Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

(Isaiah 52: 13 – 53:12, Hebrews 4: 14-16, 5: 7-9, John 18: 1 – 19:42)

Good Friday is a day of faith, hope, and love. Today’s liturgy allows us to contemplate Jesus, the Paschal Victim, and to deepen our love of Him who willingly laid down his life for love of us. We need this day to help us become more mindful of the fact that we have been redeemed and that good does overcome evil. Our war-torn world needs someone willing to take its pain and suffering upon his shoulders and offer it to the Father as a sacrifice of praise, healing, and reconciliation. Jesus’ love transforms suffering into an acceptable sacrifice to his heavenly Father and fills our aimless wandering with meaning, purpose, and direction. We praise and bless the one who is the source of our salvation.

The reading from the prophet Isaiah presents us with the image of the suffering servant. The Christian community has traditionally applied this image to the person of Christ. The early church used this passage to help it deal with the scandal of Jesus’s rejection, passion, and death. Because he willingly emptied himself, accepting death on the cross, God the Father raised him up in glory, made him the source of blessing, and subjected all of creation to him. Today’s society seems to embody what was described in the Book of Psalms: “Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none” (Ps. 69:20). Even though the cross is presented to us, and the death of the Beloved Son of God is declared to us, it is sad to say that many people do not notice it. Our hearts have become so callous that we have no sympathy for people enduring pain and suffering around us. Let us look at the cross and offer comfort to the righteous One who endured untold sufferings to make us whole.

“Behold, my servant shall prosper, he shall be raised high and greatly exalted” (Is. 52:13). God’s words concerning the suffering servant are reminiscent of those spoken on Mount Tabor. “This is my dearly beloved son, whom I love; in whom I take great delight” (Mat. 3:17). Because the Son willingly submitted to death on the cross, thereby making his death a free-will offering for the sins of the world, the Father highly exalted him. “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and because of his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). When the heart of Christ was pierced our hearts were torn open and given the ability to feel compassion again. In preaching Christ crucified, the church lays bare our guilt and announces our redemption. Looking upon the crucified Lord, we come to realize that love gives life and that the death of Christ is the pathway to everlasting life. We are not celebrating death, rather, we are celebrating the life that was gained for us through the death of Christ on the cross.

Nailed to the cross, the Eternal Son commended his spirit into the hands of the Father so that we might have life and live it abundantly. Scripture tells us when Christ died, the earth shuddered and the tombs of the just were opened. We are still feeling the aftershocks today. When Jesus died on the cross, the boundary between death and life became the threshold of eternal life. Jesus‘s outstretched arms became the lasting sign of the Father’s boundless merciful love for the human race. The agony and death of Christ brought the love of the Father to the farthest and darkest places in which humanity has been exiled. The rejection of the Son, freely accepted, demonstrates God’s superabundant response to the longing in every human heart. The mystery of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection is the anchor of our faith and the cause of our joy.

My brothers and sisters, let us turn our gaze towards the man of suffering suspended between earth and heaven keeping in mind that Jesus died for the very people who rejected him. As we gaze upon the cross, let us humbly acknowledge our sin and guilt. The cross is the seal of the Father’s immense love. While it seemed for a time that evil had conquered, death did not have the final word. God did what no human could do. He brought life out of death. He conquered sin and restored lost innocence. He made a faithful people out of one that was unfaithful. Ever true to his word, He became the Father of all who were abandoned and fatherless.

We Adore You, O Christ, and We Bless You,
Because by Your Cross You Have Redeemed the World