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A Series of Lenten Reflections: Palm Sunday

Sorrow's Face

“They came to...Gethsemane, and Jesus...took Peter and James and John with him. And a sudden fear came over him, and great distress. And he said to them, 'My soul is sorrowful to the point of death. Wait here, and keep awake...’” (Mark 14)

Reflect

The sight of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane has been the subject of many an artist. Here is the heart of the mystery of the suffering of God. This is the picture of deepest sorrow, the kind of sorrow that breaks the human heart.

In the woods of the Trappist monastery of Gethsemane, Kentucky, is a high hill and on that hill is a sculpture of this scene in the garden. As one climbs up the path on the hill, one passes the prostrate figures of the three disciples, their bodies lying with limbs strewn in abandonment to sleep. Continuing to the top of the hill, one comes upon the life-size and lone figure of Christ. He is not, as in most pictures, draped over a rock but kneels bolt upright, head back with his face upturned to heaven covered by both hands in a gesture of desperate pleading. It is a moving sight and one senses immense sorrow. Looking in silence, one also senses that one's own life has something to do with this great sorrow, this agony. There is an awareness, too, that the three disciples, Peter, James and John, who had seen Jesus transfigured on the mountain-top, are sleeping halfway down the hill, leaving this man alone.

There are sorrows unfathomable that cause us to wonder where God is:

• Jews in concentration camps awaiting horrible death, and those who survive shaken to their depths ask, "Where was God in all this?"
• Mothers who watched their daughters raped and killed by soldiers before their very eyes while they cried aloud to God to save them and, it seemed, were not heard.
• Families whose loved ones disappeared never to be seen again, tortured to death perhaps, who wondered and waited, and it seemed there was no reply.

Why has God permitted such sorrow? Why has God endured such sorrow? Christ cried aloud with tears but the chalice was not taken away. Yet scripture tells us he was heard for his reverence. The reply was resurrection.

This is the mystery of faith: that God could send legions of angels but does not and if God does not, God loves us infinitely nonetheless.

Can we suffer and not lose faith? There are sorrows, sufferings and agonies through which it seems we must pass alone and unheard—alone, simply because they are ours and unheard only as it seems to us. In such sorrows we remember the sorrow of the Son of God and know that we are not alone. Mysteriously God suffers in our flesh for he is one with us. Not that we are to be self-styled victims carrying burdens of our own making. There are enough with the duties of love and of life.

Respond

Let us examine our faith in the face of sorrow. Can I watch with Jesus and make the leap of confidence, so sure of God's love that I too can say: not my will but yours? If the chalice cannot pass, can we still believe in God's love for us? Can we trust the very meaning of our life into God's hands? Job said: If we take happiness from God's hands must we not take sorrow too? (Job 2:1)

Pray

In silence, I reverence your anguish and your sorrow, Lord Jesus Christ. I believe your pleading is not unheard, your suffering is not wasted, nor is mine. Make my faith sure and my faithfulness strong, most of all in the midst of sorrow and affliction. And maybe one day you will even give me thanksgiving for all that I have suffered with you.

For other prayers, see this page