Homily for Good Friday

It’s one thing to do a good deed for someone. It’s another when other people

are attacking you and trying to put you off. We often take our emergency

services for granted, and expect them to turn up when called and do the job.

But it’s another thing when the police, ambulance workers or members of the

fire service have to face abuse or even physical violence when they are trying

to do help others and save lives. If you were there, fire hose in hand, and

someone started throwing things at you, would it not be tempting, just for a

moment, to give your attacker a blast of icy cold water?

They shouldn’t have to put up with things like that. Hopefully these are only

small, isolated incidents. But go back two thousand years. Our Lord is

performing the greatest emergency rescue there is, sacrificing His life for the

sake of us all, offering His suffering on the Cross in atonement for our sins.

Our Lady, St John and a few of the other disciples there are either standing or

kneeling in adoration. But there are others who stand there and mock. We

didn’t hear it in the Gospel today, but in St Mark’s Gospel, the passers-by say

to him: “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days,

save yourself, and come down from the cross!” And the chief priests and

scribes add to all this by saying: “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let

the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see

and believe.” Of course, even if He did, they still wouldn’t have believed. But

if we had been there, we might have thought: “No! Don’t come down from the

Cross! Stay on the Cross! I want to be forgiven! Yes, I want others to be

forgiven too. But don’t leave me out! Complete what you have to do! Don’t

listen to them!”

The whole of Our Lord’s life was leading up to this. That why He came. This

was His Mission – to put things right between humanity and God. It would be

no good Him staying longer on earth, preaching for longer, but then

undermining it all by disobeying His Father and leaving the work of

redemption undone.

But in some ways, it seems that it has been left undone, at least partially. Or

has it? St Paul writes, in his letter to the Colossians (1:24): “Now I rejoice in

my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in

Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church”. How can the

suffering of Christ on the Cross be lacking, as if a bit was accidentally left over

that St Paul is now finishing off and tidying up? Surely he is only a man, so

how can he have anything to do with our sins being forgiven?

It is all through the grace of Christ. Just as Our Lord did not reserve to Himself

the preaching of the Gospel, but involved others in that task, in the same way

He desires us to be involved in the work of redemption as well. It means that

all our suffering, and the suffering of the world, does not have to be

meaningless, but can be joined to Christ’s suffering for the redemption and

salvation of the world. But it’s not our work; it’s Christ’s work. He is working

through us and suffering through us. It is never our work alone.

Suffering, of course, does not just mean physical pain. We can sometimes say

that someone is a right pain. I’m being slightly humorous here, but the point it

that all types of pain, including suffering for doing what is right, is also a share

in the work of Christ’s suffering on the Cross. So, just as they mocked Christ

and told Him to get down from the Cross, so we too can find ourselves

sometimes encouraged to give up following the Lord, to save ourselves the

effort and the suffering it involves. Why do you bother? What’s the point?

The point is this: Jesus suffered and died for me, and not just for me, but for

the whole human race, past, present and future. He has given me a gift beyond

all price: new life as a child of God, freedom from sin, and the hope of heaven

in the next life. For that, I am prepared to give even my life. “For what does it

profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36)

So just as we would want Christ to remain on the Cross, so we too, have to

remain on our cross. Only in that way, do we imitate our Master and get to

receive our heavenly reward.

Curious about exploring things further?  If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk