Good Friday Introduction

​In silence we come to the Cross of the Son of God on this Good Friday. We do so by way of remembering. We cannot literally be there, since it is all history. So in memory we come to the Crucifixion of Christ. Some people say that they don’t know how anyone could desire and carry out such a horrific act of torture. Such people have no real consciousness of their own sin or of who and what they have been and still are. For before us we behold the external and visible manifestation of what sin does. Sin in its various forms is nothing other than what abandons, betrays, denies, tortures, and kills God’s Word in human nature. God’s Word is His Articulated Desire, Plan, Purpose, Intention, Wisdom, and Truth for His creation. Thatwe cannot see that we kill God’s Word in our hearts and those of others is wholly evident on Good Friday. For though sin be subtle, it still kills God’s Word in the flesh of others and in ourselves. 

It is said that sin is the absence of God, and that is true enough on one level. But it is more than that. It is really the will or desireto make God absent. It is the obstinate refusal to hear, obey, cultivate, and grow God’s Word in human life. Sometimes it is committed quietly in the ivory towerof arrogant stoical indifference. Sometimes it is committed in fear, as when a man can only envy the presence and success of goodness in the world. Sometimes it is committed rashly, impetuously, feverishly, out of impatience, outrage, and exasperation in violent anger. Sometimes it is committed slothfully to ensure earthly comfort, peace, and normalcy, simply because zeal requires sacrifice, sacrifice effort, and effort patience. Or it might be committed by making false gods out of greed’s ideal, gluttony’s comfort, and lust’s fleeting passion. In whatever way it is expressed, it all adds up to one thing: despair. And despair is the failure to hope. The failure of hope is the refusal to believe that a person, situation, predicament, or condition can be changed. Despair is the refusal to admit that the Good might conquer evil, Love might banish hate, Beauty might vanquish ugliness, and Truth might overcome ignorance. Despair then leads men to eliminate God’s Word from human life. Thus we find Jesus hanging upon the Tree of Calvary on this Good Friday. 
         
But is this all that we find? No sooner had they arrested, mocked, derided, stripped, whipped, crowned with thorns, and nailed this man to the tree, than He was back to doing what He had always done, what He had come to do. Archbishop Fulton Sheen reminds us that, Seneca, [the great Roman Stoic Philosopher], wrote that those who were crucified cursed the day of their birth, the executioners, their mothers [for having brought them into this miserable world], and even spat on them that gazed upon them. Cicero recorded that at times it was necessary to cut out the tongues of those who were crucified to stop their terrible blasphemies. (Life of Christ, p. 372) Seneca ended up committing suicide, and Cicero was murdered, both because of alleged crimes against Caesar. Neither could have imagined that out of the death of a good man or out of a noble death something could emerge the likes of which we witness in Jesus. But with Jesus, we shall find something else at work today. Jesus is God’s Word. In Jesus, we find God’s Desire, Plan, Purpose, Intention, Wisdom, and Truth still at work. In Jesus, we shall find the  power of good over evil, light over darkness, and righteousness over sin. In Jesus, we shall discover the room for those who do not know what they are doing but might wake up and discover that Jesus truly was the Son of God and thus begin the journey to Heaven. In Jesus, we shall discover room for those who knew what they were doing but repented and believed. In Jesus, we shall learn of those whose faith was tried and tested by what their intellect’s could not fathom but whose hearts would be strengthened again by a deeper faith that would be surprised by joy. In Jesus, we shall find room for all. The key to entry into the wave of the salvation he wins will be repentance and forgiveness. Let us meditate this day on these virtues. 

©wjsmartin

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