Betrayal: Fr. Roger Swenson
The betrayals of so many people ended in a tragedy of cosmic
proportions. Let us pay particular attention to all those seemingly
insignificant decisions made by the supporting actors in this melancholy drama.
It won't be difficult to see ourselves in this play; each of us commits the
same little murders every day.
Peter, James, John
-dozedAnnas Caiaphas -plotted
Sanhedrin -connived
Herod -feared
Peter -denied
Witnesses -lied
Crowds -shouted
Pilate -lingered (demurred)
Guards -mocked
Onlookers -jeered
Simon of Cyrene - refused /balked
The Ten disciples -fled
Soldiers -gambled
One Thief -scorned
I -concurred/agreed
A contrary choice, a pause to reflect, a "no" to
self-centeredness may have altered, not the outcome, of course, but the plot.
But in real life the right choice, doing the right thing, accepting the
consequence would have made a real difference in our lives.
Father of mercy, You know my little betrayals. By themselves
they don't amount to much. Taken together they pave the road to Calvary. Let me
see the full effect of my sins and my choices so that I may renounce the evil
done and resolve to do no more. Amen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Turning Point:
The turning point lies dead ahead;
A moment's pause to make or break.Each act affords an inch to flinch;
A time to ask can grace replace
The urges which betray His Way.
His strength awaits your best request;
Unless you ask, the sin will win.
The choice is clear - to call or fall.
All-powerful God, keep me from the evil which attracts me
so. At the moment of temptation, I will call out to you and you will answer.
Show me your path and give me the strength to follow it. Amen.
**********
Concluding Prayer:
You are the friend who holds me tenderly in the palm of your
wounded hand. You share my sadness with moist eyes and gentle smile. You grieve
with me in my distress; you share your life laid down and spent for me. You
split apart the shell that shields my heart.
You shed my wasted days like used up skin. Embrace with me
the suffering that bearing fruit entails. (This barren branch in slow decay
begins to bear again the grapes that make a wine, which stirs the heart, the
grace which makes divine.)
God, mysterious and hidden, it is in our captivity that you
reveal yourself as the open door, it is in the midst of our pain that your
suffering love heals us, and it is in the depths of our despair that you shine
upon us as the morning star of hope. God crucified, God risen: come, transform
the necessities that are laid upon us into freedom, joy and love.
**************
Daniel Mazur and his group of mountaineers stood at 8500
meters high in sub zero temperature looking though exhausted by the climb and
the climate yet excited by the spectacular sight of Mount Everest. Another 300
meters they are there. A dream of a life time spending over a million dollars
and months of preparation and training. He sits on a ledge and as he looks down
he sees a bright yellow blur – Lincoln Hall. Difficult decision. They abandon
the climb and go down, wait three hours for sherpas to arrive to carry him
down. Everest will always be there.
"Suffering," an author has penned, "can lead
us into one of four lands. The barren land in which we try to escape from
it. The broken land in which we sink
under it. The bitter land in which we resent it. Or the better land in which we
bear it and become a blessing to others."
Albert Camus:
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was
within me an invincible summer.
Helen Keller:
The world is full of suffering, it is also full of
overcoming it.
All violence is the result of people tricking themselves
into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently
those people deserve to be punished.
For the first two hundred years after Christ no follower of
Jesus wore a crucifix dangling from a chain around his or her neck, no church
had a crucifix. Why? Because in those early days of our church, people had
witnessed crucifixions, they wanted no reminders. An awful death, re-enacted
these days in movies filmed with special effects.
Scripture says Pilate had Jesus scourged. Actually, beaten
by a whip made of leather thongs. Each thong had two small balls of lead
attached near the end. Blow after blow cut first the skin, then into the
underlying muscle tissue. The beating stops only when the prisoner is near
death.
Crucifixion probably first began among the Persians.
Alexander the Great introduced the practice to Egypt and Carthage, and the
Romans appear to have learned it from the Carthaginians. Although the Romans
did not invent crucifixion, they perfected it as a form of torture and capital
punishment that was designed to produce a slow death with maximum pain and
suffering.
Jesus did not die in order to spare us the indignities of
the wounded creation. He died that we might see those wounds as our own.
There is no smooth path to God which we can ascend with all
our expectations of life confirmed and fulfilled. There is only the way of the
cross, where the condemned and crucified Jesus contradicts our expectations,
forces us to see ourselves as we really are, ...
