Day 10 - Pabasa - What is that noise?

Name:  Glen Gibson (WJU Faculty)

Scripture: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Reflections: 

“Ugh!” I groaned as I rolled over and looked at the clock.  It was 4:22 am.  The moaning and wailing of the Pabasa, a traditional Holy (Easter) Week ceremony in neighborhood Catholic chapels in the Philippines (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycN7X7-V7hU), had been going on 24 hours a day for almost three days.  “Thankfully,” I thought, “it will end later today.  Tonight I can finally get a good night’s sleep.”

In addition to my selfish thoughts for a good night’s sleep, I considered how sad it was that the people who lived around me, who called themselves Christians, really did not understand the good news of Jesus.  They felt they needed to beg for God’s forgiveness by sorrowfully wailing all day and night long into a loudspeaker for the whole community to hear. 

Later in the day that Good Friday, I would see young men staggering and crawling from chapel to chapel in the neighborhood, while others beat them with reeds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvHbKn0xvtY&feature=related) .  My friends told me that these men endured this suffering because they had been especially evil during the year and they thought they needed to “pay a higher price” in order to receive God’s grace.

I wanted to run to the Pabasa in the middle of the night and shout, “You don’t need to do this…Jesus already paid the penalty for your sin.”  I yearned for them to grasp one of the most profound verses of the Bible, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”  (2 Corinthians 5:21). 

Prayer:

Lord, do I truly realize what Jesus has done for me?  Thank you for taking my sin, completely…and making me righteous.  I do not deserve it!  How can I express my eternal gratitude for grace and love?