April 2, 2022

 

When Jesus saw his mother together with the disciple whom he loved standing near by, he said to her, ‘Woman, this is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘This is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (Gospel of John Ch. 19, 26+27)

 

Dear Readers,

 

Each war, each act of violence, each lie is a blow into God's holy face. God is love. God wants charity. Jesus Christ is the truth. He wants peace. God's commandments are ways of guidance to lead and protect us through life.

 

The Lord Jesus Christ says, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (Gospel of John, Ch. 14, 8). And now the Son of God hangs on the cross of Golgotha, humiliated and beaten with fists. Seeing Christ on the cross is seeing God. It means to see the One who loves every human being unconditionally. Who also loves both of us, you, and me.  „God means love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” as St. John is telling us in his 1 st Epistle (1st Epistle of John, Ch. 4, 16).

 

"Love is God’s own element.  Whoever belongs to Him must live in love as He himself is love" (quote from Roland Werner/Author and Evangelist in Germany). To live with hate and violence against one´s fellow human being is not compatible with living in God´s love. Whoever hates and kills his fellow human beings mocks God.

 

Even while dying, Jesus Christ shows his love. He is and remains the loving God even while dying on the cross. He feels the grief which his mother is going through. He sees into her heart. He knows her suffering. Still on the cross he creates something completely new: he cares for his mother and gives her a new home. She is to live with his disciple John in the future. John will look after her. She will find a home with him.

 

Jesus addresses his mother with the word "woman". He does not say "mother”. In saying it this way, it becomes clear, that the Lord does not “belong to his lively mother” as we do, dear readers. We belong to our mothers, but the Lord Jesus is God's own Son and completes the will of the heavenly Father. And yet he comforts his worldly mother. He sees what she needs and what John needs. Their wounded hearts need comfort. This consolation is strongest when it can unfold in love for one's fellow human beings. For Jesus, to take on comforting others, means, to take on responsibility for those who need comfort. Whoever wants to comfort others does not have to make complicated announcements. Comforting often means taking on a concrete task. It means to help those in need. John understands this. He takes Mary into his home and takes care of her from now on, as if she were his own mother. This is what love looks like. - These days we see millions of people fleeing from death and misery. To help these women and children means comforting them.  

 

 “For love is as strong as death” (Solomon’s Song of Songs 8, 6). Water cannot extinguish the fire of love, and streams of water cannot drown it. We Christians are supposed to share faith, hope, love with each other. Out of these, love for God and for our fellow human beings is the greatest of all achievements, as the Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the church in Corinth. (1 Corinthians 13:13). Death changes everything, it destroys. But love overcomes everything. It creates new life, and it creates a future. It heals relationships. It changes the heart. It creates comfort.

 

I kindly invite you to pray with me:

 

Dear Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for your boundless love. We thank you  for taking all guilt upon yourself on to the cross of Calvary out of sheer love for us. You did not strike back when you were struck. You never destroyed, hated or murdered. You loved till the end.

 

We thank you for the comfort your word provides for us. We thank you for the comfort that other people give us. Make us comforters for those around us.

 

Fill our hearts with your love and peace, which is greater than all reason. Change the world through your love and show us what we can do concretely out of love for you and for our fellow human beings. Amen.

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© 2023 Hans-Peter Nann