Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Isaiah wrote the prophecy we heard in today’s First Reading six hundred years before the birth of Christ. It was one of various prophecies about how the Messiah would save God’s people: through suffering. In other words, God was preparing his Chosen people to recognize the promised Messiah by “affliction” and by “being crushed in iniquity.” These are direct allusions to the passion, crucifixion, and death of our Lord Jesus Christ – 600 years ahead of time. And it was precisely through those sufferings that Jesus would take all our sins upon himself, atone for them, and re-open the gates of heaven for us.

The Apostles, as we heard in today’s Gospel, hadn’t studied the prophecies of Isaiah closely enough. Their idea of the Messiah was a powerful political and military leader who would make Israel back into a player on the international scene. And so, James and John, looking forward to that day, try to reserve their spots in the King’s cabinet. Jesus must remind them that his Kingdom is about sacrifice and service, not power politics and self-indulgence.

But we can ask ourselves, why didn’t Jesus attain our salvation by power-politics?

Why did God arrange things so that we receive salvation through the cross?

Today’s Psalm gives us the answer: “Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.” Trust: that is the foundation stone of salvation. Original sin, which broke down mankind’s relationship with God, was a failure of trust. As the Catechism puts it (#397): “Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

To rebuild that relationship, which is the only place the human heart can find happiness, God had to win back our trust. He did that by suffering and dying on the cross, proving once and for all that nothing we can do, no matter how terrible and evil it may be, will turn away his love.

Love,

Fr. Jason