NOTES for Luk 22:39-42

The events we read about in the Gospel of Luke today are familiar to everyone. We constantly encounter injustice and violence, cruelty and betrayal. Sin and suffering have penetrated human nature so deeply that they seem inevitable. And so, as we prepare for Great Lent, we read how God, having become man, drank this cup to the dregs. Unlike us, He accepted our suffering voluntarily in order to share it with us. We therefore seek an opportunity to honor His suffering through some spiritual effort. Last week we read the words of the apostle and evangelist John, who told us that this can only be an effort to love our neighbor, an effort to keep Christ's commandments. In the second half of the sixth century BC, the author of the second half of the book of Isaiah also conveyed God's words to us: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness...” And the passages about Christ's way to the Cross that we read this week tell us that loving God and loving people means standing with the Mother of God at the foot of the Cross.