The sound of Love dying – turning despair into hope
Recently I was inspired to write a song entitled “It‟s only love dying”. I did not write
the song. It would have gone something like this:
“When a young man slams the door on his family, it‟s only love dying.
When a wife leaves her husband, it‟s only love dying.
When someone says, „I‟ll never speak to you again‟, it‟s only love dying.”
You understand why I could not write that song. But in the sound of love dying there
is hope. The image that will help us understand this is the Cross of Christ.
Remember the Israelites dying of the poisonous snakebites in the desert, grumbling
all the while against the God that had delivered them from Egypt (Numbers 21:4-9)?
God told them to fashion a serpent on a pole, and all who looked on it were cured.
How much more do we need to look up at Christ on the Cross?
How much deliverance from our despair can be found in the Cross? The Cross is the
sound of Love dying, turning despair into hope. Look at that Cross in your suffering
and pain, in that time before death that we will all have to face.
Before this reflection gets too heavy, let me interject a personal example. Everyone
can be used as an example, even if it is an example of what not to be.
Recently I underwent a medical procedure. As I entered that unknown situation I
simply crossed myself, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.”
This was not a life and death situation, but it struck me that you and I need to enter
pain and suffering with that sign of the Cross. That youth fleeing from the love of his
family would have a better chance if he started “In the name of the Father…”
I have hope that my marriage will survive after nearly 40 years. More recently when
we experience differences as a couple, I turn to God in prayer instead of slamming
the door on Love.
In a recent article “The Problem of Suffering and Evil” Father Ron Rolheiser echoes
that often asked question: “How can there be an all-loving and an all-powerful God if
there is so much suffering and evil in our world?”
Part of the explanation Ron offers says that God respects our freedom. And “The God
we believe in doesn't necessarily intervene and rescue us from suffering and death
(although we are invited to pray for that); instead he redeems our suffering
afterwards.”
In the example of the death of Lazarus, Ron Points out, Jesus “…begins to weep. His
answer to suffering: He enters into peoples' helplessness and pain. Afterwards, he
raises Lazarus from the dead.”
In the same way, Ron continues, “The Father does not save Jesus from death on the
cross even when he is jeered and mocked there. Instead the Father allows him to die
on the cross and then raises him up afterwards.”
The Jesus we believe in enters into our suffering and death and redeems us through
them. “Into your hands I commend my Spirit” Jesus says at the moment of his death.
Love dies on the Cross to give us hope! Life‟s despair can be the gateway to hope.
Ron concludes, “because God is all-loving and all-powerful, in the end all will be
well and our pain will someday be redeemed in God's embrace.”
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