GOOD FRIDAY - YEAR C

GOOD FRIDAY – YEAR C (Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9; John 18:1 – 19:42) Theme: Nudity of Christ on the cross: Utter self-emptying for the fullness of the world Reflection He empties himself both of his divinity and humanity – stands naked before his Father - We have reached the Calvary. Our journey of the Lent has come to its final stop. Forty days of fasting, prayer and charity empowered us with the love for Christ and his plans for us. All our Lenten gestures and resolutions have to be finally ‘nailed’ to the cross. It is there that they find their total significance. We have walked all along the roads of our faith. We did not turn back. We did not look back. We have put our hands on the plough and continued our tilling (Luke 9:62 – “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of hand”). We are really blessed we have followed the way of the cross well. We are now at the foot of the cross. We are happy to be there. We are with Jesus. How content we are to complete our journey carrying our daily cross. - The mystery of the cross is already prepared and prefigured in the Eucharistic meal that Jesus has offered to his disciples as his “farewell” party and as his “departing meal”. o The body was already given up for them (“This is my body given up for you”), and the blood was already poured out for all (“This is the blood of everlasting covenant shed for you and for all”). They are already given to the disciples in mind and in heart. The invisible self-donation is already over in mind, in soul: The WILL is Fulfilled. o Only the visible offer is remaining. Only the physical surrender and sacrifice is remaining. Once the ‘will’ is already given, the ‘act’ is only the consequence. The will is the cause and the action is the fruit. The curtain of the action is unveiled. The cross is carried to its fixation. The body is nailed to it. The cross is raised between the heaven and earth. The visible performance of the offering finds its final move in the suffering and death of the flesh of Jesus: the ACT is Accomplished. - The mystery of Christ in its totality is revealed in the cross: o Vertical beam of the cross is first two extremes that Christ, the Word of God, has assumed in his divinity: the ulterior part – the peak point – refers to the eternal readiness of the Son in listening to his Father, and the bottom part – the earthly point – refers to the eternal abasement of the Son in obeying his Father: the divine Son-ship of the Word manifests both his readiness and obedience in eternity. o Horizontal beam of the cross is the other two extremes that Jesus, the Word made Flesh, has assumed in his humanity: at one end is his life (beginning of human life with the incarnation) and at the other end is his mission (accomplishment of God’s design by becoming the life giver in the resurrection). Even in his humanity Jesus has been obedient all through his life and mission. His life and mission is kept open for all to embrace. o Thus, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is not a stumbling block or foolishness but it is a power and wisdom that God has manifested. Jesus by dying on the cross becomes the meeting point (+) for God and man and also interacting centre for man and man. Jesus on the Cross: Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:1-18) - The shepherd’s characteristics: he has to enter by the gate (v. 2) – he is the owner of the sheep; he calls his sheep by the name and leads them out (v.3) – he is the pastor of the sheep; he goes ahead of the sheep (v.4) – he is the leader of the sheep. Jesus first talks about the ordinary shepherd who is very familiar to his audience. He plainly explains to them the relationship between the sheep and its shepherd. In the Old Testament, in the prophetic teachings and preaching, the proclamation that God is a shepherd and the people are his flock is evident in many other parallels. Selection of a shepherd boy David as the king of Israel itself is a great revelation of this relationship between God and people of Antic alliance. Jesus also talks in the language of the people so that they grasp the meaning in fullness. That is the reason why, whenever Jesus uses an analogy there will be deeper and inner significance which he reveals. It happened very often in his discourses. Even the disciples once asked him why does he talks in the parables and Jesus answers them that it is to explain the mysteries of the kingdom of God. All most all the parables contain this kind of inner message about the reality of God and his expression of love to the humanity. So also so here in this particular analogical explanation in which he provides the difference between a true and a false shepherd. False or selfish or hired shepherd, instead, steals, makes use, and specially escape when his sheep in danger. The one who is opposite to it is the good shepherd walks before his sheep, stands for his sheep, and is ready to give up his life for his sheep. - I am the Good Shepherd: the characteristics of the good shepherd are noteworthy: he lays down his life for the sheep (v.11); he knows his sheep and his sheep also knows him (v.14); he has the care for the other sheep too (v.16); he strives for the unity of entire sheep-fold irrespective of their place and belonging (v.16); he is not compelled by any outside force to lay down his life but his inner mission received from the Master (v.18). Jesus enters into the deeper meaning. He claims to the shepherd who is the owner, pastor and the leader of the sheep. He confirms that he is not just any other shepherd but a good shepherd who is ready to do anything/everything for the sheep. He walks before them so that if anything happens to the sheep it happens first to him – he bears our sufferings in the first person. He stands for his sheep so that if anyone has to judge the sheep, the first judgment falls on him – he carries our accusations on himself and goes before us. He is ever-ready to give his life so that if a sheep has to die, he dies for it in the first place – he becomes the life-giver in the first place. - Good Shepherd on the Cross: All that a good shepherd does is very clear from the words of Jesus in his discourse. And it still remains a word. Jesus does not want to remain a preacher alone who speaks in the