Good Friday, Cycle A

Is 52:13-53:12
Ps 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25
Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9
Jn 18:1-19:42

When one struggles to make sense of the world in all its problems, we have only to look at the Cross to know that He’s suffered through it all.  He has suffered the full brunt of hatred and evils that one could ever experience: violated, shamed, abused, beaten, spat at, scourged, and crucified. The words of the prophet Isaiah rings true:

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured… he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins… Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; like a lamb led to the slaughter… he gives his life as an offering for sin… and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.

When we come face to face with the Cross of Christ, we often ask the question of “why?”  Why did He go through all of this suffering for us?  Why did He endure three hours of excruciating pain with His hands and feet nailed to a piece of wood, exposed for all to see?  Why did He endure the scourging at the pillar, the beatings, the constant mockery, the heartless ridicule, and all the false accusations?

It seems so unnecessary and troublesome… why couldn’t He just forgive us, why did He have to go through all that?  Out of love for us… He did this.  But again, the question is why?  From the outside, the world sees us Catholics go through this almost barbaric ritual every year – crucifying Him “again.”  The Last Supper, the Veneration of the Cross, and the Easter Vigil.  Everybody knows what will happen and yet we go through this act every year and we never tire of it.  Do we just love pain and the suffering so much?

It seems that we do – we are the people who rubber-neck at a car accident on the road, the one curious to see why everyone is crowded around something – we are drawn into the spectacle of it all.  But what was morbid curiosity is now at this moment necessary for us to realize that WE are the cause of such suffering – all of humanity, whether you are the aggressor or the victim, all sin was and is borne upon the shoulders of this Man.

The lashes of the whip, the jeering, and mockery… all of those ugly images of our Lord’s Passion is a necessary reminder; not just an intellectual “oh yeah He did that” reminder that Jesus died for our sins, but rather a reminder that one is called to relive, enter into, and remember.  The Jewish Passover and hence our Eucharist is an anamnesis – the calling out of and making present the ONE action, not just in history but for all eternity.  In the same way, the Triduum – the Three Days – is where we bring the past present and into the action existing within the stream of eternity; timeless.  What Christ has done, is doing, and will do is made present and real to us.

And so the suffering that Christ bore then in history, He bears now in the present, and will bear onwards for us.  We are drawn into His Passion – with compassion – to suffer with Him as He suffers for us.  To realize that we are the inflicting Him with this pain and suffering with our sin and at the same time, we are the receptors of His redemption and love for us.

It was not necessary for Him to suffer as He did, but it is necessary for us to enter into what He did so that we can know the cost of our redemption, the price of our salvation.  So that we can know that the sins we commit is made real and present each time we visit the Cross in the Sacrament of Reconciliation asking for forgiveness.  So that we can know that the atonement for mankind’s sin is through this Passover sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist in which His Body and His Blood is offered for us.  So that we can know that since the fall of Adam we have been waiting for this moment so that we can once again have a relationship with God, whom we can now call Him: Our Father!

It was not necessary for Christ to do this, but He did it this way for our benefit: that we do not only have that statement of forgiveness but a constant reminder and sign for His love for us.  Therefore when we are faced with the wounds of Christ, the pain and suffering that He bore, we do not see pointless and senseless suffering, but rather the beautiful means by which our lives are touched, healed, and lifted up through forgiveness, freedom, redemption, and relationship with our heavenly Father.