Who was Jesus?
He began His ministry by being hungry, yet He is the Bread
of Life.
Jesus ended His earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet He is
the Living Water.Jesus was weary, yet He is our rest.
Jesus paid tribute, yet He is the King.
Jesus was accused of having a demon, yet He cast out demons.
Jesus wept, yet He wipes away our tears.
Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, yet He redeemed the world.
Jesus was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet He is the Good Shepherd.
Jesus died, yet by His death He destroyed the power of death.
All the joy of being alive all the beauty you saw in earthen
things all the people you knew and loved all the satisfaction of healing all
the blessedness of your teachings all the love you knew and shared all of this
- shattered on that hillside. You were torn apart, broken, smashed. All of
life's joy seemingly destroyed, terrible pain stretching out your agony. Only a
handful beneath your cross to remind you of your wholeness, and even this
handful of loved ones could not take your brokenness away. You were a broken
piece of pottery, dashed against the stones of life, a thing to be thrown away,
your flesh a ghastly thing to see, your aching spirit a painful knowing. On the
cross that Calvary day the sacred unity seemed torn apart. Like a broken dish,
like a broken dish, you went to your grave. - Praying Through Our Goodbyes,
Joyce Rupp
It is easy to misunderstand the meaning of the cross. It is
easy to misunderstand what we are doing here. Spiritualities have developed
over the years the focus on the suffering, the tears, the sin. That’s all part
of it. But the meaning of the cross of Jesus is voice that says,
You stand in a power greater than yourself.
In every moment of life, including the moments when I am
trapped, a voice says, There is a power greater than myself who will show me the way.
There is a power greater than myself that will tell me I am not alone.
There is a power greater than myself that will lift me up.
Every day we stand under the cross of Jesus. We stand in its
power and each day we hear a voice that guides, that reassures, that makes a
final promise:
A VOICE THAT GUIDES
Scripture is filled with stories of people who are trapped,
stuck or worse. A woman at the well, a blind man and a dead man name Lazarus
are just a few of the recorded stories. Think of all the ones that were not
written down. Ours is one of them. Each of us has had a moment when we were
lost, in a fog, unclear. The voice of Jesus guides us: you find your way
through forgiveness; you find your way through service. You find your way by
letting go. It is hard to do those things. It is hard to open your arms on the
cross. But anyone who has every been lost, trapped or fallen and turned to that
voice will tell you, it is the only way.
A VOICE THAT
REASSURES.
I sometimes wish we could hear what Jesus really said; not
the Gospel writers spin, or the memory of words written down a century after
they were spoken. The things that were not recorded; the words he spoke to
worried and frightened people. But I guess the words don’t matter. It was the
fact that he sat down, when others ran away.
The fact that he looked in people’s eyes, when others looked away. The
fact that he held the hand of someone that others couldn’t stomach. In those
moments, Jesus tells people, your life has meaning and there is nothing you
could ever do to lose God’s love. And it is that voice that speaks to each of
us: to the person who has cheated, lied, ignored, been unfaithful, said words
she regretted, was an ungrateful man. Jesus’ voice says, that is not your true
self, and he will help you find your true self.
A VOICE THAT MAKES A
FINAL PROMISE
Those two words: God is. I think of that operator, helpless
in this terrible moment, and to repeat over and over again this final promise
of Jesus: God is. God is. At the foot of the cross, that final promise becomes
our mission—the purpose of our lives. We must be the ones who boldly and
courageously and tenderly use our voices,
our lives to tell others, God is.
************
From the Connections:
THE WORD:
John’s profoundly theological Passion account portrays a
Jesus who is very much aware of what is happening to him. His eloquent self-assurance unnerves the high
priest and intimidates Pilate (“You have no power over me”), who shuttles back
and forth among the various parties involved, desperately trying to avoid
condemning this innocent holy man to death.
Hanging on the cross, Jesus entrusts his mother to his beloved disciple,
thus leaving behind the core of a believing community. He does not cry out the psalm of the
abandoned (Psalm 22); rather, his final words are words of decision and
completion: “It is finished.” The crucifixion of Jesus, as narrated by
John, is not a tragic end but the beginning of victory, the lifting up of the
Perfect Lamb to God for the salvation of humankind.
HOMILY POINTS:
Today, Jesus teaches us through his own broken body. As a Church, as a community of faith, we are
the body of Christ -- but a broken body.
