Good Friday brings us to the foot of the cross, and face to face with Christ hanging on the cross. You can’t escape the cross and the man hanging on the cross today. You are prayerfully, compellingly, or even violently brought to the foot of the cross. At the foot of the cross you meditate on the spirituality and philosophy of the cross. Gripped by the holiness of the cross and the man hanging on the cross, we fall on our knees in veneration.
I.
As we look at the crucifixion scene in Luke 23 we find three crosses and the men on those crosses in conversation on mount Calvary. Their response to the violence an endurance that is happening around would perhaps represent various categories of people who made that gory journey, starting with is arrest on the Mount of Olives, passing through the offices of Annas, the former high priest, Caiaphas, the high priest, Herod, the ruler of Galilee, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, and finally to Mount Calvary, the mount of crucifixion.
We find a cross and a man of rebellion, agitation, and insults. The man on the cross on one side of Jesus insulted Jesus saying, ‘so you are the messiah? Then why don’t you save yourself and us?’ he found no hope in anything, he found no goodness or meaning in anything, he does not acknowledge his wickedness, or other’s goodness and holiness. That is a cross that saw only negative possibilities; there is bitterness and giving up.
We find a cross and a man of repentance and hope. Seeing the events unfolding around him, the criminal on the other side of Jesus’ cross was moved with remorse; he said, ‘we deserve the punishment that we are meted out with, for what we have done, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ He admitted his transgressions and acknowledged the goodness of Jesus.
We find a cross and a man of redeeming mercy. Even at the height of excruciating pain and betrayal, he kept saying ‘father forgive them, they know not what they do’. He told the thieves (I believe he said it to both of them), ‘today, you will be in paradise with me’. He saw goodness and fresh possibilities even in a criminal. He had done it in the lives of Mary Magdalene, Zacchaeus, and countless people.
II.
As mere humans, schooled in lucrative businesses and modern ethics, standing at the foot of the cross we struggle with a couple of inner conflicts and confrontations. The first shock is seeing an innocent man willingly making his way with his cross to the place of his crucifixion; something that must never happen in any society. As we popularly hear, ‘even if a thousand culprits escape their punishment, an innocent man should never be punished. It is a public wrong. How do we reconcile a good man dying on the cross?
St. Paul wrote to Corinthians, I Cor 1:23, I preach to you god who is crucified. Not a thief or criminal who is crucified but a good and innocent man crucified.
The innocence of Jesus amply resonates throughout the historical accounts of his trial and crucifixion. Those closest to these events testified to his blamelessness through their words and actions. Judas, overcome with remorse and realising the purity of the man he had handed over, confessed, “I betrayed innocent blood.” Pilate, the Roman governor who held Jesus's fate in his hands, publicly declared, "I don't see any fault with this man." Pilate's wife sent a message to her husband while he was on the judgment seat, "have nothing to do with that righteous man.” Perhaps most striking was the testimony of the centurion who headed the roman team that oversaw the crucifixion of Jesus, was moved by what he saw and proclaimed, "He indeed is the son of God." These diverse voices—from betrayer to executioner, from judge to observer—form a compelling chorus attesting to Jesus's innocence; yet he is condemned to die. Jesus with no hesitation embraces his hour of suffering and death.
This greatest ‘why’ in history perhaps be grasped by a parallel passage. Have you ever been in debt? You owe someone a great sum and you have absolutely no mean to pay back. Being in debt is a chocking experience. Researches say that over 80% of people who commit suicide in developing countries are in debt. Debt has taken more lives than wars and pandemics. Countries and individuals are falling prey to this death trap. How do we end this debt trap?
In Matthew 18: 23-35, we meet a master settling his accounts with his debtors who are chocked under the pressure of debts. A debtor comes to the master who owed him ten thousand talents; he had absolutely no means to pay it back. He was asked to sell his wife, children, and all that he had and make the payment. The debtor fell on his knees in helplessness and pleaded for kindness. The master did the unthinkable, he decided to bear the lose of it, he cancelled out his debt and set him free. As the world thinks, as you and me think, it is not the helpless debtor who has to be squeezed, tried and killed. It is the creditor who has to die a little for the hapless debtor.
