Good Friday 2007

GOOD FRIDAY….. 2007

At one point in his life, the great Moses asked God to show him his glory…….     God answered….” I will make all my beauty pass before you, and in your presence I will pronounce my name.”  Then God passed before Moses and cried out as he passed:  “THE LORD, THE LORD; A MERCIFUL AND GRACIOUS GOD – SLOW TO ANGER, AND RICH IN KINDNESS AND FIDELITY, CONTINUING HIS KINDNESS FOR A THOUSAND GENERATIONS…” 

 

In other words, already at the dawn OF THE BIBLICAL revelation, God was telling us that God’s beauty, God’s glory, is only one thing…..LOVE….

 

In today’s gospel…  John is trying to tell us the same thing, not only about God, but also about God the son – Jesus.    Essentially, for him, Jesus shows his glory in the same way God manifested his glory in the Old Testament…. namely by showing love…. in his entire behaviour……. and inner being…….  That is why, in contrast with the other three Gospels…. John’s passion injects into his account… a kind of diffused, divine light…..  In John’s description of the passion….Jesus is already triumphant…. he overwhelms the soldiers at the garden of Gethsemene when they come to arrest him……. he speaks to Pilate as to an equal, (if that). he carries his cross in a way that indicates complete control….. He is glorious….. why?  because Jesus’ passion and death are the most perfect revelation of his love….    What God tells Moses, Jesus tells us by his behaviour:   MY BEAUTY, MY GLORY, IS ONLY ONE THING…. LOVE UNTO DEATH AND BEYOND….  

 

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WHEN I WAS A CHILD….    I used to often think to myself…(at this time of year)…...  why in the world do they call it “good Friday’   what on earth is good about it.,…….   

 

if it was good Sunday… that would make sense….  that was when Jesus rose from the dead………..   that’s surely where he gained victory over all that was bad……

 

what’s good about Good Friday…..   it is when Jesus suffered….  when jesus died……..   when people did the most vile and awful things to the Lord of life……

 

even now… as an adult…   after all the years of theological training.. I must admit… there is still a part of me that would vote in favour, if someone proposed that we change the name of Good Friday to sad Friday…  or bad Friday…o r something like that…….    even now… a part of me cannot comprehend the enormous mystery God is pointing us to in this deeply challenging event…..

 

because….   Christ’s victory was not won on Easter Sunday….  but here and now…. on the Cross…….on that most excellent Friday… when things were at their darkest….. when the forces of darkness and sin…. and lies…  and violence seemed at their most powerful……….       here is God’s victory… and it summons up every ounce of our faith and understanding…..  because this lesson is the hardest to comprehend…….   

 

God did not banish suffering…but – instead-   overcomes it (gets inside it)……  in his loving, giving and hope-filled (faith-filled) commitment to humanity……   God transforms all things and works away until life springs from it……  hopes springs up anew… in one way or another… one form or another…..

 

I was looking at last year’s columban calendar…..    the front cover was a rather (I couldn’t help but thinking)………. ugly picture….   my first reaction was…. oh dear…. why pick that picture…  for the front cover of a yearly calendar….. the first image one sees………….of all the nice beautiful pictures… why that one… it is an oil paiting by Giovani Bellini of Milan…    from the 1500s…it is the image of the Pieta….      (Mary and Jesus…  with John at their side)…….. it is painted in these ghastly…..yellowy and unattractive shades….   Mary tenderly……    movingly….holds the dead body of Jesus her hands…..     two things stike me now about that picture…..  (perfectly well chosen for the front cover)……the faces of Mary and jesus are so much alike….  and why would they not be,…..  mother and son…….  this is where the human and divine tragedy is at its most poignant……..    for a parent see such suffering in their beloved child……  too much….. enough!............they are like mirror images of each other……  secondly……   Mary’s face looks as bruised and as battered as Jesus…. and true it is…… although jesus alone suffered the unimaginable blows and agony of his journey to calvary…. in another way..  Mary, the first and most perfect disciple….   did she not have a sword of sorrow pierce her heart too?    just as Simeon mysteriously predicted all those years before…… this picture…captures a deep reality… although Mary did not physically suffer…..  surely she felt each and every fall….   each and every lash….   every blow of the hammer…. and every unimaginable wound….   as she helplessly witnessed the scenes of Jesus passion…….    she draws us into the world of parents world wide…… who suffer the terrors of violence and injustice towards themselves and their children……………   Our God …. knows personally the pain f war, of violence… and of injustice – poverty, inequality and opporession….. and so much more……..   Mary also draws us into the world of the follower of Jesus…..   we can never offer the perfect sacrifice of love that jesus offered on the cross for the salvation of all……  but as disciples of jesus… inspired by the total dedication of disciples such as Mary…we too may suffers the blows of loving… of forgiving… of hoping…. of working for equal treatment of all…………..that we come across in our daily life journey…… 

 

in a few moments……   after our traditional Good Friday intercessions…..  we will be invited to come forward and offer a sign of veneration and devotion to the cross of jesus christ… this is a profound moment…  where we each come forward….  and with some gesture special to us….and between us and our God…..    we connect our lives……to the perfect sacrifice of christ……   we nail our crosses, our pains… our sins… our fears… to this cross………    we connect …….our hopes… our prayers…  our selves….   our daughters… our sons… our spouses…..   our parents….  our brothers.. our sisters….  our work…  our workmates…..   our vocations……our everything…… //  Jesus invites us as disciples of Jesus to draw close and offer our joys and hopes our sins and failures to Jesus so that we might connect them with the perfect act of love and victory effected on this cross… on this most excellent Friday… this very, very good Friday……       if we look with the eyes of hope, faith and love……

 

if we have died with Christ… if we have suffered in christ.. we shall also rise with him… we shall also share in his victory……. which begins here and now…..   “let us ever glory in the cross of Christ…  /    let us ever tell the story of the Cross of Christ.. and the saving power of his love…….”