He Gave His Life

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During this Holy Week, we commemorate how Christ was accused of blasphemy and then arrested, mocked, tortured, and crucified. Why did it happen? Why did He allow this to happen? Why would He offer Himself to be killed? 

Throughout history, people had been offering animal sacrifices to God to atone for their sins. These sacrifices had to be done repeatedly because sinning against God is a grave matter, and no animal sacrifice could sufficiently repair the damage sin had done to the relationship between God and the people. Jesus, in His love for us, offered Himself to be the perfect sacrifice to restore this relationship. What did this look like?

Recall that, right before His death, Jesus talked about a grain of wheat needing to die in order to bear much fruit (see John 12:24). This is true of other plants, too. Their seeds have to be buried in order to become fruitful plants. Some things, like eggs, peanuts, and sunflower seeds, don’t have to die but do have to be broken open to be useful to us. 

Let’s take this imagery and apply it to Christ. Jesus was born fully human and fully God. Being human meant His body was just like ours, and He felt the same emotions we feel. Being God meant He was filled with all divine goodness, including love, joy, peace, hope, and all the other attributes of Love. When Jesus was beaten and crucified, His body was ripped open by the scourging, the crown of thorns, the nails, and the sword. As you picture these events happening, imagine all of His love, joy, peace, and all the goodness of His Spirit escaping the confines of His body and being poured out upon the spectators at Calvary and then the whole world. Similar to how a seed dies so that a tree can grow from it, Christ willingly gave up His body so that His Spirit inside could ‘escape,’ in a sense. In other words, Christ had to be broken open and killed so that the power of God’s Love, and all it contains, could be showered down upon the world. 

And it didn’t end there. Because of His resurrection, this ‘showering’ of His love, peace, joy, hope, and all the rest continues today through us, when we let His Spirit, the Scriptures, and the sacraments move us to make our own personal sacrifices to share His Love with others.

As we reflect on the events of this most Holy Week, let’s give thanks to our Lord, Who gave up His life to show us His Way of Love and bring us back to God.

“If he gives his life as an offering for sin… the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him.” – Isaiah 53:10

Open my eyes, that I may see You. Open my ears, that I may hear You. Open my heart, that I may love You in the people around me.

Thank you for reading my reflection.  All thanks to God for giving me the ideas and guiding my words!    © 2025 Gina Bedell   

  

Through these reflections, I invite you, the reader, to reflect on a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other qualified persons in order to grow in your faith and understanding of God’s love and will for your life. 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below.  Comments are always welcome! 

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P.S.

Pray for peace at home and around the world. Donate to a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the people around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

You Already Imitate Christ

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Holy Week is a time to commemorate and marvel at the power of Christ’s unconditional and self-giving love for all people – His immense, unequivocal, and eternal love for you. 

Christ’s love is uniform and widespread; all people are included. Now, He commands you to do the same: Love your neighbor as yourself, do good to those who hate you, forgive those who hurt you, and pray for those who mistreat you (see Luke 6). While the task to follow Him may be daunting, here are a few examples of how you already do it:

When you’re up in the middle of the night holding a crying child when you need to sleep, you follow Christ:

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).  

When you hold your tongue instead of lashing out when someone criticizes or mocks you, you imitate Christ:

“And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer” (Matthew 27:12).

When you help someone without judging whether they’re worthy, you imitate Christ:

“If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet” (John 13:14).

When you forgive someone, you imitate Christ:

“He said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’” (Luke 7:48).

When you befriend the ostracized, love the addict, visit the prisoner, or feed the homeless, you follow Christ: 

“Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

Also, the events of Good Friday assure us that Christ will always forgive us. We’re to do the same:  

“The other (criminal), however, rebuking him, said in reply, ‘Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied to him, ‘Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise’” (Luke 23:40-43).

Christ commands us to love everyone. He’s shown us how to give of ourselves, especially to those we find most difficult to love. You’ve probably already done so, as in the examples above. Ask Him for the grace to continue. Then, pay attention to the sense of peace He gives you when you do these things. His peace and His joy are how He’ll reward you. 

 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete”

(John 15:11).

May you take time this Holy Week to grasp Christ’s eternal love for you, and may this love inspire you to imitate Him more each day.

“How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good He has done for me?” 

– Psalm 116:12

“Lord, I want to love as You do.”

Thank you for reading my reflection. © 2024 Gina Bedell     Comments are always welcome! 

Please share this with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. Blogspot doesn’t have a ‘subscribe’ feature and so I appreciate your help in sharing my reflections. Thanks!

If you or someone you know would like to receive these writings directly to your inbox, please email me at ginabedell1@gmail.com and I will add you to my ‘BCC’ email list.

You can also find my posts on Facebook!

P.S.

Pray for peace in Ukraine, Russia, the Middle East, and around the world. Donate toward a cause that tugs at your heart. Take care of those around you; take care of our planet. Pray for the families around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by war and natural disasters.

Why Didn't Jesus Fight Back?

 

During this Holy Week, we recall how Christ was accused of blasphemy, mocked, beaten, and crucified, and then rose from the dead. We may wonder: Why didn’t He use His divine power to fight back against those who wanted to destroy Him? A modern-day movie may help us understand.

“Hacksaw Ridge” tells the true story of Desmond Doss, a Christian who enlists as an army medic during WWII. He wants to contribute to the war effort; at the same time, a traumatic experience when he was younger results in his refusal to handle a gun. His fellow soldiers mock him, beat him, and taunt him mercilessly, wanting him to fight back, but he takes their assaults without saying a word or raising his fists. The other men realize they’re powerless against him; they can’t make him give in or fight back, and so he wins those fights by not fighting. Later, at the horrific Battle of Okinawa, he tends to the wounded and still refuses to touch a weapon. He ends up risking his own life to save the lives of 75 men – the same soldiers who attacked him for being a ‘weakling.’ (Watch the movie to find out how!) If he had given in to save himself from their attacks, he wouldn’t have been in a position to save the others.

