I AM HERE IN ORDER TO DO YOUR WILL

Reflection from Mk 11:1-10; Is 50:4-7; Fil 2:6-11; Mk14:1-15:47

Jesus, who assumed to be humble and poor Messiah, is proclaimed king and victorious in his entrance in Jerusalem. He accepts this gesture of the crowd even knowing that will be left alone to drink the chalice of the suffering and the sorrow in order to do God’s will. He is the servant of the Lord per excellence, who even experiencing the sensation of abandonment, remained faithful to God’s plan, surrendering his life with total confidence into his hands.

According to the First reading, the servant of the Lord is faithful to the mission that the Lord entrusted to him. He lives his vocation with enthusiasm, assuming the consequences of his decision. He must endure insults, persecution, incomprehension and rejection, but the guarantee of success in his mission is the constant and faithful presence of the Lord. In the cultivation of his identity of servant, he is totally open to the will of God who speaks to him every day so that, through the experience of this word, he can act as a disciple. It is what St Paul request to the community of Philippians, presenting the example of Christ who chose to be a servant,  accepting the humiliation and suffering in order to do God’s will. This was the way of the glorification of the Son of God and radical proposal for those who desire to follow him faithfully.

The text of the passion according to Mark is the earliest narrative and presents important details for our journey as followers of Jesus. Let us start about the presence of the woman in the beginning and in the end of the text. During his public life, Jesus allowed the constant and active presence of the women in his mission. Through his gesture of welcome and valuation of their presence in his mission, he recovered their dignity and presented them as referential in the evangelisation’s process. In the beginning of this text, we are invited to contemplate the amazing gesture of affection and respect of the woman to Jesus, spending expensive perfume, changing the mentality and atmosphere in the house. With this gesture, she teaches that to follow Jesus is to spend the best of oneself for love. In the end of the narrative the women aren’t afraid of the consequences of their identification with the Master. Their testimony is an invitation to carry out the decision of following Jesus up the end.

Jesus was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, humiliated, insulted and remained silent. Through this silence he manifested his strength. He decides to speak only to confirm his identity of Messiah and the intimate relationship with God his Father. Through this deep relationship, demonstrated in his prayer in the Gethsemane Garden, he finds motivation to embrace the cross and to do God’s will, surrendering himself into his hands in an attitude of total confidence and affection. His death wasn’t wanted for his Father, but his gesture of love up to the last consequences was accepted and answered through the glorious resurrection from the dead.

Before the violence of those who crucified him, he didn’t react, revealing himself an example of nonviolence, declaring that his followers would not fight because his kingdom is not of this world. Like this he condemns all kind of violence.  Like the grain of wheat which dies in order to bear many fruits, Jesus accepted to suffer and to die in his identification and solidarity with the sufferers and crucified ones of this world in order to give them new life. So, his gestures continue inspiring men and women to deny themselves, to take up their crosses and to follow his footsteps, being available to everything because the Kingdom of God. With this Eucharistic celebration we are invited to start this Holy week very motivated to recognise and proclaim Jesus as our Saviour, accompanying him in his fidelity to God’s plan and overcoming the temptations of betrayal and denial present constantly in our journey. May his example of humility, empting and abandonment into the hands of God motivate us to surrender the life totally for the good of others.  

Fr. Ndega