Have you experienced being judged wrongly? Or have you judged someone prematurely? What did you do to counter your wrong judgment? - Daily Reflections March 23,2015

JESUS: VICTIM AND SAVIOR

 

We are on the fifth and final week of the Lenten season. Slowly the stage is being set in our commemoration and celebration of the great dramatic events of our salvation. Our Mass readings today date back from the ancient Church, with a clear parallelism between the First Reading (from the book of the prophet Daniel: the story of Susanna and the old men) and the Gospel (the incident about the woman caught in adultery). In both episodes, innocent blood was spared — thankfully.

         But it would not be so in the case of Jesus Christ. He was not to be spared from suffering and death. But even this was for a higher cause: no less than our salvation from sin.

         In the Gospel episode today, the woman caught in adultery was just a pawn in an insidious plot to trap Jesus (“so that they [the scribes and Pharisees] might have something to accuse him of,” as the passage puts it). In other words, the victim was really Jesus, not the woman. And yet this was nothing to Him at all. In fact, He is more than ready and willing to go all the way to Calvary and to die on the cross for our sake.

       Defending someone from an angry lynch mob, facing a hostile crowd, confronting conspirators in their sinister manipulations — these were nothing at all to Jesus. But it doesn’t mean that He is a heartless, condemning judge. Rather, He is our Savior — suffering, but not defeated; merciful and forgiving, not harsh. Fr. Martin Macasaet, SDB

 

REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Have you experienced being judged wrongly? Or have you judged someone prematurely? What did you do to counter your wrong judgment?

 

Teach me, Lord, to be a compassionate person, one who first tries to understand and walk in the shoes of another before making any judgment.