Understanding Good Friday

Biblical Reflection for Good Friday – March 25, 2016

by Father Thomas Rosica, CSB

Each year on Good Friday we relive the tragic chain of events of the Passion of our Savior leading to his crucifixion on Golgotha. There is a haunting question about this day that has resounded throughout history. Where was God in the midst of the disaster on Calvary?

This is a question that even Jesus the Lord cried out from the wood of the cross: “Where are you? Have you really forgotten me? Why are you deaf to my the sound of my pleading?” (Psalm 22).

The profoundly moving Scripture readings of today’s solemn liturgy do not focus upon the corpse of Jesus, but they move delicately back and forth between the dead Jesus and the grieving community. The passages are filled with words of sorrow and hope, death and life. In the reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (4:14-16; 5:7-9), the author contemplates Jesus’ agony in the garden in relation to temple sacrifices and the priesthood according to the Hebrew Scriptures.

We are told what kind of God we have, and what kind of God would allow a Good Friday to happen: a God-man who was always son, like us in all things but sin. Far from creating an abyss between Christ and ourselves, our trials and weaknesses have become the privileged place of our encounter with him, and not only with him, but with God himself, thanks to this man of the cross.

The consequence is that from now on, not one of us can be bowed down under a painful situation without finding that Christ is, by that very fact, at our side. If, in fact, the trials of human existence have given Christ his present position close to God, for having suffered death he has been clothed with glory and honor.

Prayers and silent tears
In his days on earth, Jesus shared our flesh and blood, crying out with prayers and silent tears. He was heard because of his reverence. The Old Testament never dreamed of requiring the high priest to make himself like his brothers and sisters, but was preoccupied on the contrary with separating him from them. It is all the more striking, therefore, that on one essential point, no distinction was made: No text ever required that the high priest should be free from all sin. In the Old Testament, an attitude of compassion toward sinners appeared to be incompatible with the priesthood.

Unlike the Levitical priests, the death of Jesus was essential for his priesthood. He is a priest of compassion. His authority attracts us because of his compassion, the authority of his words, his penetrating, loving gaze at each one of us, the steadfastness of his faith. Ultimately, he exists for others: He exists to serve.

He has been tested in all respects like us — he knows all of our difficulties; he is a tried man; he knows our condition from the inside and from the outside — only by this did he acquire a profound capacity for compassion. He was a priest — one who lived for others, who offered up everything of this sad but beautiful world to the God who loved him. That’s the only kind of priesthood that makes a difference, and that matters, then and now.

If last evening’s celebration of the Lord’s Supper invited us to look at what we have done with our baptism, and how we are a Eucharistic people, then this afternoon’s Commemoration of Jesus’ Death invites us to look at our own priesthood, yours and mine, and ask ourselves for whom we really live and who we really love. We must ask ourselves a question today: Am I a priestly person like he was? Do I live for others? Is the world any less violent, any less hostile, any more patient, kind and just, because of me?

Read more about the connoisseur of crosses and cross bearing