Daily Gospel Reflection for April 7, 2020

Today's Gospel: John 13:21-33, 36-38 This most solemn week of the year leads to our greatest joy. “Now is the Son of Man glorified,” Jesus tells His disciples, for He understands -- though they do not yet -- that He is about to offer His life. His mission is to be a ransom for even those who aren’t interested in His sacrifice, who can’t fathom the depth of love the next three days will demonstrate, who claim not to care. Perhaps it has become trite to say you need Good Friday to experience Easter Sunday, but now we approach the gravity of Good Friday. A complete, whole, perfect, sinless man will have His life cut short -- or so it would seem -- to glorify a God who had seemed to abandon Him, to save a people who said they didn’t want to be saved. A mother and a tribe of friends were left grieving what might have seemed to be the end of their ministry, some maybe mourning the loss of the sense of purpose they’d had in following this Man whom they believed to be more. Fears, doubts, loss, suffering. The disciples had no choice but to sit in this painful space, waiting until God revealed the rest of His plan. Though they’d been told what was to come, I don’t know that they all one hundred percent believed it, after this abrupt end to a Life that gave them life. It was darkness. It was night. We need to be okay with being in this space and letting God do His work in us in His time. Ultimately we are an Easter people, and the joy comes in the morning.