Reflection: On the Road to Victory (Br Samuel Lim)

When we come across a cross-junction and are faced with a few paths to choose from, our immediate intuition tends to make us choose the path that is the easiest and most pleasurable, automatically rejecting those paths that involve inconveniences and difficulties.

Towards the end of Jesus’ public ministry, we read in the Gospels:

Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, and on the way he took the Twelve to one side and said to them, “Now we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is about to be handed over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the pagans to be mocked and scourged and crucified; and on the third day he will rise again.”

Matt 20:17-19

Jesus willingly continued his way to Jerusalem even though he knew that he would be handed over, condemned, mocked, scourged and crucified. I’m not proposing that we discuss high theology here on his obedience to the Father or his salvific act on the cross or the necessity of his death for the sake of the sin of humanity etc etc. Being fully human himself, I’m sure his decision to carry on their journey to Jerusalem was one of the toughest decisions he had to make.

When I was a little boy, I enjoyed family holidays. I remember going to Kuala Lumpur when I was in primary school. The experience on the plane was an enjoyable one, though I was suffering from motion sickness. When I was 21, I was on another flight to KL. However, that was a totally different experience. It was the same journey, from Sabah to KL, on the same airline, and they were probably serving similar kind of in-flight meal. But that two and half hours’ flight was possibly the worst in my life because I was on my way to KL for a heart treatment in the National Heart Institute – so it wasn’t for holiday this time. Although the journey seems to be the same as my previous journeys to KL, the destination and the purpose of the trip essentially change the journey. Knowing our end and purpose determines our whole disposition before we even embark on the path of reaching the end.

Jesus, although he knew he would not enjoy any moment of it, willingly went through those pains and sufferings because he was convinced of his purpose (to show the depth of God’s love for humanity) and end (that he would rise again on the third day – Matt 20:19).

In life we come face to face with many difficult and painful situations. Nobody wants to go through these but we know most of these are inevitable. But how we go through these and how we make sense of life are determined by knowing our purpose and end. Just to mention briefly, our ultimate purpose is to love [cf. Matt 22:37-39] and our end is to be in relationship with God [cf. John 17:3]. However, my reflection is not about our destination but our journey, and the importance of our knowing our destination since that essentially changes our journey.

Recently, I was just talking to a young man who wants to make some radical decisions to commit his life to God. But saying ‘Yes’ to God entails saying ‘No’ to many other aspects of his life and all these No’s have their own difficult consequences – and he is experiencing all these consequences. Going through all these is painful, but how much more painful it is if he cannot see the purpose and the end of where he’s headed to. In times like these, one is invited to be single-minded and whole-hearted, to focus on the essentials and most importantly not to lose sight of Jesus for he is our ultimate reason and he is the one who is seeing us through.

“I can do all things with Christ who strengthens me.” Phil 4:13.

Jesus is not only our ultimate destination; he walks with us every step of the way. So choose life, choose Christ!

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Stay tuned for the next post by Br Alphonsus Dominic on 31st Mar 2011.