Today's Gospel

Which Character Are You?

It's a powerful reading. Jesus is on the cross and we have these interactions of all these people. Last year doing—actually, for the Holy Week Retreat, I did the eight-day series. I have this theory that between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, all of our lives can be traced to something that happened in those eight days. And so this is obviously a pivotal moment in those eight days, and Jesus is on the cross, and he's interacting with these other people. And so we had the idea that we should be able to see ourselves in every person. And that's the challenge, to grow in awareness of ourselves, of others, to see what we are capable of, the good and the bad.

That doesn't mean we do it, but we know we're capable of it, and that allows us to see ourselves in all of these people. So we take a look, maybe a word or a phrase or an idea struck you. But let's take a look at the different people who are in this reading. "So the people stood by." That's how it starts. And what did they stood by doing? Watching. Okay? That's most people, right, when something happens. It's amazing how many people-- there's an accident, it's amazing how many people don't have the awareness to dial 911. And then someone's screaming at someone 911. So what are the people doing? And the people stood by watching. And most people, when something happens, yeah, that's what they do. They stand by watching. Can we see ourselves in those people? Passive, don't want to get involved, just stand by watching.

But the ruler scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others. Let him save himself. If he was the Christ of the God, the chosen one." So now we've got other-- now we've got the rulers, and they're scoffing at Jesus. And we maybe look at these people, these Pharisees, these scribes, and I'm sure we could develop some anger towards them, some resentment towards them, a lot of very negative feelings towards them. Question is, is that can we see how we have behaved or how we are capable of behaving in the same way? Jesus said, "Whatever you do to others, you do to me," okay? So scoffing at anyone, ridiculing anyone in this way is the same as these scribes and Pharisees scoffing at Jesus on the cross. Are we able to see that within ourselves, maybe some time in our life where we've been ridiculing someone, scoffing at someone in the same way.

Our next group of people we got the soldiers. The soldiers also mocked him. Or worse than that, they offer him vinegar. So that's like sadism. That's sadism. Taking joy from somebody else's suffering or destruction, that's sadism. And so that's what we see right there. Now you might say, "I'm not a sadist." Okay, that's fine. But we're all capable of it. We're all capable of taking joy in someone else's suffering. We'll hear people say all the time, "Ah, he deserved it." He's suffering horrifically. "Ah, he deserved it." We hear that. Certainly in the media. We love raising people up and we love dragging them down once we built them up into something they weren't in the first place, an illusion. Then we tear it down. And that's a form of sadism, taking joy in someone's suffering and destruction. Taking joy when someone gets cancelled. We're with the soldiers when we're in that space. We're with the soldiers offering Jesus vinegar.

So who we got next? We've got the criminals, okay? And you got two of them, one on each side. And one of them, he's angry. He's resentful. He is, let's face it, hanging on a cross. And I I can't imagine how anyone survived it. I can't imagine I survived it. Maybe I'm just soft. Probably am. All these modern comforts. But how does someone even survive being crucified to have a conversation? So obviously a very tough guy, right? And imagine what sort of mood you'd be in if you'd been crucified. He's not in a good mood. He's angry. He's resentful. And he's taunting Jesus, saying, "Hey man, if you're the one, save yourself. And while you're at it, save us." So there's this taunt. And probably just because he lived a life of this kind of behavior, and we tend to die as we live. And so he is.

Then you've got the other guy. And he's sorry. He claims personal responsibility for his crimes. He says to the other thief, "Man, we deserve this. We did the crime. And this is the punishment. We get what we deserve. Jesus is not getting what he deserved. He didn't do anything wrong." And so there's a massive personal responsibility there. Most people really struggle to take personal responsibility, especially in our culture today. And most people do not like being held accountable to anything.

And so here we are. We've got this other guy who's been crucified. Remember, grueling, absolutely destroying. And then he's in a different mood. He's got this calm. He's got this wisdom. He's got this clarity about you know what's going on here and what isn't going on here, and makes me think like, "What kind of thieves were they? And why were they thieving?" Because I get to think in the first one, was thieving out of greed. And the second one was thieving out of need. Maybe your wife and kids are starving, and we do anything. If you're a parent, you know that. You do anything. We say we wouldn't do this, we wouldn't do that. But once your wife and kids are starving, pretty much all bets are off. But the sense I get is that these two thieves live very different lives. And of course, we've got both, right? We've got greed and we've got need. We do things out of greed, and we do things out of need. And part of the exercise is recognizing that in ourselves.

And then of course, the last person to speak is Jesus. And the thieves' line is just so beautiful. It's not a line, it's a prayer. I've talked about that before. Everything that people say to Jesus is a prayer. And a good thief says to Jesus, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Beautiful prayer. Just to take that with you through the day, just to pray that 100 times today. "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." It's a beautiful prayer repeated over and over again. And of course, Jesus ends the conversation with, "Truly, I say to you, today, you will be in paradise with me."

The last challenge I have for you today is to live out that last line. Jesus says, "Truly, I promise you, today you will be in paradise with me." And when we say to our Father—pray to our Father, we pray on earth as it is in heaven. And so we want to experience a little bit of heaven, a little bit of paradise here on earth. I believe God wants you to experience a little bit of paradise every day. Let's be on the lookout for the paradise experience that God wants to give us today.

Have a great day. And remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.