“Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Sometimes it causes
me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they
crucified my Lord?”
Legend has it that whenever the great and
blessed Renaissance artist, Fra Angelico, painted a likeness of the
crucified Christ, he did so on his knees, with tears in his eyes. Fra
Angelico knew how to tremble. By contrast, the noted American Protestant
theologian, Martin Marty, reflecting on the American scene some years
ago, observed that we are a people who tremble before very little. So
confident are we of our accomplishments and capabilities, our
technologies and our war machines that, in his words, “we have forgotten
how to tremble.”
I think he’s right, although there are pivotal
events that can stop us in our tracks and, for a time at least, cause us
to tremble. The disastrous war being waged against the people of Ukraine
at this moment with all its unspeakable atrocities is a case in point,
as are mass shootings and other mindless, violent, and cruel acts too
many to count. And then there are things of a personal nature that can
cause us to tremble: the death of a loved one, the breakup of a
marriage, getting diagnosed with a terminal illness.
But, my friends, more important than our
trembling before something is our trembling before someone, and Good
Friday is the day for that. Good Friday is the day for trembling before
God, the day for trembling before the mystery – the unfathomable mystery
– of a God who loves us so much that He sent his Son to take on not only
our flesh and blood, but our sins, too, and our fears and failings, our
pains, our tears, our hopes and dreams, our very selves and our very
lives. And he did more: in an act of love beyond all imagining, he
stretched out his arms – willingly stretched them out – on the rough
wood of a cross: innocent arms, vulnerable arms, but arms so strong that
even in dying they were raised in blessing, even in dying they reached
out to embrace and forgive every human being who has ever lived and who
ever will. It is that mystery we tremble before this day and, my
friends, we ought to tremble before it every day.
But we must do more than tremble. We must
discover in the cross the sign of our worth and the hope for our future.
We must discover in the cross our pattern for living and the key for
unlocking the mystery of this way too violent world of ours. For the
cross is both mystery and paradox: it is human hatred and human violence
writ large, but it is also love writ large - wondrous love, love in a
language we can understand. And the cross is also the path to
peace and reconciliation – the only path that will ever get us past the
crippling and repetitive cycle of violence that rules our world.
My friends, Jesus is God’s word of forgiveness
in the face of unspeakable hatred and violence. And if we are to follow
him, forgiveness is our only real choice: forgiveness, that decision of
mind and heart to absolve, to bless, to let go. Forgiveness has its
perfect icon in Jesus, who on the cross prayed those amazing words,
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” We who profess
to follow him must learn how to translate what he did on Calvary into
what we do now. We must come to realize that while forgiveness may look
like weakness, it is really the ultimate strength.
During the Second World War, the great English
Cathedral of Coventry was hit time and again by German bombs and utterly
destroyed. A new Cathedral has since been built but, happily, the
builders of the new one decided to leave standing what little remained
of the old – a graveyard of giant stones and chunks of gothic tracery
that are still lying around. And over the place where the altar once
stood are two charred timbers that must have fallen from high in the
vault of the roof. The timbers have been crossed by someone’s holy
hands, and carved into the stone wall behind that cross are just two
words, “Father, forgive.”
Dear friends in Christ, that is the message of
Good Friday. It is the message and the challenge of the cross and
it will ever be so. Somehow, in the midst of this world so darkened by
hate, so convulsed by violence, so torn by divisions, we have to lift
high the cross and let its outstretched arms embrace, absolve, and bless
us. And we have to tremble before the mystery of our crucified Lord who
this day reached into the very depths of his wounded and broken heart to
speak those unbelievable words that can heal our hearts and even change
our world: “Father, forgive!”
Father Michael G. Ryan
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