The debt cycle comes to end when the creditor agrees to let go unconditionally. The creditor decides to die. Look deeper on to Jesus on the cross, isn’t our creditor dying on the cross? Jesus crying out from the cross, “It is finished”, amply indicates the same. The Greek word is tetelestai. In financial context tetelestai means it is fully paid, or in a judicial context in the court it means that a sentence is fully served, or in military context, the battle has been won. Jesus, the innocent man is on the cross, to pay our spiritual debts, to serve our prison sentence, and to win the spiritual battle for us.
III.
The second inner conflict is with our idea of God. Jesus, vulnerable and dying on the cross defencelessly does not match our imaginations of an all-powerful God.
We were happy at Bethphage with the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. We began with enthusiasm, happiness, and with hosannas to the great king. We were told of the words from Zechariah 9:9, “Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey." But all that we here now is from the servant songs in Isaiah 42, 49, 50, 52 and 53. "He had no form or beauty that we should look upon him, and no majesty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2).
Celebrated author of the book The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, in his book, Like the Flowing River, suggests that life is composed of three distinct moments: ‘a lot of people’, ‘a few people’, and ‘almost no one’. How true it is of the life of Jesus. Jesus was found with large multitudes, that he could not move, he had to get into a boat to preach. He had no time to even to eat. He had a few as his companions at the last supper, or during his arrest. Finally we find him all alone flat on the ground sweating blood in the Garden. The multitude has disappeared; the eleven have abandoned and slept; and here is Jesus all-alone. The loneliness will get worse on the cross; it would seem that even God has forsaken him, God too haven’t heard his prayers.
We would have more willingly accepted him as the messiah if he had to come like king David, or like king Cyrus, who liberated the Jewish people from Babylonian captivity and allowed them to return to their homeland. On the contrary, in Mark 14 we find Jesus dining with a leper called Simon in Bethany. The Torah condemns a leper as an unholy person, and those who come in contact with him. Jesus was not only in keeping with their expectation of the messiah but also unclean and unholy.
Arguably, there is no other text so close to the identity of Jesus as Philippians 2: 6-11. It is written before the gospels were written. The Letter to the Philippians, along with Paul's other letters, was written before the Gospels, with scholars generally placing Paul's letters in the 50s CE and the Gospels in the 70s-100s CE. It is a hymn that the first Christians sang. It is the oral tradition of those who lived with Jesus; it is what they saw and experienced. The Kenosis hymn goes says, Though he was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God, He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, and Gave into death, death on a cross. To know and believe in a God this way is a serious paradigm shifting process; for them then, and for us now.
We are happy and content with the God of Mount Tabor and not of Mount Calvary. On mount Tabor we found Jesus with Elijah, and Moses. There was glory, there was comfort, and the voice came from heaven, “this is my beloved son, listen to him” (Mark 9:2-13). On Mount Calvary we find Jesus with two thieves. There was blood, sweat, and discomfort. The voice comes from below, the centurion said, “Truly this man was the son of God” (Mark 15: 39). Understanding our God is the most challenging part of spirituality. We like the disciples and the people of that time are stuck and trapped on mount Tabor. Jesus is a squire-circle. Our God is a God of wounds; as Christians where are our wounds? Our God is a God who embraces vulnerability, as Christians how comfortable are we with vulnerabilities and the vulnerable?
IV.
The toughest and cruelest challenge that we have as we walk with the suffering Jesus and see him crucified is to still believe that he is God, and stand firm on his side.
However strong we hold on to God, like child holding on to the hands of its father getting distracted in a festival ground and lets go its fathers hand and gets lost, we too might at trying times like peter, tempting times like Judas would slip away from God. We must ask God to hold our hands for he would not leave us even in the most excruciating pain and agony. The cross is the proof.
Saint Philip Neri, a 16th century Italian saint, used to pray, ‘Lord, beware of this Philip, or he will betray you!’ Put it more prayerfully, ‘watch me, O Lord, this day; for, abandoned to myself, I shall surely betray thee.” This is so true of our human reality. Left to Judas, left to peter, left to the apostles, left to ourselves we would betray our master; we would betray God in our thought, speech, and actions.
God Friday brings us to the foot of the cross to teach us that sometimes good and perfect people, rich people, creditors, and the privileged also must die a little so that imperfect, poor, unprivileged debtors also may have life, life in all abundance. Our God embraced vulnerability and cared for the vulnerable, and he tells us, “You too go and do likewise”.
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