GOOD FRIDAY (A) – (Is 52:13-53:12; Heb 4:14-16, 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42)
Theme: Cross is the Tree and Love is the Fruit
First Reading: He is pierced for our crimes
- Fourth song of the Servant of the Lord (chapter 53)
o It sings of the birth, life, passion, death, burial and the glorification of mysterious messiah.
o A man who is disfigured and macerated: even his pain, sorrow and grief are not for his own sake but for others (vv.2-3 and 6-7)
o A deep suffering which strangely and paradoxically destined for the healing of others (vv. 4-5)
o His life is immersed in the martyrdom and in the tomb and on the tomb with the stone inscribed with the words: “he has not committed any violence and there is no evil on his lips” and this reveals ‘the Innocent’ death of the Servant of God (v.9)
o No one can put him to death but he offers himself (v.10).
o Death is not the eternal home of the Servant but vision of God (v.11).
o His just and innocent death becomes the Cause of Expiation for all and all will receive the reward (the fruit of the Tree of life: the light and the knowledge of God as seen in v.11).
- This song is accomplished in the passion and death of the Servant of God (“emptying himself, taking the form of a slave” Phi 2:7), that is,
o Jesus, who was forsaken and abandoned by his own disciples in the garden of Gethsemane;
o Jesus, who was dejected and disfigured in the hands of the authority;
o Jesus, who has offered himself up for the sacrifice, for He said “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up again” (John 10:18).
o Jesus, for whom death is only a passage to the glory of God because, death has no power over him (Acts 2:24) and his own foretelling and promise that “the Son of Man will rise again on the third day” (Mk 10:34).
o Jesus, who was the innocent lamb and “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (Jn 1:29) and He is Cause of our Salvation for He has carried our sins and accomplished at the act of redemption on the Cross saying “It is Accomplished” and the Cross became the Tree of Life and its fruit is His Unconditional Love for humanity.
Second Reading: He is the Priest and He himself is the Victim of sacrifice
- We see this theme running whole through the letter to the Hebrews and in particular way in today’s part: “we have one great High Priest” (4:14) and “He became the cause of eternal salvation for all who obey him”. He is the priest who, being the Son of God, knows, in perfect obedience, to suffer for our iniquities and thus becomes ‘our sacrifice and our salvation’.
- From the beginning of the Christianity, this is how the letter to Hebrews is considered by the Fathers of the Church: All the rites and sacrifices of the Old Covenant are re-read in the light of ‘the ONLY Sacrifice of Christ’.
- The fullness of humanity of Jesus is manifested in being sacrifice for all: Jesus is no more a mere God who is very far away as was thought by the authority of His time but He has become truly human in the person of this man, so human, that He has become our ‘brother’ who is capable of ‘sympathize with our weaknesses’ (4:15).
- We see how human Jesus offers his prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears and not in vain or not to any god who is deaf but to the one who is ‘able to save him from death’ (5:7). In this way He has shown the way for us to ‘commit ourselves to the One God whom Christ has obeyed and thus entered into the glory as the fruit of that perfect obedience’.
- Therefore, in and through Christ, we can move from the Cross of sacrifice to the Glory of sons of God and finally we know by now that ‘Cross is the Tree and Glory is the Fruit’.
Gospel Reading: ‘Death of Jesus on the Cross is the Seed of Salvation of the World’
- Again we are entering into the Gospel of John which is characteristically very different from the other Gospels and especially in its theological significance. Seems to be almost all similar events from the arrest of Jesus to his final breath on the Cross. But every incident/event is specific in its own bearing and out-pouring of the ‘Revelation of Son of God’.
o There are dialogues between Jesus and his hostiles:
In the garden of Gethsemane we see Jesus himself initiates by asking the soldiers “whom are you searching” and when they said “Jesus of Nazareth”, without any hesitation he replied them “I am He”. And the consequence is the fall of them to the ground. Very signifying in its meaning:
• Jesus hands over himself to them and thus proving that no one can touch him unless he permits it;
• In front of the Divine Manifestation all have to surrender and fall to ground in fear.
In his conversation with the high priest: Jesus testifies his ‘public mission’ telling that He had spoken everything in the synagogues and in the temple and His question to the soldier who bet him to show what is wrong and where is wrong. Here Jesus asks them to review their accusation and search for the right reason.
In the dramatic appearance and dialogue with Pilate in his courtyard Jesus asks him to know two things:
• To know the Truth, which has come into the world and which is standing in front of him;
• To recognize his own mission in the redemptive designs of God: If the power is not given from the above, you have no authority over me (Jn 19:10);
- We will see ultimate conversation of Jesus, leaving apart all others for now, on the Cross in which He gives his mother to John and disciple to his Mother (Jn 19:26-27) and it is very particular to John only because other Gospels did not write it.
o Jesus does not leave his chosen ones and his people without the Mother.
o Significance of Mary as the woman, at the beginning of his mission with the wedding of Cana (Jn 2) and now at the completion of his mission on the cross (Jn 19) stands out as the contrary to the first woman who had denied the design of God. The second Eve always stands at the redemptive work of God completed in her Son, first at the beginning of salvation history with the annunciation with the great ‘yes’ and now at its culmination on the cross with great ‘pondering’ of the works of God.
- His tunic, which signifies the Church, is the undivided unity of Christians:
o When the soldiers have seen his clothes they have divided them into four parts and each one had taken one; but the tunic is seamless, woven in one piece from the top: the indication of the unity of the Church as the one tunic of Jesus, everyone is woven into his Body and therefore there are not to be divisions in the Church.
o The cloths, the outer part of vestment, are divided: when people see the only peripheral aspect of faith in Jesus, like the seed on the rocky ground, it only disappears very quick.
o The Tunic, the inner part of vestment, is one and undivided: when the people enter into the deep and profound faith and relationship with Jesus, they are all united. Nothing and no one can break the unity. Those who enter into the Church that Jesus has established on the rocky faith of Peter and passed on to the generations, they are all intrinsically united and no one can destroy this unity and shatter the faithful.
- Finally from the cross gush out the life of Christians:
o Water and Blood which has come out at once from the side pierced stands for the birth of the Church from the side of Christ as the Eve has come out of the side of Adam;
o Water and Blood which Christ has poured out from the Cross are the ‘signs of Baptism and Eucharist’ with which the believer can have the life;
o This is the mission of every Christian that he has to ‘shed the sweat’ (daily and continuous mission without fatigue) and ‘pour out blood’ (daily and continuous testimony of life and actions till the last drop of blood).
Conclusion
- Christ’s death on the Cross is the ‘gain of life’ of humanity
- Cross is no more of humiliation which means, the suffering, the hunger, the war and even the death are no more blocking stones of faith because ‘no one can separate us from the love of Christ’ (Rom 8:31-39).
- Cross is now the Tree of Life and its Fruit is Love: who takes it, accepts it and likes to follow it has to bear the fruit of love: Christian life is Love and Love is Christian Life and Love is God.
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