Good Friday - The Cross = True Love

Location: Saint Joseph Catholic Church (Earlville, IA) – 3 p.m. Good Friday Liturgy

Date: Friday April 18^th, 2014 (Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion)

READINGS:

1^st Reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Resp. Psalm: Ps. 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25

2^nd Reading: Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9

Gospel: John 18:1-19:42

FOCUS: Jesus loved us so much that He was willing to suffer to save us and bring us back to God. 

FUNCTION: Be willing to suffer for the sake of Christ; remain always steadfast in your faith. 

          Let’s face it: it’s not popular to be a Catholic.  We’re living in a day and age that is “spiritual, but not religious.”  The wider culture is more open to New Age spirituality than Christianity; any mention of God is stifled in the midst of public discourse; certain groups of people attempted to have the phrase, “under God,” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance; the religious meanings behind the celebrations of Easter, Halloween, and Christmas, for instance, have all been replaced by secular meanings (or no meaning at all); it’s popular to portray Christians in TV, film, and the wider media as insensitive and intolerant; and we’ve all experienced the pressure to conform more to the message of the world rather than the message of the Gospel. 

          Good Friday reminds us that it’s not popular to be Catholic, to be one of the Lord’s disciples.  But we’re not Catholic because we’re trying to be popular; we’re Catholic because of what Christ accomplished for us.  Good Friday reminds us that Christ suffered in order to save us and bring us back to God.

          I’m struck every year by the words of the “Song of the Suffering Servant” from the first reading:  “He was spurned and avoided by people,/ a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,/ one of those from whom people hide their faces,/ spurned, and we held him in no esteem./  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 whole,/ 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.”

          Sometimes we take the cross and Jesus’ passion for granted.  Sometimes we think of Jesus as so divine that we forget about His true humanity – how He felt every one of the lashes when He was scourged; how He felt the pain of the crown of thorns as the thorns pierced His flesh and were pushed into His skull; how the rocks along the way of the cross felt under His feet; how it felt to have large nails driven into His hands and feet.  Sometimes we forget these things.  Sometimes we forget that our salvation came with a price – the sacrifice of the Lord’s Body and Blood, offered up for us first in the institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday and then on the cross on Good Friday.

          Good Friday is supposed to inspire us to love the Lord with our whole heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourselves; the Lord willingly gave up His life for each of us.  Each of us is known and loved by God.  Jesus was willing to submit to the suffering of the cross for the sake of our salvation, because He loved us with an undying love. 

          True love must always hurt, it must always cost something, and it must always push us outside ourselves.  The cross that we celebrate today is God’s most profound declaration of love.  He did no spare His only Son, but gave Him up to death for our sake.  So what can we do in response to so great a love?  We can live our faith; we can share our faith with those who do not yet know the Lord; and we can be willing to suffer for the sake of our faith when believing in Christ makes us unpopular.  May our celebration of Good Friday inspire us to love God and to love others more generously each day.