Readings

To me, these readings indicate that Holy Week is quickly approaching. The first reading reminded me of one of the classes I took in college titled: "The mystery of death and human suffering." On the first day of the class my professor confessed that the work that we would do in the class and the texts that we would look often could often cause doubt and frustration. It was working through the doubt and frustration that we could come to a deeper understanding of our faith and our relationship with God. The first reading is one that we looked at because it is representative of a suffering people trying to make sense of their suffering. It is in our nature to accept that bad things happen; especially to "bad people," but it is harder to understand that bad things happen to "good people." I think the mistake people often make is to over simplify suffering in making the assumption that it exists because we are sinners. It's a dangerous path to go down because it once again places God in the role of puppet masters and it makes the assumption that God is the cause of our suffering. I just refuse to believe in this version of creation and this version of our creator. God knew that when the choice was made to become human, that suffering was a part of the package because death is a part of the human condition. So when God took on human form, God openly embraced the suffering that goes along with it. I think near the end Jesus struggled with this decision. We spend our life constantly seeking the greater good and sometimes we get distracted by the temptations that come our way, death is our final step to reaching that greater good and becoming complete or one with our creator.