A View into Eternity

A View into Eternity

One day, before the Easter Triduum, we get a promised look at what is about to occur; Eucharist-as He introduces the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, Servitude while he humbles himself before his disciples, arrested as a common criminal, convicted and executed, and buried in a borrowed tomb, and rising as he said he would; Easter Sunday.

The pretense of a captured hero who said he would be with them forever.  A belief of one day when he told his disciples that he would return; And behold, I will be with you always, until the end of the age.  (Mt 28: 20).  Reading into the final chapter of his mission to redeem his children and return to take them home forever, eternally.  

From the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, certain Pharisees and partisans of Herod together with priests and scribes agreed together to destroy him.  Because of certain of his acts-expelling demons, forgiving sins, healing on the sabbath day, his novel interpretation of the precepts of the Law regarding purity, and his familiarity with tax collectors and public sinners - some ill-intentioned persons suspected Jesus of demonic possession.  He is accused of blasphemy and false prophecy, religious crimes which the Law punished with death by stoning.   (CCC 574).

In the eyes of many in Israel, Jesus seems to be acting against essential institutions of the Chosen people:  - submission to the whole of the Law in its written commandments and, for the Pharisees, in the interpretation of oral tradition:  - the certainty of the Temple at Jerusalem as the holy place where God’s presence dwells in a special way; - faith in the one God whose glory no man can share.  (CCC 576).

We shall all watch as the procession to the tomb, carrying the consecrated Jesus to burial in the tomb for adoration; Holy Thursday.  

Gathering in the Church and seeing the sanctuary bare of any semblance of a place to worship, we cry, pray, and reminisce as what was is now empty.  

Sunday morning, as the sun rises, Christ also rises as he said he would.  He has overcome death, destroyed sin, and awaits the time when he will return in glory completing the final chapter of a promise God made as man rejected God the first time in human history.  

This is the view of our rising as well and entering with all the saints and angels to the places Jesus promised that he was preparing for you and me.

Ralph B. Hathaway