March 30, 2024
Black Saturday or Holy Saturday, marks the end of Holy Week. The day Jesus laid rest in a tomb. A day of silence... a time for reflection... in our native tongue ... " pagpanalandong"
Source
Here's a question that I reflected upon...
Why does God needed to become human to save us? He is all knowing and all powerful. With a snap of a finger, he can surely save us... but why become human?
Reflection
First of all, God is not like Thanos who wanted to "reboot" the Universe by wiping out 50% of the life forms at the snap of the Infinity Gauntlet.
Putting it in contrast, Thanos wants to do it because he hated the Universe not save us. On the other hand, God wants to save us because He loves us.
For generations, God have shown that He loves us and wants us to go back to His fold. For numerous times have sent His angels, spoke through the prophets to tell His people to turn away from their sinful ways and follow his commands. He brought punishment, allowed them to be enslaved to them. He even flooded the Earth to cleanse it of wicked people.
Then showed his mercy by sending someone to save them like Samson, and Moses.
The people may have listened for a while, but would go back to their old ways of defying God!
Bridging the Gap
I remember a story told by a priest in his homily. The story goes this way...
Winter has already started and the snow started to fall. A man noticed a flock of ducks outside. It was already late for the ducks to start their migration.
He thought the ducks would freeze to death if they could not find shelter. The man felt pity and wanted to help the ducks. He opened his garage and tried to pursuade the ducks to enter the garage.
But the ducks, upon seeing the man, got scared and flew away.
The man thought...
"If only I could make them understand that I wanted to save them."
We are like the ducks. We complain that we often face difficult problems. We felt like we were always being punsished. Just like the Jews in the Old Testament, we frequently complain the cruelty of God. Then we flee from Him.
We failed to understand his true intention.
"I Thirst."
Thus God became man in the persona of Jesus. He preached the Word of God and the Law in a manner that irritated the "scholars of the law". At the time, the priests emphasized more on the rituals and practices instead of the reason behind those rituals and practices. Namely, love.
For that reason, Jesus suffered at the cross and died.
I was listening to the "Seven Last Words" yesterday (Good Friday) and one of those Seven Last Words that caught my attention was when Jesus said "I Thirst."
With these words Christ was saying " I am human too, I feel your suffering."
The truth is, no one in history of man kind suffered more than Him.
Thus, when I feel like I'm having difficult times, just like during the procession yesterday, I thought, Jesus endured more pain than this. Moreover, I know that He knows how I feel.
Have a blessed Saturday.
Post No. 2024-24
Date Posted: March 30, 2024.
All Images used are mine unless otherwise indicated
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