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Good Friday 2011   

       On this awful and awe-filled day Christ takes on three foes: Truth is opposed by lies. Suffering is opposed by cowardice. Love is opposed by selfishness.  By his words and actions, Jesus commands us to reflect on real life, and our ability or inability to embrace it. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says if “you will be my disciple, you must deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me.”

           My first response is: “but Lord, there has to be another way. You way ought to be something easier, something fun, something convenient. I want to follow you, but you are asking me for too much.” Many times we are like the rich young man, we want to follow the Lord, but we are so concerned with hanging on to the things this world says is important, we refuse the gift of hanging on the cross.  

              Which is safer, the world or the cross? What do you think? The world has pleasures, the world has beauty, the world has goodness. The values of the world also teach us that the world is in my control, people can be in my control, I can determine and create my own world according to my whims and desires.  No one is worth my life, I am important above all else. I must serve myself.       

         Jesus saw the world as beautiful and good, but is also saw it as dangerous. We can take ourselves too seriously and forget that it is God who is ultimately in charge, not me. Not my will, but THY WILL be done. This was the battle at Gethsemane. Jesus knows the Truth because as God He is the Truth. Only Jesus can cure the terrible and terminal disease that that the human race has brought upon itself. 

               Truth is sometimes a lonely thing. People are so inmeshed in their own realities and delusions of grandeur that when faced with the choice of the truth or a lie, they will delay or deflect the truth if they have the chance. To choose the Truth is to recognize that some things may be sacrificed- my comfort, my popularity, my wants. I need everything in me to hold onto the Truth, because there is nothing else worth holding. 

          Views in this world change as quickly as the wind, or Ohio weather. Jesus teaches us that we must give up everything else to follow him, to go against the flow, to say that my faith is not just an idea, but a deep commitment to Someone far greater than myself, who guides me and leads me into places I have not planned to go, but where I truly need to be. To live this faith takes great courage, knowing that I might be ridiculed, shunned even isolated because of what is right.         

       Why do we choose to suffer? We seem to gain so very little and at the same time appear to lose so much?  There is only one reason to suffer, and that is love. To love and be loved is the greatest gift one can give and receive, but it is also our heaviest burden. It is what makes us truly human. The bond of love gives us both great joy but also great sorrow.  

              Today Christ gives us back our true humanity by dying out of love for the human race that we might not ever delude ourselves again. The cross is the key that opens the heart of God to the world. From that pierced heart flows the REAL TRUTH. God’s infinite love, his boundless mercy, and consoling peace are opened to us again.

                We see that in this perilous and ever changing world that the cross is surely the safest place to be. It is painful, but pain is a part of real life. It can help us long for the goodness and joy that God has in store for those who bear it lovingly. The cross is heavy, but not as heavy as all the expectations that the world falsely makes on us to become our own gods and goddesses. The cross is humbling, but not humiliating. The world seeks to humiliate us by leaving us in pieces on the street and in broken homes and violent relationships, building us up only to later strike us down.  

             Jesus teaches us that the only safe place to be in this world is on the cross. God is there with us to show us the Truth of his sacrifice, to suffer bravely with us when everyone else would abandon us, and love us when everyone else is too self absorbed to care.  

              As we venerate this instrument of death which today becomes the truest sign of love and our means of salvation, let us hold tight to it, because we too are in a battle for truth, for courage and for love. Everything is riding on it. He tells us: don’t give up, don’t give in. Take up that cross and take up real life.