Welcome to Sunday Homilies with me, Father Mikechments.
I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you.
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up at ascensionpress.com/sunday, or by texting Sunday 2-3-3-7-7-7-7-7. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications, God bless. So at the beginning of length, I had the honor of being invited by a friend of mine to be with her dad as he was dying, and to anoint him and pray for him, and that was the beginning of length of a man named Ray, as he was dying.
Go back, if you think back to length, the first Sunday of length, what do we see?
The first Sunday of length, almost always, I think, always, is Jesus doing into the wilderness,
and doing battle with the evil one. So it's Jesus, He gets anointed with the Father declares over Jesus, this is my beloved son. He's anointed by the power of the Holy Spirit. He's the king.
Right? What is the king doing?
“Just that first Sunday of length, the king does what?”
He's anointed and he goes to fight for his people, and he shows himself as the king, right? He's the brave king, goes into the wilderness, he is the kind king who heals his people,
he is the wise king who teaches, he's the powerful king, this is really who Jesus is, right?
Jesus is the king. We even hear that in the gospel today, the pilot, you are a king, he is a king. And today, what do we see? What is Jesus show us? Today, what we get to see, we see this thing that no one has ever seen in human history,
we get to see a king without his armor on. That after all that he's done for us, Jesus is stripped. Last night, last night, we talked about how Jesus gave, right, that last night at the last supper, everything is given.
And again, today there's this new level that humanity has never seen when it comes to God.
The humanity has never ever seen this when it comes to God, we're not only Jesus that the last supper, everything is given today, here is Jesus, and everything is taken. That he holds, here's Jesus on the cross, he holds on to nothing for himself. He is a king without his armor, and he holds on to nothing for himself. Everything is taken.
“Everything is taken from him, and that's, we know this, that's what happens to us.”
That is where every one of us will be, that's my friend's dad, Ray, Ray, Ray, to know him earlier on in his life, Ray is a strong man, he was charming, super funny, a really hands-of-man athletic man, played tennis well into his later years, and then we had to trade tennis and we're pickleball, it was still athletic, loved, so loved by his family, so loved people, loved by people around him, but then what happened to Ray is what happens
to all of us, there's the end, and in the end, none of those great gifts, none of those great gifts were there, there's no strength anymore, there's no independence, there's no funny words, there's no words, there's no charming smile, there's just the man himself. That is every one of us, look, big of all of the incredible gifts you have, the incredible gifts that you are, and at some point in your life, there is this moment where everything
is taken, and it's just you yourself, everything is taken, then there's no armor, everything is taken, and again, no matter how strong, independent, charming, smart, powerful, loved person is even, again, here's Ray, surrounded by his people who loved him, by his family members, there's that next step, every one of us knows this, this is the next step of death, then that step, every one of us has to take a loan, our family, people will love
us, they'll gather around us, they'll gather around us, but they'll only go as far as they can, that next step, the last step from this life to the next life, every one of us, we have to take it a loan, I remember thinking, I don't know if you remember this, you remember getting dropped off at the airport before 2001, before 2001, I remember, I went on a study abroad, and it was a situation where my family, so before 2001, if someone
was so much dropped to the airport, they wouldn't drop you off at the curb, they walked with you all the way to the gate a lot of times, like you could go, there was no security,
You just go into the gate, and I remember my family, they knew I'd be gone fo...
and so we all parked the car, walked into the airport, walked through the terminal, finally
got to the gate, and it was so good because they let me so much they went as far as they could, but there was a moment, but even though I was surrounded by my family, front of these people who just loved me so much, I knew there was a moment when I had to walk away from them, and I had to go down the jetway, and they couldn't come with me, and
“I remember, I couldn't even feel it right now, that walking in the jetway, and turning”
on one last time before the corner, and like, okay, that's the last glimpse because they can't go any farther, this is what it is to live, and this is what it is to die, even if you are so loved, that last step, everything is taken, everything is taken, and we make that last step on our own, and at the same time we know this, we know this because of Jesus, who is the king without his armor, we know this because of Jesus, who not
only everything is given at the last supper, everything is taken on good Friday, we know that we're not without help, but we know this, this is the king, the king with fights in
the wilderness, the king who also does amazing things, his brilliant teaching, miraculous
healings, here's Jesus, who defeats the power of the evil one, here's Jesus, who comforts
“the afflicted, here's Jesus, who is loved, and is love, and it doesn't leave us alone,”
but here is the image we have of him right now, on the cross on good Friday, all of those incredible things that Jesus had done and all the incredible things that Jesus is, they're gone. Everything is taken and He's naked. A king without his armor. He's betrayed. He's denied. He's abandoned. He's misunderstood. That's one. He's misunderstood. That one hits me, right? Because here's Jesus crucified as a criminal.
