The Drama of our Salvation

Good Friday

Why are many folks, who do not understand a single word of Korean, glued to every episode of a Korean drama and would even skip meals, family time and church, so as not to miss the next intriguing episode? The short and simple answer is the drama - the drama that sucks the viewer into the very scene, the emotions of the characters, the perplexity, twist and turn of the plot playing out on the screen.

Today’s passion reading is like that. We are sucked into the drama of the narrative as we even assume the role and the voices of the blood thirsty crowd in a kind of liturgical flash mob. Perhaps, with greater intensity because it is based on “true events” and the protagonist is not some actor playing a role but the Son of God Himself, in the flesh. Like every well-written drama, within the Passion account, we find every kind of human emotion expressed. There is jealousy, betrayal, anger, fear, hypocrisy, falsification of truth, perjury, failure or denial of justice, abandonment, torture, death – and within this, a Love of an impossible kind, a love that binds and unites.

But unlike the actors who are merely acting on the silver screen for our entertainment, all the characters of the Passion story are real. Every word, every action, every accusation, every spit, every slap, every nail, every scourge, every drop of blood or opened wound was real - no one was play acting and none of these were mere props. Our Lord was not acting. He truly suffered the violence inflicted on Him by His enemies, the betrayal directed against Him by His own disciples, and the death which was imposed on Him by the Roman authorities at the behest of the Jewish religious leadership. If it was all just acting, we would just have sighed with relief and praised the actors for a starling performance. But because it was all real, we have reason to be thankful for our sins have really been forgiven, the guilt we have incurred has really been lifted and Death which pursues every man and woman has really been defeated.

The passion narrative of Good Friday is full of movement and action - sitting, fleeing, sleeping, standing. But it is the standing which takes the cake. Many of you may have felt the pressure on your legs building up as you stood throughout the passion gospel reading. In my younger days as a priest, I used to issue a preliminary instruction that doesn’t appear in the rubrics to ask everyone who couldn’t stand that long, to remain seated. I used to think it was plain mindless superstition that no one took that instruction seriously and kept standing, both old and young. It was my hubris disguised as compassion that saw them in this light. Today, a bit wiser and humbled by a tad bit more experience, I have come to realise that it is not stubborn foolishness but loving devotion that kept people standing as they heard and participated in the drama of the passion narrative. Unlike the disciples who fled in fear, you have decided to stand with Jesus, and to stand for Him, as did a few women and St John, the Beloved Disciple.

We hear in the text, and only here in the Gospel of St John, “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala … and the disciple he loved standing near her.” Not standing at a distance like in St Mark’s account, but here beside the cross, up close and personal. So close that they were within hearing range of the last words of Christ and that John could later write that he was an eyewitness of the events and did not come to this knowledge through hearsay. They were so close that they were within range of the insults, ridicule and rage hurled at our Lord and perhaps subjecting themselves too to the risk of being arrested and similarly sentenced. It took courage. But more importantly, it took love. Perfect love casts out all fear!

I take this position of standing, as the highlight and climax of our participation in the drama of Good Friday. It is no wonder that the primary devotion for Lent is the Way of the Cross, where we pause (or at least done by the priest and servers) and stand before each Station of the Cross. The word “station” comes from the Latin “statio.” And the word statio derives from the Latin verb sto, “to stand” and signified how early Christians gathered and “stood with” the local clergy, bishop, patriarch or the pope himself in prayer. Statio also was a Roman military term meaning “military post.” Like soldiers we stand. Wasn’t it Moses who instructed the Israelites with these words when they were pursued by the Egyptian army: “Stand firm, and you will see what the Lord will do to save you today …The Lord will do the fighting for you: you have only to keep still’? Statio, therefore, also means a vigilant commitment to conversion and to prayer.

So, on this day as we commemorate the Passion and Death of our Lord, as we reenact the whole drama of salvation, let us imitate Mary, the Beloved Disciple and the other women as they stood by the cross. Though the story of our Lord’s passion is filled with betrayal, jealousy and false accusations, patterns we recognise in our own lives, behaviours which destroy and rip apart relationships, the last act of our Lord on the cross is to bring reconciliation and union. Despite the barbs that had been hurled at Him, wounds which would have hardened the hearts of the strongest men to become resentful and loveless, He pours out His last act of love on these two individuals representing His Church and brought them together in an inseparable bond of fraternity and maternity. “Woman, this is your son.” “This is your mother.”

