Whatever difficulties we’re enduring in our lives can be walked into the Holy Week Jesus endured
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Do prepositions matter?
Our English teachers would be delighted at the question! They might be even more delighted to know that this grammatical question has both theological and spiritual importance — an importance highlighted by the readings for this last week before Holy Week.
To illustrate the point, consider what St. Fulgentius of Ruspe said in a letter which the Church gives us in the Office of Readings this week: “[Christ] is at once priest and sacrifice, God and temple. He is the priest through whom we have been reconciled, the sacrifice by which we have been reconciled, the temple in which we have been reconciled, the God with whom we have been reconciled.” Through, by, in, with — each of these prepositions draws our attention to an important dimension of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. We would miss something theologically important if we weren’t aware of each of those dimensions.
What about the spiritual importance of prepositions? It’s illustrated by the Scripture readings for the week.
This week we hear the story of Susanna, falsely accused of adultery in the Book of Daniel. The Book of Numbers tells us about Israel being attacked by serpents and Moses mounting a bronze serpent on a pole. The prophet Jeremiah tells us how the people are hatching plots against him. And the Gospel of John tells us of the plan to kill Jesus and the prophecy that He will die for the people.
Something bad happens to every one of those people. Every one of them cries out to God. Every one of them is heard by God. Every one of them is rescued by God. In those respects, all the stories are the same.
The crucial difference comes in the prepositions. Susanna, Israel and Jeremiah are all rescued by God from death. Jesus, by contrast, is rescued through His death. And that, friends, is enormously important for us.
When we face troubles and cry out to God, we want God to save us from our troubles. And that’s OK! Sometimes He does. But when we slip into expecting God to rescue us from our troubles, that’s where we go wrong. Sometimes — as with Jesus — God saves us through our troubles. And that hurts. The cross always hurts.
St. Leo the Great put it this way in another reading the Church gives us this week: “Through the cross the faithful receive strength from weakness, glory from dishonor, life from death.” There it is again: through. Such a subtle difference in language; such an enormous difference in the life of a disciple.
The readings this week are straining toward Jesus’ trials in Holy Week. I think they’re also inviting us to something. We can take whatever troubles we’re carrying to the altar. If we do, then whatever “holy week” we’re enduring in our lives can be walked into the Holy Week Jesus endured. If we walk our little “holy week” into Jesus’ big Holy Week, then these encouraging words of St. Athanasius will be realized in us: “If we follow Christ closely, we shall be allowed, even on this earth, to stand as it were on the threshold of the heavenly Jerusalem, and enjoy the contemplation of the everlasting feast.”
