Happy Thursday, Parish Family!
Now we find ourselves 24 hours away from our first Good Friday liturgy. Tomorrow, we'll have Morning Prayer in the Church at 9:00am. In the afternoon, we'll celebrate the Passion of the Lord with Adoration of the Holy Cross. In the evening, we will have Stations of the Cross outside.
After a night in jail, Jesus is bound and led to the palace of Pontius Pilate. He is questioned, savagely beaten with whips and reeds, crowned with thorns, and presented to the Jews as their king. Less than a week ago, He was lauded as the Son of David, the one who had come in the name of the Lord to bring Israel to glory. Now He stands, bruised and bloodied, before His people. He wears no fine garment, no crown of gold, and holds no scepter. Instead, He can barely support His weight on a reed as a dirty purple cloth drapes over His beaten body, and large thorns dig into His head.
Pilate reluctantly sentences Jesus to death, releasing instead Barabbas, whose name means “Son of the Father.” While the true Son accepts His cross upon His weak and bloodied shoulders, this imposter is allowed to go free.
Under the weight of the wooden beams, Jesus begins to walk, step by step, to His death. Alongside Him are two criminals who would hang on crosses to His left and right. The walk itself is about a mile long, first through the winding streets of Jerusalem, then out of the city to Golgotha, the Place of the Skull. Along the way, Jesus is mocked and spat upon, jeered at, and cursed. He looks at their faces and knows each of them. He knew them when they were conceived and He knows their every joy and pain. He looks at faces that are filled with such hate, yet He loves them. He weeps for them. It is their sins that cause Him to fall over and over. It is their sins that will nail Him to the cross. But these are the lives He is dying to save. These are His people, His beloved.
Eventually, the weight becomes too much. Between the blood loss, the heat, and the weight of the cross, He falls to the ground. The guards worry that He will die before He reaches Calvary. So, in order to keep Jesus alive long enough to be killed, the guards pull Simon of Cyrene from the crowd and force him to help Jesus carry His cross.
As Simon lifted the blood-soaked cross, he may have thought, “Why me?” As far as he knew, Jesus was just another criminal on His way to die as criminals should. But, as he turned to look into the eyes of Jesus, Simon must have felt a wave of peace that transcended all reason. In Christ’s eyes, Simon found a love that ran deeper than any river or valley, and though he may not have known it, Simon was given a great gift. Scripture doesn’t record a single word spoken between the two, but as they walked, Simon must have begun to grasp that this man did not deserve to die. They walked together, and in doing so, Simon gave Jesus an oasis of friendship amidst the cruelty of His captors. In return, Simon experienced a unique encounter with the living God.
They walk to Calvary’s hill, and there Jesus is crucified. They lay His beaten body on the wood and drive spikes through His wrists and ankles to hold Him in place. This bloody instrument of death is to become the new Tree of Life. This apparent defeat is the means by which Jesus chose to conquer death. Jesus hangs there in silence as people mock Him and curse His name. They yell at Him to prove His power by stepping down, but He stays on the cross. He remains immersed in suffering because He must enter the depths of darkness to bring us to light.
His last action is to call forth His disciple, John, and His mother, Mary. To John, He says, “Behold, your mother,” and to Mary, “Behold, your son.” (Jn 19:26-27). The last thing He has on earth is His mother, and He relinquishes Her for our good. In this, He totally empties himself. He ensures that there is no relationship and no earthly thing He possesses at the end. He gives everything there is to give, and after three hours of torture, He gives up his spirit. He breathes His last and is laid to rest.
Today, we are meant to enter into the tomb with Jesus. Our tabernacle stands open and empty - a stark and shocking sight for many of us - in memorial of the fact that the Lord of Life has died. As we read through each of the accounts of Jesus’ death, let us try to place ourselves in the story. Walk with him. Fall with him. Suffer with him. There is no Easter Sunday without a Good Friday. If we feel lonely or awkward today in prayer, thank God. Let us feel the emptiness and turmoil Jesus and His disciples experienced. Pray that we will be glorified in the coming resurrection. Most of all, remember comfort is coming. Good Friday is the day that our God conquered death. Today is the day we are made new.
To read more about the liturgy of the Celebration of the Lord's Passion and Adoration of the Holy Cross in the context of the Triduum, please visit our Holy Week page on our parish website:
