Third Sunday of Easter.  April 6, 2008.  Our Lady of Grace 7:30, 11:30, 6PM. Acts 2: 14, 22-33.   1 Peter 1: 17-21.  Luke 24: 13-35.

When I ask couples who are preparing for their wedding what their parents taught them about marriage by word and example they almost always tell me that their parents said that a good marriage is a lot of work, and they usually mentioned that every marriage has its ups and downs.  Most say that that their parents believe that a good marriage is worth the hard work and the struggle.  In one way or another couples preparing for marriage say that they know that nothing really good ever happens without a lot of effort and even considerable pain. Of course, every athlete knows the same truth – “No pain, no good game.”  Most athletes pay a considerable price in pain and injury for their success.

Most dating relationships begin when two people are knocked off their feet with a deep feeling of exhilaration and joy.  That is what falling in love is all about.  The longer that a dating relationship or a marriage goes on the more the two people involved have to deal with the imperfections of their partner and their own imperfections as well.  “They lived happily ever after” happens only in a fairy tales.  In real life marriages, families and friendships, people disappoint one another, challenge one another and hurt one another.  It is impossible to dance very closely with another person in a deep and loving relationship without stepping on one another’s toes – sometimes in very painful ways.  The way to avoid causing pain to others is to never get very close to them.  Deep love always means getting close to others – sometimes dangerously close – in ways that can cause pain.  My sense is that to avoid all pain we would have to avoid deep love and all expressions of deep love. Children are a great joy.  A niece whose marriage I witnessed a year and a half ago recently had twins.  The cost of having these two blessed children was a long pregnancy in which she could hardly get out of bed toward the end and a cesarean birth.   My niece will always bear the scars of the birth of the twins she loves so dearly.  Love without emotional and physical pain is a myth and a fairy tale. My niece is discovering this as she gets little sleep with two crying babies demanding attention.  She loves her children and she paid for her children with pain and suffering.

“Two of Jesus’ disciples where going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem and they were talking about all the things that had happened as they were walking along together…. And it happened that Jesus drew near and began to walk with them, but they didn’t recognize him. … He asked them, ‘what have you been discussing as you walk along?’  They told him that they had been talking about Jesus of Nazareth and how their leaders had had him put to death… then Jesus said to them, ‘was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and thereby enter into his glory?’ … then he interpreted for them everything about him in all of the Scriptures.”

Why was it necessary that Jesus suffer?   Did God need the suffering of Jesus as some sort of ransom?  Was God so upset that only suffering could make him happy?  The suffering of Jesus had little to do with appeasing God’s anger, although there are passages in Scripture that seem to suggest this.  The suffering of Jesus changed the relationship that Jesus has with us.  Once Jesus labored to give birth to the Church and to each of us on the Cross, Jesus had a much different relationship to each of us in his heart.  We were reborn in the pain Jesus endured for us, just as we were born into this world through the labor and pain of our mothers.   Scripture says, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:1, 6, 15)  Suffering engraved our names in the wounds on the hands and feet of Christ.  Because he suffered for us he can never forget us just as a mother can never forget the child of her suffering.  The Cross reminds Jesus of how much we have cost him in giving himself completely for us.  Suffering for those we love has a very special power to bind us to them in a way that can never be broken.  They have simply cost us too much.

Knowing that someone has suffered for us, to bring us to birth, to feed and cloth us, to send us to school, or to protect us binds us to them.  In the human situation as it is, suffering is a necessary way of expressing love.  Without suffering we can become very shallow.  Without suffering we can become very selfish and self centered.  While the suffering and the death of Jesus on the Cross is in one sense a dreadful thing and even a crime against an innocent man, on the other hand suffering is the language of love when it expresses the gift of self in loving service to another person.

While human suffering is evil, wise people know that suffering is also the price of loving. Jesus walked the way of the Cross to show us that without the complete gift of ourselves, no matter how much that self-gift costs, there is no real love.  In fact, the disciples of Jesus recognized him only after his victory over death when he sat at table with them and broke bread with them as the risen Christ.   It was necessary that the Christ display his love for the world on the Cross to teach us that the only way to peace and joy is to give ourselves completely to those we love.

This week we remembered the 40^th anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King.  My sense is that if he hadn’t been murdered – as other heroic but less well know White and Black Americans were murdered – our sense of racial injustice would have remained unchanged.  Even considering an African American as a viable candidate for president of the United States would have remained impossible. In the real world suffering for justice, love and truth does change things.

Jesus said to them, "was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and thereby enter into his glory?” If I had designed the world suffering would not be necessary in showing love.  Suffering would not be an essential part of the human journey to resurrection.  But I didn’t design the world.  The God who made the world also made the Cross the key to love and to new life.  For this holy mystery of life-giving suffering we give God thanks and praise.