Today we DON’T celebrate death, we celebrate the life we receive through the cross. We celebrate that Jesus waits high on His cross to take away our death, whether it be physical, moral, or mental. The Church has endured much drama. Each of us who are members of the Body of Christ have endured much drama - betrayal, envy, false accusations and loss. And yet, the story does not end in failure, defeat and resentment. If we choose to stand with our Lord to the very end because we have not decided to flee out of fear or self-preservation, or walked away out of boredom, or decided to leave early because we think the story is over, we will see the amazing ending of the story. The story ends with reconciliation, not disintegration. But even that is not the real ending.

If you do not return tomorrow and the day after, you would have missed the most important post-credits that really define the whole story and unravel the mystery of what you’ve witnessed today. While you may be currently struggling with some crisis or other, in your prayerfulness, in your life, turn over everything to the Lord. Your pain, your hurts, your loss, your addiction, your crisis - turn all that “drama,” turn everything over to the Lord. In these uncertain times: Remember, Death is defeated. Only Jesus has the power. Only His love is stronger than death. Don’t take my word for it. Come back tomorrow night or on Sunday and see for yourself.

Glory and Victory

Good Friday

The passion account from the four gospels provide us with four separate and distinct viewpoints of Jesus' suffering, betrayal, trial, and Crucifixion. Although the passion gospel for Palm Sunday follows the three years lectionary cycle, the passion gospel for Good Friday is always taken from St John’s Gospel, year in year out. The liturgy seems to express the Carthusian motto in choosing to stick with this one text as an immovable axis despite the revolving lectionary cycles: “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis” - “the Cross is steady while the world turns.”

Why would John’s version be chosen as the Passion for Good Friday? What do we encounter in John’s account of our Lord’s death? All the great themes of St John’s Gospel are featured here: love as sacrifice, glory as life laid down, the majesty of the suffering Christ whose crucifixion is exaltation and whose cross is a royal throne. The key to understanding John’s Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is found in this theme: “glory”! “Glory” is St John’s most distinctive word. “We have seen His glory, full of grace and truth” John says at the beginning, in the epic prologue of his gospel; a word picked up frequently as the gospel unfolds. The paradox of this theme is that the glory of Jesus is ultimately revealed in His suffering and death on the cross. It is at the precise moment of His passion that Christ appears most kingly, most glorious! His kingship is acclaimed even in His passion. In fact, it is most apparent.

Unlike the other gospels where Simon the Cyrene helps our Lord carry His cross, here our Lord carries the cross Himself. He has no need of our help or any help. He’s quite capable of carrying the entire burden of the world and its weight of sin. Unlike Luke’s gospel where the women of Jerusalem weep out of pity for Him, here our Lady and three other women (including the Beloved Disciple) stand beneath the shadow of the cross, almost composed and in awe as they have profound confidence in our Lord’s authority even at the hour of His death. Our Lord has no need of our pity or sympathy. Unlike Matthew and Mark’s account, there is no loud exclamation of abandonment (“My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!”). Instead, our Lord continues to issue commands from the cross as a King would and should: “Woman, this is your son” … “this is your mother.” Till the very end, our Lord is in charge.

Therefore, the Passion of St John, chronologically speaking, is not first a defeat then a victory (as might be said regarding the other gospels or in the Liturgy) but the Passion, in itself, is a victory right from the very start. At one and the same time, the Passion seems an apparent defeat and the greatest victory. This is why in the Byzantine Rite (be it Catholic or Orthodox) the “Alleluia” – a song of praise and joy – is sung when the Lord dies, because what occurred on the Cross and His holy death are seen already as a victory over evil – something not experienced in the same way in our Roman Liturgy. Our Eastern brethren can’t wait for Easter to do this!

In St Luke’s Gospel, our Lord dies as the obedient servant with a goodnight prayer on His lips: ‘into thy hands I commend my spirit’. But in John, the last word from the cross is a single word in Greek: tetelestai, or in our translation: “It is accomplished!” That word is the clue to the entire Passion and indeed to the Fourth Gospel. What does this mean?

This last word of our Lord is not the last utterance of a dying man, fading away into nothing, as if it stands for resigned acceptance of an inevitable, tragic destiny with the overtones of defeat: ‘it’s all over’? No! This is no cry of defeat but a stirring victory song. The meaning of this word is captured by the line in Bach’s musical rendition of St John’s Passion: “the hero of Judah wins with triumph and ends the fight.” His message is that while death is indeed ‘the last enemy’, this death marks the beginning of the great reversal through which life is given back to the world: not defeat but victory. If this is how the passion story ends, then Golgotha must be understood not only as a place of pain but of transfiguration.

