What Christ Saw

It is not entirely accurate to say that wicked people crucified Jesus. Those who caused the crucifixion so long ago in Jerusalem were community leaders and religious leaders - people of good reputation, but who were acting from misguided motives of preserving the peace and with a false understanding of how to protect what was sacred in their society and in their religious life. Certainly the responsibility for Jesus' crucifixion lies with them, but it lies also with those like us, who also passively accept those things.

Imagine, for a moment, seeing as the Crucified Christ sees. As He looks out from His place on the Cross, what is it His eyes rest upon? Us. It’s all of us whom Christ sees as He looks down in agony from His cross. We should remember that we, too, bear some responsibility for all of this. It’s futile to blame any one person or group of people. The fault is everywhere and it’s no further away than our own hearts and wills. Sinfulness is universal and, like a deadly disease, it infects us - every one of us. So, with St. Paul, we must confess that the good we want to do, we do not do; and what we want avoid doing is the very thing we do.

So we watch now with Christ. But as we watch, we had best do it with contrite and humble hearts, praying for our own forgiveness and for the forgiveness of the entire world. Pray with the understanding that Jesus Christ, knowing all there is to know about each and every one of us, submitted to death on a cross so that we might be forgiven and restored to unity with God and with each other through the merits of His sacrificial self-offering.

And so we behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. May we accept his forgiveness so that we may do the good; and in doing the good, may we receive His peace.

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Painting: "What Jesus Saw From The Cross"

by James Tissot (1836-1902)