We minister as broken people to broken people. The suffering, the alienated, the unaccepted,
the rejected, the troubled, the confused are all part of this broken body of
Christ. In God’s unfathomable love, the
broken body of Christ is forever transformed into the full and whole life of
the Risen Christ.
The cross repulses us and shames us, confronting us with
death and humiliation, with the injustice and betrayal of which we are all
capable. But the cross is also the tree
of life through which we are reborn. The
tree of defeat becomes the tree of victory; where life was lost, there life
will be restored. The tree of Good
Friday will blossom anew, bringing life, not death; bringing light that
shatters centuries of darkness; bringing Paradise, not destruction.
As Jesus’ cross becomes a means of transforming death into
life, we are called on this Good Friday to use the crosses that we shoulder in
our lives as vehicles for “resurrection” in the Jerusalems and Golgothas of our
own time and place.
Jesus is crucified every day in the betrayals,
condemnations, and crosses taken up and endured by the poor, the sorrowing, the
sick, the grieving and the dying -- but the “goodness" of Good Friday
gives us reason to hope, reason to carry on, reason to rejoice. By the grace of the Risen Christ we can
transform our crucifixions into Easter victories.
Today, “truth” stands in front of us in the figure of the
humiliated Jesus, the suffering Jesus, the ridiculed Jesus, the crucified
Jesus. Right in front of us is the truth
about a God who loves us to a degree we cannot begin to fathom; a God who
refuses to give up or reject or destroy his beloved creation — a creation that
has hardly lived up to its promise; a God who humbles himself to become one of
us in order to make us like him, to realize that we have been created in his
image, created by his very breath blown into our hearts.
This Good Friday is God’s calling us to a second Exodus
journey, marked in the slaying of his Son, the Lamb, who becomes for us the new
Passover seder — today is our exodus from the slavery of sin to the freedom of
compassion and forgiveness, our “passover” from this life to the life of God.
*************
From Fr. Jude
Botelho:
In today's first reading Isaiah paints a startling portrait
of the suffering servant of Yahweh. This suffering servant has a dignity about
himself and his spirit is intact and unbroken in the midst of all that he
suffers. Physically he was abused and reduced to a subhuman condition, yet in
the face of all that he suffered there is no bitterness, no anger, no
resentment, no complaint. Isaiah is describing not only the suffering servant
but in fact he gives us a pen portrait of Jesus himself as he goes to his
passion and he also gives us a model of how the Christian is called to respond
to suffering. Jesus would embrace the cross and transform it into an expression
of love for all human beings. The cross, the object of death can become the
object of life for us and for others, if it is embraced with faith, as coming
from God's hands.
He risked his life,
all he got back was…
One night a fisherman heard a loud splash. A man on a nearby
yacht had been drinking and had fallen overboard. The fisherman leapt into the
cold water and rescued the man and revived him with artificial respiration.
Then he put the man to bed, and did everything he could to make the man
comfortable. Finally, exhausted by the ordeal, the fisherman swam back to his
own boat. The next morning the fisherman returned to the yacht to see how the
man was doing. "It's none of your business," the man shouted
defensively. The fisherman reminded the man that he had risked his life to save
him. But instead of thanking him, the man cursed the fisherman and told him
that he never wanted to see him around again. Commenting on the episode, the
fisherman said: "I rowed away from the yacht with tears in my eyes. But
the experience was worth it, because it gave me an understanding of how Jesus
felt when he was rejected by those he saved."
Mark Link in 'Journey'
Today's Gospel
presents a mortal conflict between good and evil, a battle between the Prince
of Peace and the prince of this world. Good Friday is a day of paradox because
an instrument of death becomes the source of life. It is also a day of mystery
because the sinless one became as sin; a day revealing mankind at its worst and
God at His best. Ultimately on this day love conquers death. Jesus on the cross
transforms the curse of the cross into an instrument of blessing and eternal
life. In the Gospel we hear an account of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ
according to John. There are several facets of the passion we could
successfully reflect upon: The agony in the garden and the fearless
confrontation of Jesus with those who came to arrest him. The triple denial of
Peter in the presence of a maid servant. The trial before Caiphas in the
Pretorium and then his confrontation with Pilate, and the lingering unanswered
question: "What is the truth?" We could meditate on the Way of the
Cross and his final moments on the cross. We could ask the questions: Why did
the Father permit the Son to suffer? Why does God seem to abandon Jesus? Does
God abandon his people, his beloved when they suffer? For that matter is the
Father oblivious to the passion of his Son and to all his sons and daughters
who even now suffer in the world today? While God does not reveal always his
power, he always gives us the assurance of his comforting presence. We want God
to be a powerful God, one who does away with all suffering. In Jesus' suffering
and dying on the cross, we see as it were, an impotent God, a God who is made
vulnerable precisely because he loves us, is ready to suffer with us and for
us.
