can't bear to look at. As bad as we may be, looking evil full in the face is too much. Yet it wasn't enough, because according to him had that movie done what it was supposed to do, it should have been enough petrifying to transform our lives. We should have watched that and said "Never again." Personally I think part of the problem is that what we do to Jesus today is far more brutal than Motaro's fatality.
See back then those people killed Jesus because they were idiots. They simply had no clue that He really was what He said He was. He scared them, said insane things, and was causing huge changes to millenium old customs and traditions. It was simply too much to take. Jesus Himself asked for their forgiveness because they didn't know what they were doing. So what's our excuse?
We always talk about how much we love God, and how He's our best friend, and all this sort of thing, yet we just continue day in and out to smack Him in the face. The problem is that we really just don't love Him. Half the time we can't even leave Church, with Him physically in us, without doing or saying something bad. We say we're so thankful for what He's given us and then we go and squander it all. And we really don't care. It's not like we aren't aware that we're doing something we shouldn't. No, we know exactly what we're doing, but we make excuses to trick ourselves into thinking it's either not that bad because we could be doing something worse, or it's really alright to begin with. So we just smack him around day in and out, knowing full well what He is and did for us, and somehow all the while profess our great love for Him.
Almost exactly 7 months ago, I experienced what 'The Passion' was trying to do. I had gone to see a movie with one of my dear friends, and during the trip I did something incredibly stupid and ended up hurting my friend. Now at the time I had no idea that my actions were hurting my friend. I really was totally clueless. I have no idea what I was thinking at the time, but when my friend all of a sudden started yelling at me, that was the worst moment of my life. Even though I had no intention of hurting my friend, knowing that I did hurt so much. I felt so bad. I apologized again and again, and all the night and the next day I couldn't think of anything else. I was a wreck. Of course my friend forgave me in full, but even now I still feel really bad about it. What I did, my friend said really wasn't all that bad but it didn't matter. The idea that I hurt my friend, even unintentionally, caused me a huge amount of sorrow. That was a situation I left saying "Never again."
But we do the same type of thing to Jesus everyday without batting an eye. The reason is because we just don't love Him all that much. Say a red-headed step child has a super hot Mom. Well I want to marry the Mom but the kid is just baggage. Oh sure, I'll profess my love for the kid to score the Mom, but in actuality I just beat the kid senseless cause he's an ugly ginger. I don't want to feed him or take care of him, I just want the hot babe he brings with him. Jesus is our red-headed step child. We want everything He offers and want Him to take a hike. Take my story, if I loved Jesus half as much as I do my friend there's no way imaginable that I would keep falling again and again from the same thing over and over. I think instead of spending so much time focusing on how they beat Him, we should focus more time on how much we do.
Well that's the Scourging at the Pillar. Tune in next week for the Crowning of with Thorns. And don't worry, there'll be something much lighter for tomorrow.
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