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Background: Like Last Sunday’s Gospel, this is a story with a strong
theological overlay. However, Jesus surely had an experience of his Father
in heaven at some point in his public life in which he perceived that it was
necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and like the prophets die for the good
news he had come to preach. The disciples did not understand this experience
then. Nor is it clear that we understand it now. Jesus saw that, like all
humans, he had to die. He also perceived that is death, like all deaths,
would be horrible, though more horrible than most. Nonetheless because he
was confident of His Father’s love for him, we went to Jerusalem bravely
because he knew that ultimately God would vindicate the good news with his
powerful love. So we must understand that God too will vindicate us
eventually and that Jesus will accompany us down into the valley of death.
Lent, in a way, is more about our own deaths and resurrections than it is
about Jesus’s. |
read the padre |
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Story: Once there was a scientist who believed in nothing at all. He
enjoyed especially putting down those who had near death experiences (NDE) in which they were revived after they clinically
died. It was all brain chemistry, he insisted, an evolutionary adjustment for a species
that was conscious of its own mortality. There was no tunnel, no figure in white at the
end of it, no choice about whether to stay or come back. It was all an illusion caused by
the brain chemicals that were released at the moment of death. Then he had a heart attack
and was clinically dead when they got him to the hospital. However, the doctors revived
him and he reported that he had indeed gone through an NDE. It was an illusion, he
insisted, caused by brain chemicals. I still do not believe in anything at all except
science. When we are dead, we are dead and that’s that. However, he seemed less
afraid of death than most of his atheist colleagues. One of them asked him if he was not
afraid that he might be wrong. Promise you won’t quote me? Yes. Well, I figure that
if the NDE was all an illusion then I have nothing to lose by saying it was an illusion.
On the other hand, if the person in white that the brain chemicals made me imagine is
real, well there’s so much love there, I have nothing to lose either because I will
be forgiven. So it’s a good gamble. Oh, said his colleague.
Psalm 22:23-31 22 I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters;in the midst of
the congregation I will praise you:
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