Thy Will, Not Mine
Robert Grant's short
story The Sign concerns a young man called Davidson. He wants to be a writer
and has just mailed his first novel to a publishing house. Filled with fear
about the publisher's decision, he goes outside and paces back and forth in an
orchard. It was Holy Week. His thought went back and forth between Christ and
himself, like a needle and thread: to Christ in the garden of Gethsemane
kneeling in prayer, and to himself in the orchard; to Christ preparing for the
supreme agony of hanging by nails, back to himself and his book with Dow Press.
He stopped and said."Thy will, not mine." But then 'a bolt of
awareness' struck him. He really didn't mean what he said. What he really meant
was that he wanted God's will to be done if it coincided with his own will and
worked out 'right', to the joint glory of the pair of them, God and Davidson.
And for the moment he was nauseated. Then he sat down and cried.
Mark Link in 'Journey'
Closed Doors
In the musical Sound
of Music Sister Maria, when confronted with a momentous decision which was to
change the entire course of her life, spoke the well-known line of assurance:
"When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window." Millions of
Christians who have faced many 'closed doors' (heartaches, trials and disappointments)
in their lives will raise up a hearty 'Amen' to her confident expression of
faith. In fact, many of the world's great have achieved their most heroic
accomplishments in the face of 'closed doors'. John Milton wrote Paradise Lost
and Paradise Regained after having been afflicted with total blindness.
Beethoven wrote some of his greatest music, including his Ninth Symphony, after
he was almost completely deaf.
Anthony Castle in 'More Quotes and Anecdotes'
Ready to Die
The final sermon that
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached before he was assassinated was the
famous "I have been to the mountaintop" sermon. In it he declares,
"I have seen the Promised Land, I am not afraid to die, I am ready to meet
my Maker." He preached this sermon in the evening; he was killed the next
day. Was it coincidence that he preached those words the day before he died? Or
could he have had some mystic prevision of his death? It is said he preached
that sermon very often, possibly a hundred times throughout the country. Andrew
Young says: "The reason that he could preach that sermon so often was that
he was always ready to die." He knew that death would come any moment
because of the challenge that he was continually presenting to the conscience
of America. He lived life fully and fearlessly. He was convinced of the
rightness and goodness of what he was doing that he wasn't afraid to die. The
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had found something worth dying for. And so he
lived passionately. He had something worth living for. In the crucifixion Jesus
did not especially teach us how to die. He taught us how to live -fearlessly
and passionately. The great message of the passion of Jesus is to live
passionately.
Anon
He didn't have to say
much
Toyohiko Kagawa was
born in Japan to well-to-do parents. He was converted to Christianity and
renounced his treasure and buried himself in the slums of his native land. He
developed cataracts on both eyes; his lungs became tubercular; his frame
developed a stoop. He suffered much. Towards the end of his distinguished life
he came to one of the seminaries to deliver a lecture. When he was finished,
one of the first year seminarians turned to another of the freshly-arrived
juniors and remarked, "you know, he didn't say much, did he?" A woman
standing nearby overheard and moved between them and set the matter right. She
said, "A man on the cross doesn't have to say much."
John Pichappilly in 'The Table of the Word'
Dry Martyrdom
Harvard psychiatrist
and author Robert Coles tells of interviewing a little black girl during the
early years of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. The little girl was
subjected to a great deal of harassment. Hate words were scrawled on nearby
walls and fences along her street, and threats were made to her family. On her
way to school each day she was subjected to catcalls and harsh stares and
obscene gestures. At school she was shunned by white students. All of this
amounted to a lot of pressure for anyone, much less a small child. During a
visit to her modest home, Coles asked the girl how she kept her composure. Good
book Christian that she was, the little girl replied that she knew all the
Bible stories of holding fast to God no matter what people did to you. She knew
what they did to Jesus and how he held fast. And so she just put everything in
the hands of Jesus, she said. He was her rock. Still, that didn't make the
pressure any less. People of honour like this student, whistle-blowers, those
who sacrifice jobs and livelihood to hold on to principles; all bear the heavy
cross of dry martyrdom.
