Friday, December 4, 2015
Youcat commented through CCC - Question n. 98 - Part VI.
(Youcat
answer - repeated) The violent death of Jesus did not come about through tragic
external circumstances. “Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan
and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). So that we children of sin and death
might have life, the Father in heaven “made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2
Cor 5:21). The magnitude of the sacrifice that God the Father asked of his Son,
corresponded to the magnitude of Christ’s obedience: “And what shall I say?
“Father, save me from this hour? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour”
(Jn 12:27). On both sides, God’s love for men proved itself to the very end on
the Cross.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 608)
After agreeing to baptize him along with the sinners, John the Baptist looked
at Jesus and pointed him out as the "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin
of the world" (Jn 1:29; cf. Lk 3:21; Mt 3:14-15; Jn 1:36). By doing so, he
reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant who silently
allows himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the
multitudes, and also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel's redemption at the
first Passover (Isa 53:7, 12; cf. Jer 11:19;
Ex 12:3-14; Jn 19:36; 1 Cor 5:7). Christ's whole life expresses his
mission: "to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk
10:45).
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) In order to
save us from death, God embarked on a dangerous mission: He introduced a
“Medicine of immortality” (St. Ignatius of Antioch) into our world of death—his Son
Jesus Christ. The Father and the Son were inseparable in this mission, willing
and yearning to take the utmost upon themselves out of love for man. God willed
to make an exchange so as to save us forever. He wanted to give us his eternal
life, so that we might experience his joy, and wanted to suffer our death, our
despair, our abandonment, our death, so as to share with us in everything. So
as to love us to the end and beyond. Christ’s death is the will of the Father
but not his final word. Since Christ died for us, we can exchange our death for
his life.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 609)
By embracing in his human heart the Father's love for men, Jesus "loved
them to the end", for "greater love has no man than this, that a man
lay down his life for his friends" (Jn 13:1; 15:13). In suffering and
death his humanity became the free and perfect instrument of his divine love
which desires the salvation of men (Cf. Heb 2:10, 17-18; 4:15; 5:7-9). Indeed,
out of love for his Father and for men, whom the Father wants to save, Jesus
freely accepted his Passion and death: "No one takes [my life] from me,
but I lay it down of my own accord” (Jn 10:18). Hence the sovereign freedom of
God's Son as he went out to his death (Cf. Jn 18:4-6; Mt 26:53).
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