PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION A
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SILENT GOD, SUFFERING
PEOPLE
In Martin Scorsese’s recent and
great film “Silence,” based on a novel of the same title, the main character is
a missionary from Europe. In the film, he suffers tremendously because he saw
how the small, poor and helpless Japanese Christians suffer harassment, threats
and death because of their faith. This creates a tension in his heart because
he knows that God cares, that God saves, that he hears his people. Why was it
then, that when he prayed for them and for himself, God did not reply? Was he
praying only to “silence?”
This Holy Week this must be the
same question in our hearts. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Compared
to his prayers while in active ministry, his prayer was gloomy and dark. He was
asking his Father to let the cup pass him by, to deliver him from suffering.
There was no answer.
Again on the cross, when he was
crucified, Jesus’ mind was fixed only on one person, his Father. Would he
rescue him? Would he come to help him now? “My God, my God, why have you
abandoned me?” Like in Gethsemane, there was only silence.
What was running in the mind of
Jesus when his prayers met no response? He asked for deliverance and yet he was
delivered to his enemies. He asked for comfort but he was nailed to the cross.
He waited for a companion but he suffered and died alone, abandoned by his friends,
abandoned by his Father.
This must be the question in our
hearts too. How many times have we experienced being left on our own when we
needed support? How many times have we cried ourselves to sleep and nobody
heard us? How long have we knelt before our altars and received only a cold
treatment, a silence, as response?
We must however, watch Jesus
closely, to get an answer into this mysterious silence of the Father. At
Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to be spared from the cross. There was no answer and
yet, in the end, Jesus stood up from his prayer and boldly faced his enemies
and his death. On the cross, Jesus was left alone, but did he not cling even
more tightly to the one he called “my”
God, “my” Father? Jesus suffered and
died, and even more felt alone but in his heart he knew he must continue to
trust. There is mystery in the silence of God but there is also a mystery in
the trust of Jesus in his Father’s love.
This Holy Week, let us derive our
strength from the example of Our Lord. We may feel the whole world is against
us; that even God has betrayed us. In the midst of it all, let us invite all
the trust in our hearts to emerge so that like Jesus, we can continue to
believe and continue to hope. After the Cross comes the Resurrection!
