Good Friday Year C [Jn 18:1-19:42]
15.04.2022
The
Passion and Glorious Death of Jesus
1. Theme in brief:
Carrying our crosses out of love
2. Focus Statement
Like Jesus, we too are called to complete
our life’s mission by carrying our daily crosses willingly and in a composed
manner out of love for God and humans, and in obedience to God’s will.
3. Explanation of the text
Some of the salient
features
of John’s Passion Narrative prescribed for today’s liturgy are the following:
+ The cross is the culmination
of and the price Jesus pays for his saving deeds, such as compassion towards the sick, the
hungry, the sinners and the outcasts. It is the climax of his ‘hour’ (that is, God’s
appointed time) by which he glorifies the Father (12: 23).
+ Jesus faces his
suffering and death willingly (voluntarily) and in a composed manner. He lays down
his life of his own accord out of love for humans (18:5-8, 11, 30), and also in
total obedience to the mission entrusted to him by his Father.
In the Garden of Kidron Valley, when they come to arrest him, he voluntarily
submits himself into the hands of his enemies by openly revealing his identity twice as Jesus of
Nazareth. If they are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, they should allow his
disciples to go free (18.4-8). He tells Peter that he must drink the ‘cup’ of
suffering
that the Father has designed for him (18:11). At the end, when his ‘hour’ of
death comes, he willingly gives up his spirit as an act of total self-surrender (19.30).
+ Jesus walks the way of
the cross up to Golgotha by carrying his cross “by himself” (all alone) without
anybody’s help (like Simon of Cyrene’s, as the Synoptic Gospels tell us, 19:17).
+ From the cross Jesus cries out: “I am
thirsty” (19:28). He was thirsty not only physically, but also for
the love of sinners like us, and for God’s love to be realized in us, given
that John often indicates double meaning of certain words. He thirsts that the spirit of his selfless love,
service and sacrifice may come on earth through his followers.
+ By his agonizing death
on the cross, Jesus demonstrates to the world that there cannot be greater
love
than this (15:13).
+ As he is totally
committed to his Father’s will, he remains faithful to it unto death, and by
his death accomplishes the mission for which he is sent (19:30).
+ Jesus dies at the very
hour when the priests of Jerusalem’s Temple slaughter the lambs for Jewish
Passover; hence, he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world and from whose side gush blood and water (19:31-37), symbolizing the
sacraments of Eucharist and baptism.
4. Application to life
Our reflections on Good Friday
based on John’s passion narrative, are focussed on three loving
invitations
given by Jesus from the cross:
(1) To imitate or imbibe
his spirit of voluntary suffering and service:
Since John’s gospel insists that
Jesus voluntarily embraced the cross, out of sheer love for humans, it
is good to distinguish between the sufferings in our lives, which come without
asking (like illness, natural calamities, death, etc.), and those which we voluntarily
embrace in
order to be faithful to the ministry of service to the needy and the suffering.
The crucified and exalted Christ (as per John’s theology) invites us to embrace
those crosses which come to us when we voluntarily undertake services motivated
by his shining example. Those of us who are highly motivated and committed for
the service of the poor, eradication of social evils, solidarity with the
downtrodden and care of the outcasts and the rejected have to voluntarily
embrace crosses of criticism, opposition, rejection, humiliation and
intimidation. Are we willing to embrace these crosses willingly
and help
others to carry their crosses? Like Christ, who willingly ‘drank the cup’ of
suffering the Father had given him, we need to suffer voluntarily (or take up
our crosses willingly) out of love for those whom he ministered (18:11). Does
this thought make us more sensitive to the sufferings of those
people?
(1) To accept our crosses
in a composed manner and a spirit of self-surrender:
We may be surprised to notice a
contradiction in terms at the title written above: “the passion and glorious death of Jesus”. How can
the cruel and agonizing death he faced be ‘glorious?’ Unlike the synoptic
gospels, John’s gospel presents Jesus entering into his Passion as a composed
and glorious Messiah. His gospel minimizes the cruelty of his passion to show
that he was in total control of his situation when his ‘hour’ had come, and approached
his suffering and death in a composed manner. Thus, his passion narrative
invites us to face our own sufferings in a composed manner like Christ and
share his glory.
What are the crosses we need to
accept in a composed manner? They are not made of wood. As per John’s passion
narrative, they could come in the form of opposition and destructive criticism we
face when we do deeds of mercy towards the needy, suffering,
sinners, the poor and the outcasts; of rejection and ridicule we face when we voluntarily
serve
the needy out of love; of what we get when we stand firmly for certain moral
principles and are faithful to our life’s purpose or mission; and of negative
reaction when we stand for justice and truth. When we accept these
crosses we undertake voluntary suffering for a cause and to
fulfil a mission as Jesus did.