“He was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins…

He was silent and opened not his mouth…

Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.”

--Isaiah 53:5, 7, 11 

Christ didn’t fight back because He knew He could accomplish something greater by letting them kill Him. He loves us so much that He offered Himself to be punished for our sins; our sins were nailed to the cross with Him. He didn’t fight death because He knew He would conquer death. He knew He would rise from the dead, and He had to die first in order to rise.

Jesus’ resurrection proved that God’s love is more powerful than evil, more powerful than sin, and more powerful than even death itself. Satan could coerce the crowd to turn against Jesus and crucify Him, but Satan couldn’t keep Christ dead. Jesus was dead and buried, He rose from the dead, and He is still alive! His resurrection won eternal life for Himself and us.

“Thank You, Lord, for offering Yourself to be crucified for our sins so that we may join You in eternal life.”

Thank you for reading my reflection. © 2022 Gina Bedell     Comments are always welcome! Please share it with your friends by clicking on one of the icons below. Thanks!

 p.s.

We continue to pray for an end to the war. If you’d like to help the people of Ukraine through the Cleveland Maidan Association, you may use either PayPal or a credit/debit card here:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/... 

Checks may be made payable to Cleveland Maidan Association and mailed to

Pokrova Ukrainian Church

6812 Broadview Rd.

Parma, OH 44134

 

Die to Live

(March 31, 2021) This week, Christians are celebrating Holy Week. Many of us will participate in  Mass and other church services at least once before Sunday’s celebration of  Easter. 

The scripture readings for this week are familiar and we know the story.  Sometimes what’s familiar can become routine or humdrum and so, to combat  that attitude, I wanted to look at Holy Week as if for the first time. I was searching  for a way to understand it better intellectually so I could comprehend it deeper  spiritually. (This was in line with an earlier reflection I wrote about moving our  faith from our heads to our hearts.) I’d like to share with you a few thoughts that  came to mind surrounding Christ’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.  This is a simple explanation; it’s not very profound, and it’s not meant to be a  lesson in catechism. I hope that my sharing these images helps both you and me  wrap our heads around what we call the Paschal Mystery, and fosters a more  meaningful Holy Week and joyful Easter for all of us. 

First, I had to understand that, throughout history, people had been offering  animal sacrifices to God to atone for their sins. These sacrifices had to be done  repeatedly over time because sinning against God is a grave matter, and no  animal sacrifice could sufficiently repair the damage done by sin to the relationship between God and the people. Jesus, in His love for us, offered  Himself to be the perfect sacrifice to forgive sin -- everyone’s sins -- once and for  all. And so in humility He became a man to live among us, to show us that God  loves and forgives us, and to teach us how to love each other (see Matthew 5). Jesus knew His message wouldn’t be received well by everyone, and that what He  said and did would make some people angry enough to want to kill Him (see John  11:45-53). Out of love for us He obeyed the Father’s plan. He willingly became the  sacrifice; He took the sins of the world upon Himself on the cross and became  “the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). 

Now, here are the images that came to mind while I considered all of this. Right  before His death, Jesus talks about a grain of wheat needing to die in order to live 

and become many seeds (see John 12:24). This is true of other plants, too. Their  seeds have to be buried in order to become fruitful plants. Some things don’t  have to die but do have to be broken open for their glory to shine. For example, a  geode looks like an ordinary rock on the outside; cut it open and we see the  magnificent colorful design inside. Eggs, peanuts, and sunflower seeds all have to  be broken open to be useful to us. 

We believe that Jesus was born fully human and fully God. His divine nature caused Him to be filled with all of God’s love, joy, peace, hope, etc. His human  nature meant He could show and share God’s love, joy, peace, etc., only as His  body allowed Him to. Specifically, He could be in only one place at one time. 

When Jesus was beaten and crucified, His body was ripped open by the scourging,  the crown of thorns, the nails, and the sword. As I picture all of this happening, I  imagine all that love, joy, peace, and all the rest escaping the confines of His body  and being flung out upon the spectators at Calvary and the whole world. Similar to how a seed dies so that a tree can grow from it, Christ willingly gave up  His body so that His Spirit inside could ‘escape,’ in a sense. In other words, Christ  had to be broken open, killed, and then raised up so that the power of God’s love,  peace, joy, and all the rest can be showered down upon the world. This  ‘showering’ is the Spirit, the Gospels, all of scripture and the sacraments, that propel His love, peace, joy, etc., forward into history. 

Through His resurrection, Jesus proves that love is stronger than evil; sin and  death no longer have power over us. Death doesn’t get the last word. And,  through His resurrection and ascension back to heaven, Jesus is no longer limited  by a physical body. He can be everywhere, at any time. We can sing for joy  because He is with us now and always! If we let Him, He will put His Spirit into our  minds and hearts; He will equip us to fight evil and spread His love to the world. Hallelujah! 

I hope this imagery helps you as much as it helped me to better understand the  immense love behind Christ’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension. May  we all have a blessed Holy Week and a Happy Easter! 

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he  has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ 

from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This  inheritance is kept in heaven for you.” 

1 Peter 1:3-4 

“Lord, help me grasp the magnitude of Your love, and inspire me to spread it to the world.” 

This article is a personal reflection by Gina Bedell © 2021. It and other reflections written by her invite  the reader to ponder a given topic and then seek deeper answers through prayer, additional spiritual  reading, and/or consultation with clergy or other persons who may guide the reader to a deeper faith  and understanding of God’s love and will for their life.