It is finished

It is for this week that we have prepared over forty days. It is for this celebration of our Lord's passion and death that we have readied our hearts through prayer and sacrifice. We have turned away from sin and done good works so that our spirits can be lifted up to contemplate in wonder the love of God that drove his Son to accept the humiliation of the cross.

Every year on this day we read together the story of the Lord's passion from the gospel of John and have to ask ourselves, "why?". Why would anyone want to torture and kill Jesus? He came to preach the love of God but encountered such hate. He came to heal but was stripped, beaten and scourged. Why?

It was for our sins that he died. He gave his life out of love for us. It is not only the people of Jesus' day who are responsible for his suffering and death. Each of us who has ever sinned is to blame just as surely as those who betrayed him, those who beat him, those who nailed him to the cross and those who looked on and said nothing. I am the reason Jesus died on the cross. You are the reason Jesus died on the cross.

Did it have to be this way? Couldn't the Father find some other way to forgive our sins and restore our relationship with him? Why the gruesome spectacle of the cross?

Because God is all-powerful he certainly could have dismissed our sins by snapping his fingers or by the power of his divine command. Then why submit his Son to so much pain and cruelty? The simple answer is that the Father wanted us to know how deep his love for the people he created is. He wished to hold nothing of himself back. He spent himself totally and utterly by enduring the most horrific suffering and death imaginable so that we might know the passion he has for each of us. None of us can look at the cross and honestly say to Jesus, "There's more you could have done." The cross convinces us that God's love for us has no limits.

The cross also convinces us how offensive our sins are to God. If our reconciliation with the Father required his Son to take on flesh and die for us then how far must our sins drive us from God? If our sins caused Jesus to die, then can there be any such thing as a "harmless" or "victimless" sin? The cross not only teaches us about the love of God, but it also teaches us something about ourselves. It convinces us that we are sinners in need of mercy and forgiveness. And it teaches us to fly to the cross for strength in temptation and for mercy when we have sinned.

Finally, the cross begins to answer for us the most heart-wrenching question that every human being faces, "If God is good and all-powerful, why is there so much suffering?" When we look upon the cross, we do not see a God who keeps himself at a safe distance from the suffering of the people he created. We see instead a God who is with us in our trials, who feels every pain we feel and who carries us in our affliction. Because of Jesus' sacrifice, suffering takes on a whole new meaning in our lives. By accepting our pains and difficulties and offering them to God together with Jesus, we participate in the mystery of salvation. The second reading from the letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered and was thus perfected to become a means of salvation for the world. God wants to use our suffering to bring forgiveness of sins to the world. Without the cross, our suffering would be meaningless and would drive us to despair. Now in the light of Jesus' sacrifice, our pains and difficulties do not separate us from the Father but help us to grow closer to him.

Now that we have reflected on the words of the gospel recounting for us the suffering and death of our Savior, we will offer some intercessory prayers for the world and its peoples. Then a bare, wooden cross will be carried into the church with the words, "This is the wood of the cross, on which hung the Savior of the World". And we will respond, "Come, let us worship." Then we will each be invited to approach the cross, genuflect before it and kiss it. Let us not lose sight of what we are doing by this simple act! We are venerating the device which was used to torture and kill Jesus! We are recognizing that it is now transformed from a means of horror to a source of salvation. As we approach it, let us bring with us the burdens we carry and pledge to bear them patiently with the strength that God gives. Let us pledge to help carry the burdens of our neighbor. And let us promise to keep the cross ever before us as the sign of God's unfailing love.