This reflection was written between 3 and 5 a.m. on Good Friday morning, though not really entered here until April 26 & 27.
Surely it seems to me I must have reflected on this last year, having read Fr. Neuhaus' book. Still, here is where I begin.
The Invitatory: Psalm 95
Today, Listen . . . to the voice of the Lord.
He speaks seven words from the cross today, as well as words in front of Pilate, and the Sanhedrin, and the Father. They form a song of unfathomable love!
Who is it you want? - Jn 18, 4
Jesus asks this of those who come to arrest him. They fall to the ground when he responds to their answer, "Jesus, the Nazorean," by saying, "I AM." Jesus asks us, as well. So who is it that I want? Do I want Jesus, the Nazorean? Or dare I seek Jesus, the Christ, the King, the Son of God? And do I want You, Lord, above all else that I might want? Will I make you ask me again, "Who is it you want?" Do I hear you tolling me: "If I AM the one you want, let these go"? You call me to let go of all else but you!
Do I fall on my face in recognition of your holiness and my unworthiness, and then out of gratitude for your love, which has won my victory over sin and death?
"Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?" - Jn 18, 11
The song which Jubilee uses for the 10th station, Thy Will Be Done, says that Jesus drank our cup of darkness and death. St. John emphasizes the Lord's willing acceptance of this cup, by which he establishes a new covenant. He omits Jesus' agonized pleading, because what matters to the beloved disciple is the choice Jesus makes, and the choice we make in response to him.
"I have spoken publicly to all who would listen. Ask those who heard me when I spoke. They will know what I said." - Jn 18, 20-21
Today - Listen. Then we will know the love which Jesus has spoken. If we but listen, we will hear him! The Psalmist pleads with us not to grow stubborn, not to harden our hearts, yet so often we do. We let our perceptions of reality interfere with hearing what Jesus says.
"If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if not, why hit me?" - Jn 18, 23
Much wrong has been spoken and done by those who claim to follow Jesus. Somtimes we allow these failures to obscure, to muddle the perfect love Jesus speaks. We provide testimony against Jesus' (sometimes alleged) followers, but there is none to be produced against Jesus.
"Do you say this on your own, or have others been telling you about me?" - Jn 18, 34
So often our perceptions of Christ are not from our experience of him, but are from what others tell us about him with their words and actions. Jesus invites us to listen to him, not to simply take the word of others, but to encounter him personally.
"It is you who say I am a King." - Jn 18, 37a
Jesus would distance himself from our preconceptions of him. If we see him as less than he is - and we always do; our minds are too little to grasp him fully - he dismisses our limited perceptions, and encourages us to encounter him more closely.
"The reason I came into this world was to testify to the truth. Anyone who hears the truth hears my voice." - Jn 18, 37b
There's a lot of truth to be heard, and we are rarely willing or able to hear it all. It seems to us that some injustice we perceive is the whole story, that some liberation we desire for others is what they need most. Jesus provides our ultimate liberation - from the warping of receiving God's gifts to us in any way other than as God intends - in the context of a humble relationship with him. God reveals his will for us most fully in Jesus, who set aside every right to lay down his life for his beloved. Yes, he is a king, but one for whom selfless love is more important than his rights, his rightful place. Only when we become more humbly interested in the truth than in our preconceptions of it will we hear Jesus' voice.
"You would have no power over me whatever unless it were granted from above. That is why he who handed me over to you is guilty of the greater sin." - Jn 19, 11
It is when we allege to know Jesus in the context of our relationship with him, yet still judge him in some way, still reject him or some aspect of his message of love and holiness, that we are guilty of the greater sin.
Now to the seven last words, three of which are from St. John's gospel. I need to keep listening to them all:
"Father, forgive them. They know not what they do." - Lk 23, 34
And we don't. We judge and condemn Christ - and his body, the Church - convinced that we we know best. Yet even as we judge and condemn him, he prays for us to be forgiven.
(I will want to expand on this in another post.)
"Today you will be with me in Paradise." - Lk 23, 43
1. No matter our sins or our failings, God's mercy and Christ's sacrifice are greater. When we acknowledge his rightful place, he delivers us into the place he has prepared for us, which we could never enter on our own.
2. Today. There is that word today. It is important for us to remember that the kingdom of God is not just the destination to which we aspire, but our journey as well. The kingdom of God is at hand, and unless we embrace Christ's kingship now we will be ill prepared to enter it fully.
"Behold your son. Behold your mother." - Jn 19, 26-27
Jesus brings us into his family. This includes the responsibility and gift to care for one another's needs, to uplift and support each other, to be committed to one another. It isn't just that Jesus' mother becomes our mother, which is itself a wonderful thing. But likewise Jesus' Father, and all his brothers and sisters, become ours as well. What a gift! But look at what the Body of Christ does for his family: he lays down his life! And this is a wonderful gift and privilege for us, as Christ's body, too.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" - Mk 15, 34
Jesus prays the Psalms for a final time, from the cross. As a devout Jew, he doubtless prayed them all the time; they were ingrained in his memory. We pray them, too, usually forgetting that as we do we are praying the very thoughts which Jesus prayed often!
Of the seven last words of Christ, this is the one to which we can most often and most fully relate, and perhaps is the one in which we most fully see Jesus as one of us. Jesus has fully embraced our humanity. In our sin, but especially in our pain, we can feel abandoned by God and utterly alone. Yet we never are. Jesus is our constant companion. He bore this sense of isolation for our sake, and we often find ourselves called to bear our own for the sake of others. When I feel overwhelmed by life, it is my love for those around me that sustains me along my way, just as Jesus' love for the Father and for us sustained him.
"I thirst" - John 19, 28
I've reflected in the past about how Jesus thirsts primarily for us. At the cross, it is clear that this is not for his own sake, but for ours! We allow ourselves to thirst after many things. But the only thirst which is worth our full attention, and which is never denied. is our thirst for God. What about a thirst for freedom, for justice? They become misguided unless rooted in God. Anyone who hears the truth hears Jesus. "Freedom" and "justice" easily devolve into license and vengeance; anyone crying out for justice or freedom out of the context of Jesus will easily go astray.
"It is finished" - Jn 19, 30
In Jubilee's Way of the Cross service, we reflect that Jesus life and mission are finished, yet his body on earth is still called to respond to him and live out his life. We must gird ourselves with the towel and wash others' feet. We must feed the hungry, care for the sick, free those imprisoned - above all, by their own sin. We must lay down our lives, or more accurately, allow Christ to lay down his life through us.
"Into your hands I commend my spirit." - Lk 23, 46
Oh, do we insist on entrusting ourselves only to ourselves! It is only when we truly entrust ourselves to God that we are set free - from our sin, our anxiety, our shortcomings - to live the life of peace and love which the Father dreams of for us. Help me to place myself into your hands, Lord, and trust you to provide for me.
A prophetic word. These are always to be tested against Scripture and the teachings of the Church:
Today, listen to my voice. Hear me speak my love for you. Hear me speak it into existence in you, through you. You are the Body by which I convey my holy love to the world. Today, listen to my voice as I proclaim that you are forgiven, you are loved, you are my family. Do not grow stubborn and put me to the test. Trust in the word of holy love you hear from me. Live according to my plan of loving peace, which far exceeds your own plans. Live in my providence, which overflows your life with abundance that you could never provide for yourself. Live in my forgiveness and love rather than your sin and self-judgment, for I set you free from the bonds that have held you. You are not slaves to sin - you are my precious son, my beloved daughter, and I rejoice in your return home to me.
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