William Bausch in 'The Word -In and Out of season'
Nothing More to Give
Some years ago,
divers located a four-hundred-year-old ship off the coast of Northern Ireland.
Among the treasures found on the sunken ship was a man's wedding ring. When it
was cleaned up, the divers noticed that it had an inscription on it. Etched on
the wide band was a hand holding a heart. Under the etching was this
inscription: "I have nothing more to give you." Off all the treasures
on that ship, none moved the divers more than that ring and the beautiful
inscription on it. The words on that ring, "I have nothing more to give
you," could have been written on the cross of Jesus. For on the cross,
Jesus gave us everything he had. He gave us his love. He gave us his life. He
gave us all that one person could give to another. He had nothing more to give
us.
Anonymous
Mark of the Nails
A father wanted his
son to realize the importance of making wise choices and their consequences.
And so if his son made a bad decision, he'd give him a hammer and a nail to
take out and pound it into a fence. Every day the son went through the whole
day making good decisions, he'd let him go out and remove one of the nails.
Until the boy was fifteen there were always two or three nails on the post
-seems he'd be nailing new ones just as fast as he'd pull out others. The youth
started to mature and make better decisions till one day all the nails were
removed from the post. That was when his dad said, "I want you to notice
something about the fence." Looking at the fence the boy realized that
though the nails were removed there were some holes where the nails were driven
in and removed. His dad said, Son, I want to tell you something about bad
choices or decisions. Even though you may be totally forgiven from your bad
choices or decisions, there are remaining effects, the consequences of those
choices and decisions; just like the holes in the fencepost."
Brian Cavanaugh in 'Sower's Seeds of Christian Family Values'
***************
From Fr. Tony
Kadavil:Alzheimer's patient remembered the cross of Jesus. President Ronald Reagan’s family watched in pain as he lost different aspects of his brilliant memory due to Alzheimer's disease. First, he began forgetting ordinary things like how to turn on the shower or to use a toaster. Soon he could no longer remember people who were his old friends or close work associates. Then he began to forget even who his children were and finally his wife. As the Reagan’s life was drawing to an end, his family gathered around his bed. He knew none of them. Five day’s before his death his wife Nancy Reagan placed a small cross in his hand. At first he seemed puzzled, then looked intently and said, “Jesus” and closed his eyes. On the day he died after 1 p.m., as Nancy Reagan held his hand, Ronald Reagan opened his eyes, which he hadn‘t opened in five days, looked right at his wife of 52 years. Then he closed his eyes and he drew his last breath.
Powdered Christian.
You might remember comedian Yakov Smirnoff. When he first
came to the United States from Russia he was not prepared for the incredible
variety of instant products available in American grocery stores. He says,
"On my first shopping trip with my American friend , I saw powdered milk.
What is it , I asked. My friend explained, “You just add water, and you get
milk.” I was amazed. Then I saw powdered orange juice--you just add water, and
you get orange juice! And then I saw baby powder, and I thought to myself, you
add water and get a ready made baby!! “What a country!" So many Christian
denominations claim that they can make powdered Christians. They preach:
“Accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, surrender your life to him and confess your
sins to him. You are saved.“ Once saved, you are always saved. Just add water
and disciples are born not made. Unfortunately, there is no such powder, and
disciples of Jesus Christ are not instantly born. We must understand what it
really means to be a Christian disciple from the mouth of Jesus. He proclaimed
in Mathew 16: 24, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up
his cross and follow Me.” (Matthew 16: 24).It means that a truly practicing
Christian must be a self denying and cross carrying Christian who obeys the
teachings of Jesus. That is why we ask the question on Good Friday: what is the
real message of the cross?
Life messages:
Message of the cross: The poet gets the message of the love
of God from the cross. The business man views the cross as a ransom, a
redemption price. The lawyers and judges prefer to remember the message of the
cross as an expression of the justice of God for the wages of man's sin. The
converted Jews prefer to compare the cross to the sacrifices of the Old Testament.
For the martyrs and saints the cross of Christ gives meaning to our pains and
suffering.
