Good Friday Year B | Homily for 29th March 2024

 

My dear brothers and sisters, have you ever wondered why did Jesus die on the cross? Or what would happen if Jesus didn’t die on the cross? Don’t worry you are not alone, this question about the suffering and death of Jesus has been a challenge right from the very beginning of Christianity. The early Church had to grapple much with the question of why did Jesus have to die on the cross and what was the significance of it all. The 1^st reading today taken from Isaiah which is also known as the fourth of the suffering servant songs was one of the most important passages that helped the early Christians interpret the suffering and death of Jesus. The Servant is not suffering for the sake of suffering, the song speaks of the Servant taking on griefs and sorrows, iniquities, and sins of others – it is a revelation of God’s mercy.

In the 2^nd reading taken from Hebrews, Jesus is presented as a great high priest. In ancient times, high priests functioned as mediators between God and the people. They offered sacrifices, intercessions and prayers on behalf of the people. However, Jesus’s movement from heaven to earth transformed the role of the priesthood. In Jesus, we have a high priest who can relate and understand our struggles. Because of Jesus, the boundaries that have separated humanity from God are penetrated and we can approach God because of our great high priest.

The death of Jesus on the cross can only be understood when we look at it in the context of the Old Testament. The paschal sacrifice was not for the atoning of individual sins; rather, it was to serve as a constant reminder to the Israelites of their struggle against slavery and deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Compared to the other synoptic gospels which portray the Last Supper as a Passover meal, the passion narrative in John shows that Jesus suffered, was crucified and died at the exact same time when the Passover lamb was to be slaughtered and sacrificed. By His offering of Himself as the Paschal Lamb of sacrifice, Jesus has become for us the source of liberation from the power of sin and death.

We need to look at the Easter Triduum, i.e. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter as one great mystery. What Jesus says at that Last Supper, as He broke and shared His Body and Blood to His disciples, comes to completion with the Passion, the suffering and crucifixion of Our Lord Himself on this Good Friday. Jesus embraces his own suffering for the benefit of others. Jesus’ death is meaningful not only because he dies willingly but because his death results in the good of the world. The gospel of John presents Jesus as the shepherd who cares for the sheep even at the cost of his own life, he is the Lamb of God, whose death “takes away the sin of the world” (1:29). The goodness of Good Friday does not eliminate the reality of sin, grief, suffering, and death. It means those are not the final or ultimate reality.

I’d like to ask you a question, what do you think killed Jesus? The scourging and the crucifixion certainly you would say. But truly speaking crucifixion did not kill Jesus. Crucifixion is merely the method of his death. At a deeper level, love is the ultimate cause of Jesus’ death. Wherever there is self-giving love there is death. In true love we have to die to our ego, we have to die to our desires, we have to die to our fears and our safety and security. It involves the complete giving of one’s self to another. Those who are married experience this kind of death when they give their spouse priority in their life. Parents experience this death when they start living not for themselves but for their children. To love is to risk death and to refuse death is to deny love. The greatest and most profound story of love is Jesus’ death on the cross. The cross points to the intense relationship between love and death and that is why we call this day good- Good Friday.

In my very short experience as a priest, if there is one thing which I feel affects a majority of the people whom I have interacted with is unforgiveness. Be it a 9-year-old or a ninety-year-old, people have told me about hurts, pains and sufferings that they have carried in their hearts for years and years on end. There are sometimes minor issues like misunderstandings and also major issues related to property or loyalty, but the end result of it all is the same – the destruction of love and relationships. If we truly have to experience the love of God, we have to first experience the death of ourselves, and of our egos by forgiving from the heart.  Whenever you truly forgive someone from your heart you experience this death because you have to overcome bitterness, hurt and pain. The invitation for us this Good Friday is to relook at our lives and come closer to God. Go beyond our narrow understanding of God who punishes us and is out there to get us but instead forgive from the heart and become ready to accept the love of a crazy God who didn’t stop even from dying on the cross to express his love for us.

Just imagine someone gifting you the latest iPhone. There are two ways in which you can respond to this gift. First, take extreme care of it like a prized possession or second, since you have received it for free be careless about it and just throw it around. The life that we have received is a gift received free of cost. Or imagine you are caught speeding and the cops ask you to pay the fine of Rs. 1000 and as you grudgingly take out your wallet to pay the fine, the policeman tells us “Hey wait, the fine has already been paid for, you can go!” How would you drive then? Would you still speed recklessly or will you out of gratitude drive more carefully? My dear friends, these are some very simple examples from our day to day life to help us grasp a little better this mystery of the paschal sacrifice. We do not have to carry the burden of our sins any longer. We are truly forgiven because Christ died for us. We cannot and do not have to pay the price for the wrongs that we have done. The price has already been paid. How are we going to respond to this love of God? Are we going to waste it by carrying the burdens of pain, sorrow and hurt with us all the time or will we be courageous enough to be willing to die by loving in the way Christ loved us?

May this mystery of the love of our crazy God, bring us closer to Him this Easter Triduum. May God bless us all.