beautiful expressions. He is more over the fulfiller of all that he says. For this he has come into the world: not only to open the secrets of the kingdom to all, but above all, to open his heart so that the showers of the kingdom bath the humanity and wash it clean, and by that to opens the possibility of participating in the sheep-fold of the Great Shepherd God Himself. In other words, with the pierce in the side Jesus opens his whole person so that the sheep is immersed into flow of the water and blood of his heart and is purified so that it is inserted into the life of the Spirit and thus become a good sheep of the Good shepherd. This is what happens on the cross. His actions – or the event of self-donation – go beyond the mere words. He becomes not a good shepherd of the proclamation but the Good Shepherd of the testimony. Jesus would have remained as any other prophet or a good teacher of any other religion if here were to stop only with the pious proclamations. But it opposes the qualities of the good shepherd. Good shepherd has to be the first one to teach, to lead and to offer himself for the sheep. It is still more in the event of Christ: because His birth itself (His Incarnation) in the view of his dying (Passion and death) for the fulfillment of God’s loving design of the world (Resurrection and Life). This is the unfathomable difference between Jesus and any other religious figure in the various religions: All come to teach and lead the humanity with the beautiful and inspiring teachings, but Jesus is the ONLY ONE who WILLINGLY DIES for it – “no one has the power to take my life, I will give it on my own” – this proves to the world who is the Good Shepherd. Jesus BECOMES the Good Shepherd On the Cross Alone. Jesus on the Cross: Merciful Father who embraces his children (Luke 15:11-32) - Two prodigal sons: We are familiar with the parable of the merciful father in the gospels and in the particular, or in fact only one gospel in which it is found, in the Gospel of Luke. We have different names to call it. We shall keep aside who is the real prodigal son in the gospel: is it the younger son who has gone long distance away from the home and repented and comes back? Or is it the elder son who is being closer to the home, is away from it in the heart failing to accept the repentant brother? Whatever it is, both have gone away from the heart of the father: falling away from reaching to the generous self-donation of the father. The only difference is that the younger one has gone away in the beginning itself and the elder one towards the end: the younger one with the self-desire of having his own life and the elder one with the jealousy and intolerance of his brother’s return. One thing is true: both of them have fallen back and rejected the loving bosom of the father. - The father’s love is immeasurable: He does not want to restrict his sons. He gives them full freedom. He respects their free acts since they are not anymore children but adults. They are now in a position of analyzing and choosing what is good for them. But father is always father and he wants to be a father. A father can be a good father only one his children are with him. The nature of the father is: he gives his children freedom and still desires that they opt to be with him in their free choice. This is what we see in the gospel we are referring to. Father never says ‘no’ to the freedom that the younger one manifests knowing well that he is taking a wrong step. He feels painful for his acts. He suggests him the good way. But he never compels him or forces him to stay back. He could have very well stopped the son from falling into sin at least by ‘not giving’ him the property. But that is not the nature of a father. Father is fully father only when he shares all that he has to his children: total giving. In other words, he has not material possessions but His sons are His True Possession. What a beautiful relationship between the father and a son. - Father with the open and empty arms: Despite the father’s good counsel the younger son leaves home by his freedom taking all that he has to receive from him. The truth that we have to keep in mind here is the question: how a son (being a son of the father) can demand his possession from the father when he is not willing to be his son by being with him? it is here that we understand in fullness the nature of fatherhood: it is father who wants to give anything to his son whether his son is worthy or not. When his son has gone away, it is true that he felt painful and heart-broken. But he never stops being a father to him, although the son has rejected his presence and his love. He keeps looking for him with the long desire of his return. He knows it well that he would one day come back because it is to a strange land that he went and he has to return to his home land. It may take some time but certainly he would come back. Father knows this. Yet he did not keep quite with this. He waits for him. He desires that he would come back before he perishes in his misuse of freedom. There is no single moment in which he left his son to his fate. Each second he kept his empty hands open for his return. His hands are empty because his heart is empty with the loss of possession of the son, not with the loss of possessions of earthly riches. His hands are open because he does not want to see his son escape his embrace when he returns. It happens also in the case of the elder son at the end of the gospel passage where he goes and requests him to be his son: the nature of the elder son is perfect only when he accepts both the father and his brother, otherwise he remains only a son, not a brother. This is the merciful and loving father of the gospel which Jesus talks referring ultimately to the Merciful God who always love his children. - Merciful Father with the Open Arms on the cross: Jesus becomes this merciful father. he opens his arms on the cross. There are many other ways of dying but Jesus willed (or just allowed) this cross-death to happen so that it has its significance for the spiritual understanding of man. He opens his empty arms. He is empty because he has given all that he possessed: his glory, his might, his name, his power and also his son-ship. He opens his arms because this is the only gesture of embrace and from the cross – being