Everyone at the scene of crucifixion and all who came that way thought that the story of Jesus was over, that he already became just history. Maybe his mother was an exception. But now we know that it was only the beginning of a victory march, enlisting hundreds of thousands every year in the march. Hardly anyone before Jesus ever thought of becoming and being what or who Jesus was.
As St. Paul narrates to the Philippine believers, Jesus did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited as a prized possession, but emptied himself to the extent of becoming man, a slave, a status too low compared to the position of being God, and became obedient to the point of death. He became man not necessarily to know who man was or what man’s predicament was. Since he was there in the creation of man and throughout man’s story, human condition was not unknown to Jesus. He came down in order that humans may be raised up to the level of divinity and that humans may recognize and realize that this Man-God knows what human condition is, what every human being is going through in life. He came down in order to make the humans
understand that they are partners with God in the act of creation, which is a laborious act for God and in which he is constantly involved.
The creation story in the bible tells us that God worked six days and nights and also gives the clear notion that in that act God sees to it that everything is perfect. It is in this act that man is invited to be a partner. Along with God humans are also in labor and that is the meaning of human condition. Human condition also is the result of what humans decide to do or not to do. Both have consequences. In every moment of man’s action and inaction this God is present with him, this God is in labor and pain with him. Hence we cannot think and say that God doesn’t see or hear or know. In and through this labor and pain new creations come into being and God and man are together engaged in the making of the New Creation. Life, in and through its pains and pleasures, its labor and miseries, is in the process of making the new creation, the new heaven and new earth. Our passion celebration should remind us that He is with us and we are with Him! It should remind us that the tongue of the teacher is given to us also to sustain the weary with a word’.
Fr. George