Friday, April 14, 2017

Good Friday

Did you ever stop to wonder why today is called “Good Friday?”
                        Not Bad Friday?                        It’s Good Friday.

And did you know that this liturgy today
            is not meant to be gloomy, sad and depressing?
No, it’s meant to be solemn for sure, but not mournful.

The liturgy is designed to be reflective,
            giving a time to ponder,
            to ponder how such a death brings life and hope,
                                    how such a death opens the way
                                                for healing and reconciliation in human lives,
                                    how such a death is glory.

Yet this is the hardest part of the week we call holy:
            staying present at the cross, with the crucifixion, with death itself.

But this staying present is part of our devotion and response in gratitude
            for God’s gracious love expressed so incredibly for us.

At the time, there on that Friday, for the disciples
            this horrendous crucifixion was devastating beyond belief.
For those who had been traveling with Jesus,
            listening and taking in and pondering what he had been saying,
            watching how he interacted
                        with all the various sorts and conditions of humanity that came to him,
            seeing the healings, the transformations taking place in people’s lives,
for these witnesses,
            how could it be that it was all now destroyed in this cruel injustice and death?


For the disciples the political forces that ruled the world had smashed
            what was the most beautiful, generous and loving gift of a person
                                                                                                            that had ever been.
Their world was shattered.

They could not yet see how Jesus was putting on the image of the Forsaken One,
            how he put on every dimension of suffering of mind and body,
            how intentional Jesus was about walking straight into his death with all that.

St. Anselm had written about that, saying
            you can’t do that unless you are God;
            you can’t take that on unless you are God.
That’s the mystery and the beauty and the goodness of the Cross.

Jesus had told his disciples,
            “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”
That is the image of God – God on the Cross –
            and not many get this,
                        even though there is the mercy and love that draws us in.
How is it that this is resisted?
            Our persistent resistance to this good, beautiful truth!

Just a few hours before the crucifixion Jesus had said to his disciples,
            “If you knew where I was going you would rejoice.”

Let’s just look for a couple of minutes at what is happening
            in the Passion story according to John.
In this account in particular you can see
                                                            that Jesus is the only one in control.
He is a calm center in the midst of power struggles, mockery, and cruelty.

Everyone else exhibits that they really have no control over what is going on,
that there is great failure on their part
to achieve what they want to do.

The disciples have no apparent control over their drowsiness;
                        they fail to stay awake.
And then they all run away, fleeing for their lives.
Judas is doomed to play his role as betrayer
            despite whatever his motivation and intentions were.

In that strange scene in the garden, as John’s Gospel tells it,
            the band that comes to arrest Jesus at Gethsemane
                        is knocked to the ground by the force of the word
spoken by Jesus, his simple statement: “I AM.”
Only when Jesus purposely gives them a second chance
            can they lay hands on him and take him away.

Peter, in spite of his earlier protestations,
            fails in his ability to keep from denying his Lord.

The high priests and Sanhedrin
can’t make a credible case against Jesus.
So they have to revert to political pressure
to get Pilate to cooperate.

Pilate being backed into a corner, discovers he is not so powerful
            and he can’t engage with Jesus regarding Truth.
Then Pilate tries but fails to set Jesus free.

It is Jesus who acts, who is in control,
who accomplishes all that needed to be done,
right down to the last detail described in the ancient texts
about the Servant, the Lamb of God.

And then the still point – that moment when he breathed out the last breath.
It is he who chooses when his last moment is, when he dies.
He completes all,
and breathes out his breath
and gives up his spirit.

The scene at the cross now becomes somewhat surreal.
His side is pierced.
Blood and water gush out
            spraying those standing there.
The witness giving the account of this tells the truth.
This is baptism in his death.

Death provides release of his presence
            empowered to baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit
                        without the limits of the mortal body. 

All that afflicts, that contracts, that inspires a sense of poverty,
            that leads to violence, deception of self and others,
            that promotes false, self-serving interest,
                                                                        abuse, exploitation, war, addiction                                                 – destroyed in death. 
Jesus dies the death of all that. 

And in his dying all in us that is identified
            with such a world of spiritual confusion, suffering and self-destructiveness,
                        is drawn into his body on the cross. 
All that tragic evil dies there with the death of his body. 

He is on the cross in our condition of world-identified humanity.
He is on the cross performing a creative act.

For the death of Jesus is the absorption of the sacrificial gift of suffering            
            into the heart of God.
Jesus takes our humanity in its fragmented, self-destructive state
            into the divine presence always whole, eternally unbounded and creative. 

This is what we need to recognize:
            by the crucifixion and death of Jesus,
            as we, and all the world are drawn into and unite with his death,            
the way opens to embrace the eternal radiance of divine love,
                        which is God. 

So today – Good Friday –
is not just about a morbid reminder of a particularly gruesome death,
for which we ought to grieve
and feel deep remorse and penance,
but an occasion for deep devotion, gratitude, thanksgiving even
            for the blessed wood of the Cross.

Hymn 166 Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle
            a hymn by Fortunatus, one of the very earliest hymns of the Church,
Verse 4:
Faithful cross! above all other,
one and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
none in fruit thy peer may be:
sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
sweetest weight is hung on thee.

This is the glory of the cross,
            the precious weight that hangs upon it,
                                                            precious beyond all counting,
            the grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying
                        producing the fruit of salvation and resurrection
                        and new life for us all.

            In the limitations of our own personal life perspective
                        focused on our immediate issues
we miss the hugeness – it is beyond anything we know how to ask.

Would that we could see more clearly
            how what we here suffer in the routine of daily life
                        often has more to do with our attitudes and presumptions
                        than with the actual reality of our situations.

Would that our eyes were opened
            so that we could see how much we are spared, how blessed we are.

Then we would sink on our knees before the cross,
                        the rude representation of the suffering of God,
and express from the heart our love and devotion,
            our thanks and our acceptance of God’s love.
At the foot of the cross let it all drop away

and worship the glory with grateful hearts in wonder, love and praise.