Johannine Hours
October 1995

Luke 23,46 
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[The "Johannine hours" are meant as a way of seeking God in silence
and prayer in the midst of our daily life. During the course of a day,
take a moment to read the Bible passage with the short commentary and
to reflect on the questions which follow. Afterwards, a small group
people can meet to share what they have discovered and perhaps for a
time of prayer.] 


Jesus is nothing but a dying body, hanging on the gallows. "He had no
form or charm to attract us...we thought of him as someone being
punished and struck with affliction by God" (Isaiah 53,2-4). Almost
everyone ran away from this vision of horror, a sign of definitive
failure, of the futility of love. If he underwent such a curse, then
God must have abandoned him; God expects nothing else from him! 

In the face of death there is nothing to hope for, nothing to do. All
has been said and done. And yet, through this last prayer of Jesus, we
discover that he takes the initiative once again. Far from resigning
himself to the fatality of destiny, he gives himself: "I entrust my
life to you." 

If in the eyes of all God seems to have gone away, for Jesus he is
still the Father. The one who says to the Son, "You are my only Son;
you are all my love." In other words, you matter more than anything; I
look for my joy in you. Until the end, Jesus roots his life in this
communion with the Father, in this expectation he has discovered in
God. 

It is this broken and dying body, a source of fear, that will express
more clearly than any word and more powerfully than any miracles the
authenticity of God's expectation, a source of communion. This wounded
body will confirm the possibility of a faithful response of love which
nothing can prevent or silence. All is given, everything expresses the
gift. Then, at the empty tomb, people will realize that nothing was
conceded to the absurd by resignation. 

>From that time on, every being, even the most wounded one, even in a
situation of failure, can communicate something of Christ, can live
out self-giving as the meaning of existence. Every situation, even the
most definitive dead-end, can be the place where the mystery of death
and resurrection breaks in. 

Letting Christ pray in me "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,
my life," even when I no longer expect anything or when nobody expects
anything from me, means already participating in his resurrection. 

      Where can I perceive a reflection of the Father's expectation:
      in creation, in other people, in the poor, in a given situation?
      For whom can I pray these words of Jesus on the cross? 

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"Johannine Hours" - 10/95 - ©71250 Taizé-Community, France.
taize@cpe.ipl.fr 




file: /pub/resources/text/taize/johannine: jh9510.txt
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