We are standing on some very holy ground this
afternoon. Everything in this solemn liturgy makes that clear.
There are few moments in our faith-journey that bring us any closer to
the heart of our faith than this moment we call Good Friday. Holy ground
it is, and we are standing on it. And, yes, we would far prefer to be
standing together in the Cathedral on this holy ground but, my friends,
no matter how separated we may feel, we are still the Body of Christ,
and that means that we are very much together on the holy ground that is
Good Friday.
And not only is Good
Friday holy ground, it is high ground, too. Good Friday is a hilltop
from which we are able to see far into the distance, a mountaintop from
which we are able to reach out and nearly touch the untouchable, touch
God! From this elevation we gain perspective on God, on ourselves, and
on all the things in life that really count.
Mountain tops are places
where people meet God, as we in the Northwest know only too well. It has
always been this way. Do you remember the first time Moses met
God? It was on a mountainside where he was tending sheep. God
called out to him from a bush that was all aflame, yet not consumed by
the fire. And he told Moses to remove his sandals because it was
holy ground he was standing on. And Moses stood there in awe,
sandals in hand, while God spoke to him and shared with him a
tremendous, as yet unheard-of secret. God told him his name. “I am who
am,” God said. ‘I am existence, being itself. I am the One who is and
who will always be there for you and with you.’ And from that moment on,
Moses and the people knew something about God that was terribly
important, and in knowing it, they gained a certain power over God, if I
may put it that way.
High ground. Holy
ground. Centuries later in a land called Galilee, Jesus took some
friends up onto yet another hillside, a hillside above a lake blue and
beautiful, a hillside where, again, some ordinary mortals like you and
me got to come very close to God. And, as God once had to Moses, Jesus
told his disciples some wonderful, unheard-of secrets, secrets we have
heard since we were children, heard so many times, perhaps, that they
may have ceased to surprise and excite us the way secrets should:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he said, “Blessed are the meek, the
merciful, the peacemakers, the persecuted.
And the one who preached
that Sermon on the Mount, as we call it, knew how to practice what he
preached, because practice it he did: in a living sermon on yet another
mount, the hill called Calvary, a sermon with few words but, without
question, the most powerful sermon ever given. It is that sermon we hear
once again this afternoon, and thanks to the power of liturgy to make
the past present, we are standing on the hilltop called Calvary,
standing on high and holy ground. We are doing the very thing Moses and
the disciples of Jesus did on their holy hillsides: we are reaching out
and touching God. And God is reaching out and touching us. Touching us,
and transforming us.
In this liturgy, on this
hilltop, God speaks to us a secret greater even than the one Moses
learned of old; a secret more comforting and challenging than the one
Jesus proclaimed on the Mt of Beatitudes - God’s great secret, this
secret: we are loved by the God whose name is mercy, loved beyond all
imagining!
But there is a certain
scandal about this secret, this second Sermon on the Mount: it’s the
scandal of a God who so identified with us, so wallowed in the misery of
our world, that he became nearly indistinguishable from it. There is
something in us that expects God to be above all this: removed and
untainted by human history, human messiness, human sinfulness - safely
beyond the reach of the sort of suffering that seems fitting enough for
the creature, but unimaginable for the Creator. But at the same time,
something else tells us that a God who would become so vulnerable as to
die the death of a common criminal is the only God worth believing in.
My friends, the real
sermon on this Good Friday is written in the twisted body of Jesus
nailed on the cross. But the sermon doesn’t end there. After hearing it
once again this Good Friday, we need to go on hearing it in all the ways
it is being preached every day. For the cross, my friends, is in the
present, not just the past. The terrible scourge of Covid 19 is the
cross because the cross is more than a religious symbol we venerate –
far more. The cross is being carried daily by countless people who
struggle with the pains, the paradoxes, the agonies, the absurdities of
life. In a particular way, at this moment, I think of all of those on
the front lines of the pandemic crisis – especially the unsung heroes in
the medical world – who are daily putting their lives on the line for
others.
It is at times like this
that we begin to see the cross for what it is, begin to see Christ
suffering in his members, suffering in all of us who are his Body.
My friends, don’t think
of the cross as a solitary tree on a lonely hilltop long ago. The cross
is a forest of trees. Through all ages - including ours - until the end
of time, the cross will stand wherever there is human suffering and
death. But the cross of Jesus is also a crossroads – the place where
good and evil meet, where evil tries but fails to get the last word, the
place where evil gets transformed into good, a crossroads where death
and life meet in mortal combat and life wins the day. Thanks to the
cross of Jesus and to what happened on this day, there is no human evil
that cannot and will not be overcome by the gentle force of love.
And that, my
friends, is why this day, for all its darkness and all its bitterness,
will always and forever be called Good…
Father Michael G. Ryan
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