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In the Passion narrative, people fuss and bother a great deal about who exactly Jesus is.
Is He a Galilean revolutionary?
A prophet?
A wonder-worker?
The King of the Jews?
An innocent man?
Meanwhile, the Lord appears singularly uninterested in this question.
To the contrary, He focuses on others.
He gives the Apostles the Holy Eucharist.
He settles their dispute among themselves about who is the greatest.
He tells Peter how he will betray his Master, then forgives him ahead of time.
Christ tells the Apostles to stay awake—again, for their sakes—then wakes them up when they fall asleep.
To the authorities and interrogators who will listen, He tries to point out the dishonesty into which they have fallen.
He comforts the wailing women.
And He pardons the repentant thief and promises him eternal life.
Short summary of the Passion of Christ:
His accusers focus on who He is; He focuses on everyone else.
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Every Sunday, we proclaim Jesus’ true identity, namely: awesome beyond awesome, divine and glorious.
But, of course, we do not testify to Him for His sake. He does not need us to settle the question of Who He is.
He has always known perfectly well.
No, we testify to Him for our sakes. It does us good to focus on Christ; we lose ourselves if we don’t.
But He is focused on us. By dying on the Cross for us, the Creator of all things has revealed in-full His fundamental rationale.
His rationale for everything–
for making everything, governing everything, guiding everything to its conclusion:
It’s all for us.
Jesus said to them in reply, “I shall ask you one question, and if you answer it for me, then I shall tell you by what authority I do these things. Where was John’s baptism from? Was it of heavenly or of human origin?”
Father Mark White Blog 