Are You Not the Messiah? 你不是默西亞嗎？

Solemnity of Christ the King, Year C
Theme: Are You Not the Messiah? 你不是默西亞嗎？

All canonical gospels put into writing the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ because this is the core of Christianity. Of course, the Evangelists are not omniscient. They could only be selective in their narratives and put down what they think is the most important for all believers. The Synoptic gospels mention that most people present at the crucifixion on Mount Calvary mock Jesus, including the two criminals crucified with Him (Matthew 27:44, Mark 15:32, Luke 23:39). But the Lucan version is different. He is able to record what the two criminals have actually said. We have to thank the Blessed Virgin Mary for retaining this precious piece of material for our meditation! This year for some unknown reason, when I meditated on the gospel text, the Holy Spirit drew my attention to the criminal who reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” (Luke 23:39) I feel that most of us act like him!

For any sensible person, there must be reasons behind his every action. Otherwise, there cannot be any basis to hold him morally responsible for his action. Just think about it, how can a court of law sentence a robot for any crime? The robot simply follows the instructions of a computer program without any “understanding”. In other words, no mental patients can be criminals. Of course, for the safety and security of ordinary citizens, a government may lock up psychopaths or other categories of people whom the government deems dangerous to the society! In the Passion narrative, the two criminals acted in diametrically different manners towards Jesus. There must be reasons behind and it is meaningful to speculate on their reasons and perhaps we’ll be able to learn from their mistakes and successes.

I feel that the criminal who reviled Jesus on the cross represented most of us. Like most of the contemporary Jews who cheered for Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, this criminal was anticipating a Messiah who would drive out the Romans to restore the Kingdom to Israel. Jesus’ apostles thought likewise and even more confident in this prospect after seeing their Master defeating death and coming back to life (Acts 1:6)! How can we abhor this criminal for his thinking in this manner? Perhaps he was a comrade of Barabbas who, according to Luke, “had been imprisoned for a rebellion that had taken place in Jerusalem and for murder.” (Luke 23:19) Very likely this criminal had also been rounded up together with Barabbas in the rebellion. They took the deliverance of Israel in their hands, perhaps even believing that they were doing God’s will. The rebellion was suppressed. By crucifying Jesus, “the King of the Jews” (23:38), together with two rebels, Pilate was sending a strong message to all Zealots that the Roman Empire was determined to and was capable of crushing any rebellion now and in the future! Now that Jesus was crucified in Barabbas’ stead, to a certain extent has become a Messiah to liberate Barabbas, would it not be reasonable for this criminal to expect this Jesus Messiah to do the same for him? Jesus, what are you waiting for? Don’t you see that I’m dying? Save yourself! Jump down from the cross now and save us! Please … We pray to God in a similar manner! Jesus, don’t you see that I’m suffering injustice in this city? Why do you allow the law enforcers to beat up peaceful demonstrators? Why is the wicked prevailing over the righteous? Why did our Pope sign a secret treaty with atheists? Remove them to save us! Why do you allow the Covid-19 to kill millions of people for such a long time? People are suffering interpersonally and economically, not to mention politically. What are you waiting for? Do something. Wipe out the virus to save us! Please …

All Christians are expected to help actualize the Father’s kingdom (11:2) but most of us have different expectations of what we should do to bring about this kingdom. The criminal who reviled Jesus expected the Messiah to drive out the Romans. But God has a different plan. Take Abraham his ancestor as another example. While Abraham was childless, God promised him that his descendants would be as numerous as stars (Genesis 15:5). God even constrains Himself to honour His pledge by entering into a covenant with a mere mortal (15:18). Since Sarai was unable to bear Abraham any child, so she thought up a possible solution to make God’s promise come true. She told Abraham to have intercourse with her maid Hagar so that she would have sons through Hagar (16:2). They succeeded and Hagar gave birth to Ishmael when Abraham was 86 (16:16). But God has a different plan (17:19) which He revealed only 13 years later when Abraham was 99 (17:1)! Why didn’t God correct Sarai’s mistake immediately and allowed Ishmael to be born? Well you may say that it is because Ishmael was to father the Arabians in the future! But there have been so many battles and bloodsheds between Christians and Muslims ever since! Does God want to see these never-ending sibling rivalries? Brethren! God does not need my defence because His wisdom is unfathomable!

Two weeks ago God revealed His different plan to me. To show support of the newly baptized in the parish I’m serving, I intended to assist in a mass for the neophytes of 2022 at the Cathedral. Regrettably, I failed to catch a bus in time and I made a wrong turn on my way, wasting even more time. I prayed to God to help me arrive in time to the Cathedral … No. God didn’t hear my prayer and ignored my good intention. In the end, I was late and could not join the other deacons to assist mass at the altar. So, I stayed with the neophytes of my parish. During Gloria, my parish priest saw me and sent me to sit with 2 English-speaking neophytes to do simultaneous translation for them because the mass was in Chinese! During homily, the Bishop exhorted the neophytes to help build the kingdom of heaven on earth. They needed to surrender their wills to God’s will! This exhortation was tailor-made for me! Praise be to our merciful God because I didn’t have to wait for 13 years to know His plan!

The criminal who reviled Jesus definitely did not know whom he was speaking to and what he was doing. Like many of us, his complaints were his prayers. But Jesus had already prayed for his being forgiven (Luke 23:34) even before he complained. Perhaps he repented after hearing the repentant thief and started suffering his own punishment patiently for the reconciliation with God, with himself and for the actualization of the righteous kingdom of heaven on earth. He might not go into paradise with Jesus immediately like the repentant thief (23:43) but I’m sure the merciful Father had already forgiven him and would find ways to bring him consolation. After all, he did not have to wait for 13 years before God revealed His plan to him. The merciful Lord came back to life on the third day according to the Scriptures.

Brethren! I would be doing the repentant thief injustice if I ignored his merits. Do you remember his famous “remember me” prayer (23:42)? To be fair, the first person to pray “remember me” to God was Samson (Judges 16:28). Not only did God answer both of them immediately, they have become immortalized by this prayer and all readers of the Bible remember them as well. Did both of them always put their faith in God? Not at all! Both of them are successful because they have not lost their faith in God towards the end of their lives. How consoling their stories are!
God bless!
2019 Reflection
Picture Credit: sammlung.staedelmuseum.de