GOOD FRIDAY-2016

This year Good Friday falls on March 25th, the day upon which we usually celebrate the Annunciation. There are nine months to Dec.25th the birthday of Jesus. It may seem odd that the same day is linked with Christ’s conception and his death. But in the gospels the new-born child is from the beginning seen as the one who will die for us. The magi bring him myrrh, which is used in the anointing of the dead. Herod wanted to kill him right at birth. Thus the cradle foreshadowed the cross.

Crucifixion was the crudest instrument of torture used by the Romans to punish rebels and criminals, and the slow death by hanging on the cross was the most excruciating experience of pain in the world. The nails were driven through the nerve bundles between the wrist and the palm of the hand, so every time the criminal moved - which he had to do if he wanted to keep breathing - the nails rubbed against the raw nerves.

We find 3 crosses on Calvary. The Cross of Jesus was that of an innocent sufferer. On his cross hung the salvation of the world.  The second cross was of the good thief. His cross and his repentance saved himself. The third cross was of the unrepentant thief who suffered because of his fault, but his suffering did not do him any good. His cross was not redemptive suffering. We find these three types of crosses or sufferings in the world all the time. People who suffer for others, for themselves, and those who waste their sufferings.

Our crosses are intersections of wills.  When our natural preferences contradict what God asks or permits, we are faced with a personal cross. For example, God permits a sickness to come upon me. My initial reaction, my natural preference, is that I would rather be healthy. But God has permitted me to become sick. That is an intersection of wills - God's will is going in one direction, and mine is going in another direction. Every cross is a chance to exercise our trust in God and thereby to rebuild the relationship that sin has ruptured. This is why God sends and permits crosses in our lives. 

"People who have not suffered, what do they know?" said Henry Suso, a man who suffered more than most in 14^th century. His statement was: "There is nothing more painful than suffering, and nothing more joyful than to have suffered. Suffering is short pain and long joy. Suffering has this effect on the one to whom suffering is suffering, that it ceases to be suffering…. Suffering makes a wise and practiced person. People who have not suffered, what do they know...? Jesus saved us through suffering, not from suffering. All the saints are the cup-bearers of a suffering person, for they have all tasted it once themselves, and they cry out with one voice that it is free from poison and a wholesome drink." People who have not suffered would have no depth, no growth, no awareness; they would be absolutely juvenile.

As St Ignatius of Loyola puts it, "There is no wood more useful for kindling and feeding the fire of divine love than the wood of the cross."

Jesus asks us to take up our crosses and follow him. Those who refuse to take up their crosses will lose their life. He said, not to take up his cross, but our cross. That is why he said to weeping women of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but for you and your children. Because he was not suffering for himself, but for others.  On good Friday Jesus does not need our sympathy, because he chose this suffering for out of love for us. He has the same message for us today, weep for your sins, not for him. Our sins caused this for him.

The cross of Calvary challenges us today to remember the gravity of our sins and our need to repent and return to God. Although it is not pleasant to have our sins and faults pointed out to us, the cross does this. We are living in a world which has lost the sense of sin and which ignores the price Jesus paid for it.  The prophet Jeremiah lamented on this sad situation centuries ago, “No one repents of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done!’” On this Good Friday let us show the good will and generosity to ask God’s forgiveness for our sins.

On the cross, he entrusted his mother to John asking him to take care of her. Today on the cross he is asking us too who have older or lonely parents to take special care of them in the name of Jesus.   We may be surprised to find why Jesus addresses his loving mother as “woman”.  To understand the significance of this word, we need to read Genesis 3:15: where God says to Satan, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Jesus was pointing to that prophecy that he is the offspring of “the woman” who bruised the head of Satan by his death on the cross and Satan bruised Jesus’ heel on the cross by the envy of nails.

Jesus accepted death freeing a convicted criminal, Barabbas. Barabbas was supposed to die, but Jesus was chosen in his place. We are all Barabbas-es condemned to die for our sins. But Jesus frees us from our death by dying in our place.

 Let us learn to love the cross of Christ, venerate it and draw daily inspiration from it for our Christian life. “We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”