Identified through suffering

In today's reading of the Passion from the Gospel according to John (John 18:1—19:42), our Lord pronounces two little words that have a strange and powerful effect:

Ego eimi.

These two Greek words sometimes are understood as meaning "I am he" and sometimes as "It is I." But neither of those meanings would cause THIS kind of reaction:

When he said to them, “Ego eimi,”
they turned away and fell to the ground.

No, it is a third meaning of ego eimi that is meant and that is profoundly understood by the crowd (if only subconsciously).

Ego eimi.

I AM.

The most sacred and wondrous Name of God.

Earlier in John's Gospel (John 8:51-59) our Lord had used these exact same words with this same meaning, but the crowd had been very slow to catch on, and when they did, they had tried to stone him.

Now, they turn away and fall to the ground.

Their minds and hearts were fixed on destroying this man from Nazareth, but their spirits were instantly cowed as the Son of God spoke that Name.

Why did this not happen before? What made our Lord’s self-identification so spiritually unambiguous?

Because this was the Hour: the hour of his suffering.

We see this also in the Gospel according to Mark: our Lord’s true identity – the “Messianic secret” held so closely throughout the Gospel – is definitively revealed at the foot of the cross.

When the centurion who stood facing him
saw how he breathed his last he said,
“Truly this man was the Son of God!”
(Mark 15:39)

Most of us are afraid of suffering – and quite understandably so.

Few if any of us, however, can avoid any suffering in this life.

Yet if we unite our sufferings with the sufferings of Christ, through the free gift of his grace, we deepen our identification with our Lord and Savior – the one who gives us eternal life.

As Christians we know that we find in Christ our salvation and our most profound identification through suffering.

And so we need not be afraid.

Draw me ever closer to yourself, Blessed Lord Jesus.