Let us think of other crosses too: persons we find difficult
to live with; places that are dangerous and risky; and circumstances/
situations that cannot be changed in spite of hard efforts; situations that are
absurd, frustrating, confusing, uncertain and the unexplainable; our powerlessness
to change anything in spite of having all powers; and our loneliness in
sickness and old age or lack of support from our own people. Sometimes we have
to carry the cross of an incurable or lingering illness, a broken relationship
with family members/ friends/ neighbours, a breakdown in marriage, a
deep-rooted bad habit or addiction (personal or someone else’s in the family),
an enmity with neighbours, a jobless situation, a loss of job and a sudden
death in the family. Sometimes we may have to carry some of these crosses alone without any help or
support from others as Christ had to do. These crosses lead to questions that
haunt our minds now and then without an answer: “Why this particular thing should have happened to me...What
wrong have I done…? Where is God….?”
Today, Christ reminds us about the
price he paid to help us go through our own way of the cross and Golgathas so that the light of
Easter may shine on us. He invites us to place all our smaller and bigger
crosses at the foot of his cross and unite our suffering with his
suffering and death. Though all of us know that suffering in any form is a part
and parcel of human life, when it comes to us we find it difficult to accept
it in a composed manner as Christ did. I still have vivid memories of
sitting at the bedside of my sister for six days (that looked like one month) and
helplessly watching her dying at such a young age due to the attack of deadly
cancer. When I reached her bedside at the last moment (as I was working in a
distant place), she saw me and wept bitterly unable to speak a word. Then she
went into a coma which kept her hanging between life and death for six days. Though
it was difficult to accept that loss at that time, it has taught me a lesson.
That experience has made me more sensitive to other people's suffering than
before, and to the depth of pain families go through when their near and dear
ones die in terminal illnesses and tragic accidents. It has made me realize how
vulnerable and limited we are, as human beings, and how dependent we are on God’s power.
This realization should lead us to admit our powerlessness and surrender ourselves into God’s
hands and say: “Do what you want with me.” When our faith-surrender leads to peace
and serenity of mind we experience
the glimpses of glory emerging from the cross as John’s gospel tells us.
According to his gospel Jesus’ glorification takes place at his death itself.
(2) To repent
or
change our hearts:
Earlier in John’s gospel (3:14),
Jesus invites us to experience a healing touch for the ‘poison’ of sin with
which we are infected by fixing our gaze in faith at the Son of Man (Jesus) who
must be “lifted up” – a technical word in Jn to refer to his
crucifixion and glorification. Today, John’s passion narrative again invites us
to experience God’s infinite love flowing from the cross of Christ. Cross is
the proof of the Father’s boundless love for sinners like you and me, and
for the broken world. It is the ultimate sign of God’s absolute love and
generosity for us. In the light of John’s passion narrative, let us look up to
the cross of Christ with eyes of faith and meditate on the
price
he paid to heal us from the poison of sin or all evil. God loved you, me and
the whole world of sinners so much that he allowed his Son to die a criminal’s
shameful death on the cross. He so loved us that he wanted to share with us his
own life (called “eternal life” in Jn) by saving us through the cross of Christ
(cf. 3:16-17). Was there no other way of saving us? Yes, there was. But we
would not have got a shining example of somebody like us who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses and has been tested
in
every respect as we are (Heb 4:15). The loving gaze of Christ hanging on the
cross with his tortured and blood-spattered body should remind us of the price
his absolute love and total obedience to the Father’s will has paid. He proves
that there cannot be any greater love than this (15:13). We hear a voice crying
from the cross: “I love
you this much! What more could I have done for you?” If this not enough to
melt our hearts to repent for our and our world’s sins, what else can!
5. Response to
God's Word
Do we voluntarily embrace those crosses
which come to us when we voluntarily undertake services motivated by his
shining example? Do we accept our crosses (especially those which
come to us because of our voluntary service) in a composed manner and with surrender
to God’s will, or grudgingly with a lot restlessness and complaints? What are our
personal crosses and crosses of the world we would like to place at the foot of
Christ’s cross and unite our suffering with his? Only when we accept our sufferings
in faith and surrender to God’s will, our cross has a redemptive value. Today,
during the most sorrowful liturgy of Good Friday, are we going to kiss the
cross with this intention or just to fulfil a ritual?
6. A prayer
We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross,
you have redeemed the world. O Crucified Lord, we bow down before your Holy
Cross in an act of thanksgiving for such a great price your absolute love has
paid in order to save us. Today we bring all our personal crosses and the
crosses of the suffering humanity in the world and place them at the foot of
your holy cross. Give us the grace and strength to accept them lovingly and in
a composed manner. We unite them with your suffering and death as an act of
total surrender to your holy will. Remain
with us, and be our support and strength when our crosses become too heavy for
us. Amen.
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