A PRAYER OF
GRATITUDE TO JESUS ON HIS DEATH FOR US (Abba Ephrem Andom)
Lord, if it were not for love, what could be the reason for Your
terrible suffering for me a sinner? I
wonder what my fate would be if You hadn’t died for me
o Lord. I am used to hear people saying that love is blind; and given what You have done for me, I believe it must be true. Who, in
their right minds would swap places with me to suffer on my behalf, take my
curse upon themselves, to free me from all my sins taking my burden on
themselves and to die my death? If it were not for Your
love for me, who would do that for me, o Lord?
Lord, You have pleaded on my behalf when You asked Your persecuters, "if you are looking for me, then let
these men go." (Jn. 18: 8) You did it for me Lord to fulfil Your Father’s will not to lose even one of Your disciples as they have been given to You by Your
heavenly Father. You have been taken to be executed that I may go free; You are bound that I may be liberated.
Pilate declared to us, ‘here is the Man’. Yes, You are
the perfect Man whom we are called to imitate. You are our model. But what a
paradox; You are the One to be followed, the perfect
model and yet Who had been disfigured, despised by all and crushed under the
heavy burden of our sins. Even if You were disregarded
by Your own people, Pilate seems to grasp the mystery of Your life gradually as
he would later on declare, ‘here is your king’. Yes Lord, You are our king
though we cannot see a golden crown on Your sacred
head. The only thing we can see is the crown of thorns that penetrated Your scull and that caused You immense pain. That is our
pitiable situation; instead of accepting Your kingship
in our lives, we have ridiculed Your authority, instead of adoring You for what
you are for us, we have humiliated You through our disobedience. We see how
your precious blood is gushing down Your tired face
and we believe that each drop of your blood has cleansed our trespasses.
Lord,
we have shouted with the crowed, ‘take him away!’ ‘crucify
him!’ We are not an inch better than Your enemies for
we were there with them in their injustices. And yet we can see Your countenance upon us, a look of mercy and forgiveness
and pity for us.
What a great heart You have o Lord! You prayed Your Father to forgive
our sins for indeed, we do not know what we do when we crucify You through our sins. Lord, help us to remember Your passion, anguish and death for us and not to forget
Your love for us for, when we forget, we are doomed to lose the meaning of life
itself. But who is life if it is not You, Lord?
Help us Lord to declare together with Your faithful
servant Paul with full conviction, "for I resolved to know nothing …
except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." (1Cor 2: 2)
Let that be our ultimate knowledge and let it be the source of our boasting for
Your crucifixion and death have brought us life and
liberation.
Help us Lord to hold with us the mystery of Your
suffering and death always and everywhere for that was the ultimate revelation
of Your friendship to us. Yes there is no greater love than to give one’s life
for one’s friends. You have done that for us Lord, and proved Your real friendship to us. For that reason we can say Lord,
‘if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but
gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give
us all things?’ (
Thank You God our Father
for giving us Jesus Your Son to breathe His Spirit upon us at His death.
Amen.