in a position above all – he has the possibility of gathering all to himself. In this way, Jesus becomes the merciful father of whom he himself has elaborated in the words. This is because, so that people who did not understand his words, might understand it at least from the actions. Gospel becomes Life. Word becomes Action. Death becomes Gate. What a transformation that the cross brings about in Jesus’ ultimate self-giving. And it happens in everyone who takes up his daily cross, in freedom and in self-denial, and follows him. Jesus on the Cross: New Adam who is the Tree of New Life (Romans 5:12-21) - Old Adam becomes the cause for the fall and death: Paul preaches the great change that Jesus brings about with his death. He compares him with the old Adam and shows how he has fulfilled all that the old one has failed to do. Yes, the first Adam has disobeyed God and has just one what he was not supposed to do: by eating the fruit that was abandoned. Because of this disobedience and rejection of the word of God he has brought it consequences to himself and as the first one of the creation, elder/head of the family, to whole creation: fall from the divine presence and death of the body. Once he loses his divine presence he loses everything else. The only reason for this is: the disobedience. - New Adam becomes the cause of the rise and life: Jesus is the new Adam who has come to restore everything of man by giving back to God what the first one failed to give. His manifestation of obedience to the Father evident both in words and in actions: he never sought for his own glory but the glory of the Father. Even in the uttermost situations of the temptation he did not give priority to his own power to prove his divinity but opted in freedom only to the will of the Father with self-surrender to him: o He has the power to change the stones into the bread and prove that he is the son of God in the first temptation in the desert but he seeks for the will of his Father. o He has the capacity to escape the surrounded soldiers as he has done many other times – “I have been preaching all the time in the synagogue but you did not arrest me but now scriptures have to be fulfilled” (Mark 14:48-49). Many times the soldiers/authority failed to put on him their power. Even in the garden of Gethsemane he has the possibility of running away from them but he did not use his power (Mathew 26:52-53) but opted for the will of the Father. o Last temptation on the cross is another occasion in which he could have easily proved his divine glory when they asked him to come down from the cross so that they would believe him. He had the great chance of arousing in them the faith by coming down from heaven. But it is not his will that he desired but the will of his Father. o All these are the occasion where Jesus has restituted that the first Adam failed to do. Old Adam has given priority for his own freedom, for his own glory and for his own selfish interests. The New Adam, in opposition to him, has made the will of His Father his daily food and drink – his whole personhood is for the glorification of the Father. - Jesus is New Adam – New Tree of Life on the cross: by being such an obedient son from the beginning of his begotten birth from the Father which is manifested in the ultimate manner in his humiliating death on the cross, Jesus becomes the New Adam. He is no more a pointer to the tree of life but He himself becomes the Tree of Life: the cross itself is nothing but a tree – A Tree in the Middle of the earth (and between Heaven of eternal life and Hades of eternal death) so that anyone who eats the fruit becomes the son of God by receiving life: life abundantly. It is on the cross that Jesus becomes this Tree of Life for the whole humanity. Jesus on the Cross: New Moses Two New Covenantal Beams of Love (Mathew 5: 1-12) - Moses of the Old Testament is a law giver: we know well from the Book of Exodus that God has made a covenant with his people Israel under the leadership of his servant Moses. This covenant has its final say in the two tablets of the commandments that God gave to Moses and through him to all his people on the Mount Sinai. The two tablets stand for the relationship between God (first three commandments) and man (the last seven). Yahweh becomes their God and they become His people only when they carry these two tablets in their hearts. - Moses of the New Testament is a law-fulfiller: Jesus public ministry according to the gospel of Mathew starts with His Sermon on the Mount which has as its introduction the beatitudes. In every instance Jesus affirms himself to be the New Moses. “You have heard” (of the Law of Moses) is the often starting point of Jesus. “But now I say to you” (of the new law that he proposes) is the concluding element Jesus always uses. By this he shows the difference between the law of the Old Testament and of the New. And again, by this he indicates to the New Moses that is present already amidst them, that is, of himself. In fact, he has not come to abolish the law and not even a single letter of it will be removed (Mathew 5:17-20) but to fulfill it and to perfect it with the new element: love. - Cross is the ‘two beams of love’: On the cross Jesus becomes the New Moses who gives not any more two tablets of law but ‘two beams of covenantal love’: the vertical beam indicating the love of God and the horizontal beam indicating the love of neighbor and both of them having their crossing or meeting centre in his person himself. What a wonderful offer of love to humanity: Jesus becomes the way, the truth and the life. In fact, Cross is the: o “Gate of Narrow Way” that all have to choose to pass through to enter into heaven, the Way that Leads to the Truth; o “Seed of Absolute Truth” that becomes a power and wisdom of God for all who believe, which is still a stumbling block to the Jews and the foolishness to the gentiles, the Truth that Leads to Life; and o “Source of Eternal Life” that gives the strength to all “to lose life to gain it”. - In this way the Nudity of Christ on the cross becomes his Utter self-emptying for the fullness of the world: so that the world finds in it the way, the truth and the life and so that looking at the One Who Hangs on It learns to empty themselves in order to be ‘refilled’ with the joy and fullness of life.