1) Message of sacrificial Divine love: To the poets and
philosophers among us the cross of Christ represents the love of God as
manifested to the whole world. That is why the apostle John writes, “For God so
loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him
might not perish but might have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:16). Paul reminds us in
his letter to the Romans, "Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a
just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to
die. But God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ
died for us" (Rom. 5:7-8).The cross truly does demonstrate and reveal the
love of God the Father who sacrificed His only Son for us. God showed us what
real love is by giving his Son and made it possible for us to share and
experience that love: "We love, because he first loved us" (1 Jn.
4:19). St. John continues: “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God
sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In
this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son
as expiation for our sins.” (1 Jn. 4:9-10). In the cross God did something more
than tell us he loved us. His love was expressed in action. The cross is also a
symbol of the sacrificial love of God the Son and the renewing love of God the
Holy Spirit. Good Friday is the day to assess how we return that love by loving
God living in our fellow human beings. It is the day to remember the new
commandment of love Jesus gave us after instituting the great sacrament of
love, the holy Eucharist: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I
have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know
that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
2) The message of redemption from our sins and salvation.
For the business people among us the cross tells of a terrible price that Jesus
had to pay as the horrible cost for our sin. That is why the Bible describes
Christ’s cross in terms of a price that was paid. Jesus said, "For the Son
of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom
for many.” (Mk. 10:45). Peter explains, "You know that you were
ransomed...with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish
or spot" Paul tells the Corinthians, "Do you not know that you are
not your own? For you have been purchased at a price." (1 Cor. 6: 20).
“You were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not
with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of
Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb.” We were purchased with the blood of
Jesus Christ (Acts 20:28). The cross shows us exactly that we are--sinners. The
prophet Isaiah explains it: "Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our
sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten
by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our
sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whol;, by his stripes we were
healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; But the
LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all” (Isa. 53:4-6). Our freedom was obtained
by the price that Jesus paid for us on the cross.
Hence the cross of Calvary challenges us today to remember
the gravity of our sins and the 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. When Peter preached his great sermon on the first day of Pentecost, he
laid responsibility for the death of Jesus at the feet of his listeners and
they were "pricked in their hearts" or "cut to the heart"
(Acts 2:37). But 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 along with the psalmist, “Have
mercy on me, God, in your goodness; in your abundant compassion blot out my
offense. Wash away all my guilt; from my sin cleanse me. For I know my offense;
my sin is always before me. Against you alone have I sinned; I have done such
evil in your sight.” (Ps 51: 3-6)
3) The message of justice and atonement: For lawyers and
judges who are always concerned about the law and justice, the cross
demonstrates that man has broken the law of God and hence deserved punishment
for sin. Jesus took that punishment for us by dying our death thus fulfilling
the demands of justice for us. Paul wrote, "For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom.
6:23). We were the guilty parties while Jesus was innocent, yet God laid our sin
upon him that he might receive our punishment. Paul explains it: "For our
sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the
righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. 5:21). Paul reminds the Hebrew
Christians that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of
sins" (Heb. 9:22). Good Friday challenges us to make reparation for our
sins by reflecting on the sufferings of Christ and to share in his atonement by
actively doing good to others.
4) The message of eternal sacrifice: For Jewish Christians,
the death of Jesus is the sacrifice of one life for another as animals were
sacrificed in the Old Testament Period for sinful people as atonement for their
sins. It is the blood of one for another. But the offering of a blood sacrifice
of animals was not able to bring about man's salvation. Hence the scriptures
teach that the death of Jesus redeems not only those under the New Testament
but those under the Law of Moses (Heb. 9:15). You may have heard the story of
soldiers who were prisoners of war on the River Kwai. At the end of a hard days
work, a Japanese guard insisted that a shovel was missing. He ranted and raved,
but no guilty party stepped forward. Finally in his anger he shouted, "All
die! All die!" He raised his gun and prepared to start shooting. Suddenly
a Scotsman stepped forward and said, "I did it." One guard kicked
him. Then they hit him. They bashed his head with their rifles. Soon he was
dead. The other prisoners picked up his bruised body to bury it. The shovels
were counted and none was missing. The Scotsman, innocent of the accusation
against him, had given his life as a sacrifice. You all know how the polish
priest St. Maxmian Kolbe offered his life in the gas chamber to save another
man. In the same way, the cross of Christ challenges us to do sacrificial
service for others prompted by agape love.
