I have been spending time in John’s gospel considering the events that lead to the death of Christ. When I think about Good Friday, the word “good” is not perhaps how I would initially express it. I can get drawn into the suffering, betrayal, and abandonment, and from the outset none of that seems “good”. I know that Christ has died on my behalf and on the behalf of the whole world to bring us to God, and that is “good”, but there is still this picture of pain and my part in it that stays with me.
As we consider Good Friday, I want to share a passage from Henri Nouwen’s book, “Jesus a Gospel”. It is titled, The Light of the World is Extinguised. Nouwen writes, “Jesus died. The powers of death crushed him. Not only the fear-ridden judgments of Pilate, the torture by the Roman soldiers and the cruel crucifixion, but also the powers and principalities of this world. As we look at the dying Jesus, we see the dying world. Jesus, who on the cross drew all people to himself, died millions of deaths. He died not only the death of the rejected, the lonely, and the criminal, but also the death of the high and powerful, the famous and the popular. Most of all, he died the death of all the simple people who lived their ordinary lives and grew old and tired, and trusted that somehow their lives were not in vain.
When we say “Christ has died”, we express the truth that all human suffering in all times and places has been suffered by the Son of God who also is the Son of all humanity and thus has been lifted up into the inner life of God. There is no suffering–no guilt, shame, loneliness, hunger, oppression, or exploitation, no torture, imprisonment or murder, no violence or nuclear threat–that has not been suffered by God. All this has been said often before, but maybe not in a way that makes a direct connection with the agony of the world that we witness today. We have come to the inner knowledge that the agony of the world is God’s agony. The agony of women, men and children across the ages reveals to us the inexhaustible depth of God’s agony that we glimpsed in the garden of Gethsemane. The deepest meaning of human history is the gradual unfolding of the suffering of Christ. As long as there is human history, the story of Christ’s suffering has not yet been fully told. The more we try to enter into this mystery, the more we will come to see the suffering world as a world hidden in God. Outside of God human suffering is not only unbearable but cannot even be faced. But when we come to know the inner connectedness between the world’s pain and God’s pain, everything becomes radically different. Then we see that in and through Jesus Christ God has lifted up all human burdens into his own interiority and made them the way to recognize his immense love”.
I hope that this has given you something to ponder and reflect upon. How does “Good Friday” strike you?
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