Explore "Freely Embracing Death" by Jorge Mario Bergoglio on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
JESUS TOOK HIS DEATH seriously, as he did his life. Anointed by the Spirit, he was able to discern the signs of the times and was therefore perfectly aware that his "hour" would soon come (cf. John 2: 4; 7: 30; 13: 1; Matt 26: 45). Paradoxically, however, we find that Jesus at times "hid himself" to escape public notice and persecution (cf. John 7: 1; 8: 59). Jesus was no coward, but neither was he suicidal. He was hiding from the police, from the assassins, from his enemies, because his hour had still not arrived. The thought of death distressed him (John 12: 27), but he accepted the divine will; he left everything in the hands of his Father. He knew that he was going to die, but he did not hand himself over recklessly. He defended his life until "the hour" arrived and so stayed out of sight. This circumstance makes us aware of the painful inner tension that afflicted the heart of Jesus, a tension that became visible at the culminating moment of Gethsemane.
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (John 13: 1)