Good Friday has always meant a lot to all Christian believers. In some churches there is more attention given to this feast day than in other churches.
The familiarity with the story can also dull us to the full import of the death of Jesus. It is too easy to hear and not to hear!
There may be a grief that is more superficial as we listen and pray over the story of the trial, suffering and death of Jesus. But is we do not get a grip on the great love and trust that Jesus had toward God the Father and the outpouring of his love for all humanity we will miss much of what this is about.
We can keep the sufferings of Jesus so personal as if it only applied to himself. ‘Look what he has suffered for you!’ If we limit the Reading of the Passion in our liturgy only the suffering of Jesus, we will keep the cross at the distance. And a safe distance it will be. But this is not only a personal story but it is an event of cosmic proportions.
Th cross of Jesus is not located only in the Scriptures. The holy men and women of the past have seen very clearly that whenever a human being suffers at the hand of another human being the crucifixion of Jesus happens all over again. The sufferings of humanity must be brought to the cross of Jesus. It will only be our grasp with one hand on the sufferings of Jesus and our grasp with the other hand on the sufferings of our world that our lives will be properly impacted.
We must hear the story of Jesus in a manner similar to our time spent with our cancer doctor. No one should ever have a young, well educated, medical practioner who has not her/himself suffering through very difficult diseases. We need the support and guidance of a medical person who speaks to us of our cancer from the inside out. So very often the one who has suffered knows that it means to have the very threatening diagnosis of cancer thrown in our path.
Before we come to the liturgy of Good Friday we need to pray with our imagination and take each of the four corners of the cross in our hands. As we rub the wood of the first corner, we need to hear the sufferings of all the poor people who are bombed out in war, fled as refugees to a country that really does not want them and have a history of being exploited by the dominant group of people in their own country. The sufferings of families split up through war and occupation are the rough wood of cross. Bring all the memories and pictures in your memory that you have of these very poor people.
On the second end of the cross bring the pain of family division and tears within your own clan, within the families of your friends and with the divisions of the elderly grandmothers who cry through the night because their two daughters have not spoken in years. The wood of this end of the cross is wet from the tears of suffering that parents have cried over their divided children and siblings have cried over their divisions and unforgiveness.
On the third end of the cross bring the neglect to do the good that so many people avoid. There have been many moments of evil where no one challenged the situation or the people perpetuating the evil. The failure to do good is a participation in the evil inflicted. On the third end of the cross we feel the hard hearted surface of the uncaring heart.
On the fourth end of the cross we must bring the sufferings of the people of our own country and city. These sufferings can be so close that we are often blind to them. These people do suffer and feel pushed aside. With a broad movement of the wood of the cross include the sufferings of our fellow citizens.
It is the embrace of the sufferings of others that we join our prayer this Good Friday. This action of joining all the sufferings of others to the cross of Jesus means that we are entering into the great love that Jesus has for all people. His sufferings were never in a vacuum but are on center stage of human life.
As we come forward to venerate the wood of the cross look at it from the position of the suffering, the exploited and the pushed aside of this world. The wood of the cross is for all peoples, especially the poor and the suffering.
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