Imagine all these people that He's walking through the streets of Jerusalem, all these people
walking by Him as He's on His cross. All of them, they think the worst of Him. Even though He had done nothing wrong. Even His honor. Even His dignity. He's respect. Everything is taken and there's a king without his armor.
“I think again, it's one thing to give. All of Lent is like this practice of giving is amazing.”
It's so good. Last night, everything is given. But here, everything is taken. And what Jesus does in this moment, what Jesus does on this day, what Jesus does on this cross is He answers the cry of every human heart. Who's asked or wondered or challenged whether God could possibly understand what they're going through. We realize this, God understands more than any of us possibly could imagine. But He also understands in a way that every one of us is called to.
He got to understand in a way that everyone, every because where Jesus has gone today, is a place every one of us has to pass through as well. A place to be able to give everything, but also to be able to allow everything to be taken and to still love. This is the crazy part. To allow for everything to be taken and to still love. Here's Jesus from the cross, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. Everything is taken and that He can still love.
And this is your call in my call. There when everything is taken, we still love that when we find ourselves without our armor, we can still love. There's the last thing. Years ago, I came across the story of a young girl from Italy. In 1988, she was 17 years old. She was just like four years older than that, three years older than me. In '88, she was 17 and she was an athletic girl. Her name was Kiarak, Kiarak Badano, her name.
She danced and she was a swimmer. She played tennis at one point. She was actually playing tennis 17 years old. Our in a court with some friends and she had this pain in her shoulder. So her family brought her into the hospital, though not that she had. Osteer Sarkoma was a really aggressive bone cancer. And as she was being treated pretty quickly, so it was so aggressive, she was unable to leave her hospital bed. It's really interesting. At one point,
here's the imagining a 17-year-old and thinking, okay, I'll give up stuff for a lamp and then all of a sudden, no, no, everything is taken. As she realized, though this cancer is going to change my life, this cancer is going to affect my life, this cancer cancer might end up taking my
Life.
If you want everything taken, Jesus, then I want it too. There were times where there's stories
“of Kiarak who these shoes offered morphine to dull the pain. It was incredibly painful as she was”
in the process of dying from this bone cancer. She would often say, "No, the morphine." Because because she wanted to be present. I can't imagine this. Imagine being in the hospital is so much pain. And sometimes she would say, "No, just no medication, why?" Because I want to be able to pray. And I want to be able to be present to Jesus. And I want to be aware.
“I was just saying, because I want to, I want to be present to my pain. I want to be present”
to the reality that Jesus, if this is what Jesus wants, and I want to, I don't want to dull the reality of this woman. And she also said, "I have people coming, people coming to visit me." And I don't want to dull the reality of their presence. I want to be there for them. In fact, so many stories of people came to visit Kiarak, from her friends and school to her family, to like the cardinal in her area. I'd come to visit her and they came to cheer her up. And they
would say this, they would say, "They'd walk into this room, expecting to cheer her up." They would leave that room, being cheered up by her. Even when she couldn't move. Even when she couldn't, she couldn't get out of bed for so long. She couldn't raise her arms. She could smile. And then she
“couldn't. And one point, when everything had been taken. And they asked Kiarak, "Why keep on going?”
Why, how do you keep on loving like this?" She said this. She said this. She said this to our line was, "I have nothing left." Think about this. Here, I think she was 18 or 19 at this point. She's been suffering for a couple of years. I have nothing left, but I still have my heart.
And with that, I can always love.
That day is coming for every one of us. That day is coming. We're not only everything is given, just we want to give for the Lord. Everything is taken. In that moment, like Kiarak, like Ray, and most clearly like Jesus. Everything can be taken and we can still love. Because this is what Jesus does for us today. Let's go to Friday. Jesus is stripped. Everything has been given. Everything has been taken.
And we see what's left. What's left is a king without his armor.
And what's revealed is a heart that will always love.
