45._ Destruction of the Temple

Now the Kingdom comes; but so that it be possible it is necessary that everything changes. The new wine cannot be kept in old winebags. The change will affect us: we must become, to make ourselves like children, to be born again; but also it will affect the world, to the structures, the institutions, the nations, history, the universe. Even "the stars will be swinged". So that it emerges God is necessary a cosmic change; in His supreme level of emergence are surpassed all the previous ones. The universe is trascended. The Kingdom of God is not of this world. The presence of God in this world is fleeting.

His symbolic presence in Israel no longer will be necessary, because now He will be made present really. At the moment "He is hidden", we see Him in darkness, like through a "dark crystal"; but in His Kingdom we will see Him face to face. The veil of the Temple will be ripped. The same Temple will lose its sense, because God will be present in all, for all, everywhere. The Old Alliance finishes, to open the way to the New one.

Israel, like selected town, like hermeneutic scope, is going to cede step to a new town of God: all the renewed humanity, the community of the saints. The old Temple will be destroyed to leave site to the new one; now it will be "house of oration, not lair of thieves". The old Jerusalem will be destroyed so that in its place the New Jerusalem is raised, glorious, "adorned like a bride" for her eternal wedding with God.

This was what all the prophets waited for, the accomplishment of the Promise.

46._ Pernicious

For Jesus, all this is on the verge of happening. How is he going to shut up it? He must proclaim it throughout, and mainly in the own heart of Israel: in Jerusalem, and to its authorities. It is the culmination of his mission, his public manifestation in the "holy mount" --Zion --, as Yahveh were manifested formerly in the mount Sinai. Thus, then, he goes to Jerusalem mounted in an ass, as prophet Zachary announced that would come the new king of Israel, the Son of David; and he goes during the celebrations of Passover, commemorative of the liberation of Egypt and the revelation in the Sinai.

His message was also of liberation, of joy for everybody, and specially for the Jewish authorities; if the Temple were going to be destroyed, were to construct one new, incomparably ampler and beautiful one, "not done already by human hands". But the authorities, closed, obtuse, did not understand it, did not believe to him. "Theirs did not receive him".

(Neither they, nor so many so many others, that we have listened to his message and have not been able to believe it; we have considered it pernicious, deceptive, escapist, alienant, disturber, detrimental, absurd, fantastic, ingenuous, utopian. And sadder is when at the most theirs we have been, when, after "to have eaten in his plate", we have disappointed ourselves of him until getting even to perhaps betray him.)

He put them into inconvenience, he threatened them, he hurt their interests, he tried to snatch their power, their prerogatives, their seats of honor. That insignificant Nazarene was an agitator, a sedititious one, and heretic; he had to be eliminated.

47._ His will

Jesus knew it. Had he to flee, to resign to his mission? No, of course; God was with him; everything was a plan of God, His will must be done. If he had to be catched and to be tortured, were by divine aim, as it was predicted in the writings, in the poem of the "Servant of Yahveh". But, of some mysterious way, the plan of God would be fulfilled, and he would be also the predicted "Son of Man" who is to the right hand of God and comes victorious over the clouds.

The plan of God was to become a man like us, with all its consequences, except the sin. A consequent man with his message of love and salvation, peace and justice, until at the cost of his own life. Because "who that wants to save his life, will lose it, but who that loses it by me, will found it ".

God does not want the death of Jesus in itself, nor to thus apply the punishment to him that the men deserve and to appease His wrath; no, He consequently accepts it with His message, like inevitable circumstance in the fulfillment of His mission; and also, more deeply, to support with our mortal and suffering condition, and to thus be able to engage in a dialog with us "from you to you": You are least and ephemeral? -I also. You are a loser? -I also. You are victim of the process, for the sake of God? -I also. You feel failed, left by God? -I also.

This dialogue is necessary to convince to us, to transform to us, to change our condition, to wash our faults, to convert us, to save us. This one is the sense --not propitiatory-- in which we can say that Jesus "loaded with our guilts", and died for "to repair the original sin of Adam".

48._ Fulfillment

Paradoxically, at no moment is God revealed Himself more, at no moment God identifies/incarnates Himself more authentically in Jesus, than in the cross, when he exclaims: "My God, my God, why you have abandoned to me?".

Everything has been fulfilled. God has made His will. He has provided the victim adapted for the sacrifice, like He did with Abraham: an innocent lamb for a sacrifice without spot; as that paschal lamb whose blood was signal of salvation in the doors of the Israelite homes, and his meat food for the liberation.

49._ Collaboration

There will be someone who he had tried, in his good heart, to save God from God. He will receive one lasts recrimination: "move away, Satan". That one is not the way. What he must do is to collaborate with God in the accomplishment of His will, implying himself also, without denying Him, until giving his life --and he will be able to find it truely--, dying like Him if it is necessary, but "head down, because he is not worthy to undergo the same death of his Lord". Thus he will have demonstrated the love that was in his heart: "You know that I love you".
____________________________________________________________________________________

Prophecies

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, says Yahveh.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn't return there,
but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud,
and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth:
it shall not return to me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
(Isaiah 55, 8-11)

Letter

Since all the children share the same human nature, he too shared equally in it,
so that by his death he could set aside him who held the power of death, namely the devil,
and set free all those who had been held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.

For it was not the angels that he took to himself; he took to himself the line of Abraham.
It was essential that he should in this way be made completely like his brothers
so that he could become a compassionate and trustworthy high priest for their relationship to God,
able to expiate the sins of the people.

For the suffering he himself passed through while being put to the test
enables him to help others when they are being put to the test.
(Letter to the Hebrew 2, 14-18)

Gospel

I have loved you just as the Father has loved me.
Remain in my love.

If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love.

I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you
and your joy be complete.

This is my commandment:
love one another, as I have loved you.

No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends, if you do what I command you.

I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master's business;
I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father.
(John 15, 9-15)

previous-blog----------------------------------------------index----------------------------------------------------------next-blog