5) The message of heroic suffering: Crucifixion was used
early in history by the Phoenicians, then the Greeks and the Romans as a feared
way of subduing conquered territories. The cross 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. But Jesus knew beforehand every detail of his cruel suffering,
humiliation, rejection and death and welcomed it all wholeheartedly according
to the eternal plan of God his Father. The challenge from the cross for us is
to accept our unavoidable share of pain and suffering in this life, deriving
strength and inspiration from the suffering of Christ and to offer it for the
conversion of sinners and the salvation of the world. Jesus proved that
voluntary acceptance of suffering has salvific value. It was in fact a
condition for his disciples: "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny
himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (Matthew 16: 24, Mark 8: 34, Luke
9: 23).
But carrying one’s crosses does not imply the pre-eminence
of mortification and denial. It does not refer primarily to the need to endure
patiently the great and small tribulations of life, or, even less, to the
exaltation of pain as a means of pleasing God. It is not suffering for its own
sake that a Christian seeks, but love. When the cross is embraced it becomes a
sign of love and of total self-giving. To carry it behind Christ means to be
united with him in offering the greatest proof of love. That is how the martyrs
and saints understood it and that is how we have to accept our crosses and
carry them. Carrying Christ’s cross is suffering for others by sharing our
blessings sacrificially with others. It is accepting the pain involved in
controlling our evil tendencies in order to allow God and His love to become
the real Center of our lives. It is the pain involved in standing with Jesus
and gladly following him even if that means scorn and humiliation from the rest
of the world. Hence let us learn to love the cross of Christ, venerate it and
draw daily inspiration from it for our Christian life. “We adore you Christ and
bless you, because it is by your holy cross that you redeemed the world.”
Anecdotes
1) “But you wear a cross.” On her first night there, the
head counselor said that three of the boys had asked to escort her to dinner.
Alone! How would she handle it if all three decided to act out at once? She
swallowed hard. She desperately needed this job so she fought back the panic
and walked with her charges to the dining hall. They passed through the
cafeteria line as tantrums and fights erupted around them. Fortunately none of
her boys exhibited any kind of behavioral outburst. They made their way to a
table in the center of the busy cafeteria and the boys took their seats.
Margaret picked up her fork and was about to take the first bite when she
noticed that all three boys were staring at her. "What's the matter?"
she asked. Aren't you going to ask a blessing?" asked eight-year-old
Peter. "I didn't think I was supposed to," she responded. "This
is a state school, isn't it?" "Yes," said David, his blue eyes
brimming, "but you wear a cross." Her grandmother's words surged to
the surface of her memory. "Never forget what this cross means," her
grandmother said. "We thought that meant something," said Roman,
clearly disappointed. "It does. Thank you for reminding me," Margaret
said, as she bowed her head, no longer afraid. (CATHOLIC DIGEST, Feb. 92, p. 64)
Margaret learned something about sainthood that day. Saints trust in God and
God alone for their ultimate security. Saints submit their will to the will of
God. Saints stand firm and witness to their faith.
2) What’s that plus sign doing up here? A young Jewish girl
visiting a Catholic church for the first time, was puzzled at the cross on the
altar. She asked her Catholic friend, “Marie, Why do you keep that plus sign on
the altar? That’s one wrong understanding – the cross as a plus sign. It is an equally
distasteful idea that the cross is the I, the capital “I” crossed out. The
truth is that cross is “I” stretched out - reaching down into the ground of
being, up in the infinity of becoming, and out toward as many others as it can
touch. With the Cross as a plus sign shaping our lives, we can live while we
wait, knowing that a) renewal comes through rejoicing; b) grace is
communication by gentleness; c) peace comes through prayer; and d) attitudes
produce action.
3) You took my parking space at church: One day, a man went to visit a church; He got
there early, parked his car and got out. Another car pulled up near the driver
got out and said, “I always park there! You took my place!"
The visitor went inside for Sunday school, found an empty
seat and sat down A young lady from the church approached him and stated,
"That’s my seat! You took my place!" The visitor was somewhat
distressed by this rude welcome, but said nothing. After Sunday school, the
visitor went into the sanctuary and sat down. Another member walked up to him
and said, “That’s where I always sit! You took my place!" The visitor was
even more troubled by this treatment, but still He said nothing. Later as the
congregation was praying for Christ to dwell among them, the visitor stood up,
and his appearance began to change. Horrible scars became visible on his hands
and on his sandaled feet. Someone from the congregation noticed him and called
out, "What happened to you?" The visitor replied, as his hat became a
crown of thorns, and a tear fell from his eye, "I took your place.”