Good Friday homily
Good Friday 2012
Where does love come from? We say that we love things and people and God, but where does it come from? Who gives us the idea and reality of love? There are really only two choices. Either love is something that we create or love is something that is given by one who loves us for no particular reason only than that he does. This is such a basic question that most of the difficulties we face in the world truly revolve around the meaning of the term love.
Today we are given the freedom to answer that question and it will have lasting effects both in the hearts of all people and the whole world. The Passion of St. John puts the question on the lips of Pontius Pilate. Pilate asks the people who they want him to release, Barrabas or Jesus.
It is clear that Barrabas was a revolutionary figure who was seen by some of the people as a type of political Messiah, who had no trouble shedding the blood of others to achieve his goals. His goals are achieved through violence and subversion. He will take what rightfully belongs to him and the end justifies the means. It is a selfishness and slavery our own wants under the disguise of freedom and liberation. This desire to free Barrabas is really a desire to control our own destinies and take matters into our hands. We set the rules and therefore we determine the outcomes, and if we don’t get what we want, we will destroy or marginalize it so no one else can have it in an attempt to take everyone down with us. I LOVE IF I GET WHAT I WANT!
What about Jesus? He was someone who was quite different, but equally revolutionary in his thinking. He was however, not interested in changing the political situation, but in changing the world. The only blood that Jesus sheds is his own. In the Gospels it says that he has come to offer his life as a ransom for sinners. As the Son of God, he empties himself and takes on our human nature. He too offers freedom and liberation, but it is through surrender of our hearts and wills to the love of God, to make of ourselves an offering as he offers himself for us. He gives himself to the Father as God and man not to placate an angry God, but to restore a fallen nature that has too often chosen self over others, greed over generosity, revenge over forgiveness. He loves us not so that he can get something from us, but so that he can GIVE something to us: life, freedom, hope, purpose and unconditional and unlimited love. CHRIST LOVES WHEN HE GIVES WHO HE IS.
God has shown us today that LOVE comes from him first, and we see it in our crucified Lord Jesus Christ. The love of the Father and the Son from all eternity in the Holy Spirit created this world in all its beauty, glory and wonder. Our first parents were fooled into believing that God really did not love us, but was using us, so they believed they had to determine their own meaning of love. They took the beautiful gift of love and began to change it into lust, domination and manipulation and made it something that can be quite ugly.
Yet, today, when we look at Jesus crucified for our sins, we see someone who in his appearance appears quite ugly and repulsive. It is hard to have this around. It makes us uncomfortable uneasy. It shakes our idea of love to the core. We put him on the cross because we thought he would finally go away and quit telling us that real love makes demands and requires sacrifice and commitment. We did not realize though that by crucifying him, it only made his love echo throughout the universe. Barrabas faded from the scene and is never heard from again. Jesus love has never left us, and it is there for us to accept with a humble and contrite heart. In faith, we see not a criminal getting his just punishment, but a profoundly beautiful act of love and devotion, by the Son of God who knew that the only way to free us was to love us to the end, even if we did not ask for it, even though we did not deserve it. We are still asked today that same question? Whose love is worth living for? Barrabas or Jesus? Jesus shows us today that we are worth it to him. Is he worth it to us? Love comes from God and the cross is its enduring sign. Will we accept it?
