The Passion of the
Lord (Good Friday) Year A
[Jn 18:1-19:42]
03.04.2026
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 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!
(2) To imitate or imbibe his spirit of love 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?
(3) 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.
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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