The joy behind the sadness

A recording of today's gospel and blog can be downloaded through this link.

Today’s gospel (Matthew 17: 22-27) shows the disciples once again giving way to those thoughts that, as Jesus says, are of man, not of God. How crushing for men who fancied themselves the future princes of Jesus’ kingdom! In the first part of this gospel, Jesus announces to them His approaching suffering and His victory over death: He foresees that He will be handed over into the power of men and be put to death, but thereafter – by some unutterable marvel – He would return to life. And the reaction of the disciples? A great sadness came over them. Let us leave aside that part of the gospel about the half shekel and focus rather on this sadness of the disciples.

What a contrast from their later companion St Paul who commands Christians to rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice. Not only was the Lord near to the disciples, He was there in their very presence. And yet they were sad. Whence comes their sadness and whence comes ours?

Joy is one of the qualities of love, alongside mercy and peace. When it is lost, it may be because we are deprived of the thing that we love. We lose a parent or perhaps we lose a child, and we grieve for what was and for what might have been. It is in such moments that our fiat in sorrow in COLW becomes such a familiar feature of our inner landscape.

The sadness of the disciples is of another kind, however. It is true that they do not understand the future story about His death and resurrection that Jesus has just told them. Yet more than that, they do not yet grasp the paradox that was at the heart of the gospel on Saturday: that death is the condition of life. They do not understand yet that in surrendering to the Father’s forming action – from which path even Jesus could not deviate, despite His prayer in Gethsemane – the fiat in sorrow always contains in it the seeds of a fiat in joy. We do not suffer in vain, nor do we suffer alone. Again, returning to the gospel of Saturday, wherever I am, my servant will be there too. We are accustomed to think of suffering as a lonely place. But if we believed the words of Jesus, our sufferings would be for us a sign of His presence, and proof – not that we can command it – that He is making us His companion.

So, why cannot the disciples understand this at this point? It may be for two reasons – two reasons that may also apply to us.

First, they may not understand because they simply do not think like that – their thoughts are of man, not of God, to use again Jesus’ words. It is a logical blind spot. It makes no sense. It is a blank on their internal map. Victory does not emerge from defeat; they believe this, bizarrely, despite their knowledge of the history of Israel where exile and return or even death and resurrection underpin the story of God’s people.

Second – and perhaps this tends to be more our case – even if they have understood the logic, they have not internalised its consequences for themselves. Or rather, they have not yet fully surrendered to the Father’s forming action, preferring His ways to their own, choosing His priorities over theirs, putting His glory first rather than their satisfactions. In the previous chapter of St Matthew, the newly appointed first pope had earned himself a scolding for thinking that he could persuade Jesus to abandon His march towards death and suffering. And yet here were the disciples, witnesses of Jesus’ astonishing ministry of truth and liberation, once again downcast at the sad prospect of His foretold trials. Now, it is not a blind spot; it is a refusal of the path.

Is every suffering – or sadness in the case of the disciples - a refusal of the path? That cannot be the case. Jesus wept, Mary faced seven sorrows, and neither refused God anything. But sadness or suffering that will not see or look for its companion future joy? That may indeed be a refusal. The disciples’ refusal is evident since, as the gospel says, their sadness overcame them. And yet, if they had only raised their eyes again and looked at the last line of Jesus’ prophecy, they would have glimpsed the rising light of love, the joyful assurance of His presence with all His servants, that flickers in expectation, even behind the horizon of the darkness of God’s death.