We have no choice today but to confront death. It’s uncomfortable and we don’t like it. We’d much rather be cheery and think happy thoughts. But the image of two pieces of wood forbids it. Those crossed beams tell us, harshly, that somebody died there, to save our lives, with eternal love.
We all know Jesus died on the cross at Calvary. He was God, but He was also fully human, just like us. He was shaped like us – hands, feet, bones and blood. He began life as we do, born of a woman. He grew from a child to an adult, just as we do.
For most of His life, Jesus lived quietly. But at age 30, He began His public ministry, bursting into Galilee like a storm at sea. He proclaimed God’s reign and taught repentance. For three years, he trudged through a land that was holy in history, simply doing good.
If you were sick, He healed you. If you were hungry, He multiplied bread for you. If you were broken, He lifted you up. If you were a sinner, He gave you the chance to change your ways. The trouble was, Jesus made enemies. He turned down tradition. He warned the rich against their riches. He assailed the powerful for abusing their power.
Those who opposed Him believed Him to be mad, unholy and rebellious. One high priest even argued that to protect the Jewish people from Roman destruction, it would be necessary to kill Jesus.
Then came the end. One of His own chosen followers betrayed Him and delivered Him to be executed. The whipped Him; they bound His hands; they crowned His head with thorns; and they forced Him to carry His cross to His place of death.
Good Friday is the day the world changed forever. It is God’s life in us, through God’s death for us. It’s everything we cannot imagine – but we must. If there is one mystery more difficult to accept than God being born, it is the mystery that God died.
God didn’t have to become human. He didn’t have to live our life. He didn’t have to work, get tired, become hungry, thirsty and dusty. He didn’t have to withstand suffering and insults from His own creatures.
But He loved the world so deeply that He gave us His only Son. We experience, every day, what people will do for the sake of love. We know when the chips are down and everything is at stake, love will always find a way. If we love enough, we would fling life itself to the winds for the ones we love. On Good Friday, we see a beaten and bloodied Man writhing in agony on a cross. The image might move us to shock, pity and horror. But knowing that He suffered in this way out of love for us? That should move us to love for Him in return.