John’s invitation is to contemplate with him what Jesus realises on the Cross. Since Adam’s Fall, we have been separated from God. The Tree of Life was no longer available to us, and all must now suffer death. The Incarnation is only one step in the journey that God makes to draw Himself closer to us. The first step. But it is on the cross that our Lord completed that work of reconciliation. It is in this context that we can understand His final words: “it is accomplished.” It is at the moment of His holy death that our Lord completes His grand work of restoring what was lost to us, but now in a more resplendent and glorious form. He gives His own divine life to us on the cross. The Cross, the tree of death, is paradoxically, the Tree of Life, our guarantee of entrance into Paradise! This is why this Friday is known as Good Friday. In fact, calling it Good Friday is an understatement. In other non-English speaking countries, today is actually called the Great Friday.

Although our world is often plunged into darkness with every crisis that we encounter, a loved one whom we have lost, a friendship or relationship that is severed, a plan that experiences setback, an endeavour which ends in failure, or a physical pain or terminal ailment that is unbearable, we can still find strength, hope and joy in knowing that our lives continue to be illuminated by the brilliant transforming power of the Cross. If we entrust to the crucified Lord our sufferings, He transforms them. The Cross, in sum, is a true transformer, that takes all our darkness, bitterness, sin, death and gives us back light, sweetness, grace and Life.

We have this beautiful assurance and reminder from Pope Benedict XVI: “A world without the Cross would be a world without hope, a world in which torture and brutality would go unchecked, the weak would be exploited and greed would have the final word. Man’s inhumanity to man would be manifested in ever more horrific ways, and there would be no end to the vicious cycle of violence. Only the Cross puts an end to it. While no earthly power can save us from the consequences of our sins, and no earthly power can defeat injustice at its source, nevertheless the saving intervention of our loving God has transformed the reality of sin and death into its opposite.” (Pope Benedict XVI, Nicosia, Cyprus, 5 June 2010)

Have a Good Friday! Nay, have a Great Friday!!!!

TGIF

Good Friday

Social networking, the likes of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok, has enabled many of us, including the pathologically shy and introverted, to articulate what we would have normally kept private. We give vent to our pent-up frustrations by ‘shouting out’, expressing every emotion for the world to see. Just take a look at Twitter box or Facebook page or catch a random Tik Tok video on a Monday morning and count how many times you see a similar statement like this: “I can’t wait until the weekend,” or “When’s it going to be Friday?” And of course, the familiar initialism at the close of the week, ‘TGIF’ (or ‘Thank God It’s Friday’).

What is it about Fridays that makes them so special? Why this euphoric fascination with Friday? Here are some reasons why people think Friday is cool: We get to stay up late. It’s an opportunity to catch up on much needed sleep. It means having drinks with the guys at the local watering hole. It’s that much needed break after a tiring and often bad week (except for a priest – our busy week is just starting). Or for many, ‘Friday’ means “Party, Party, Party!”

But for us Christians, there is one supreme reason that beats all the rest. We say without hesitation, “Thank God it’s Friday” because it was on Friday that our Lord Jesus died for us. “Thank God it’s Friday” because the instrument of death, the cross, became the means of our salvation! Good Friday marks the day when wrath and mercy met at the cross. The Cross which put God to death became the Tree of Life which brought man to life.

But Good Friday seems to have lost its original value of being a celebration of paradox. Over the years, many Christians have suffered from a cultural romanticisation or sanitisation of the cross. We have separated the cross from the suffering it portrays. The cross no longer evokes horror or terror, only loving endearment and pious devotion. We regard it as a sign of blessing, and certainly not as a symbol of a curse. You see Jesus hanging there and see a wonderful example of compassion and sacrifice. You find in the death of Jesus an inspiration to forgive and be kind to others. And for others, the overriding emotion in your heart is pity.

The readings for today, especially the Passion taken from the Gospel of St John, point us to a far more profound theological truth that extends beyond our emotions of sadness and pity. Well here’s the central truth: on the cross Christ redeemed us from the curse of sin by becoming a curse for us. That Christ became a curse is what makes Good Friday good.

What did it mean to be cursed? Think of the scene in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. God warned Adam and Eve that if they were to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they would suffer the curse of death. But our first parents refused to believe God’s warning and chose rather to rely on the words of the cunning serpent. They believed that by eating its fruits, they would no longer have to depend on God. They sought self-reliance over obedience. They imagined themselves as masters of their own destiny and be forever free of God’s interference. That mistaken belief is at the heart of every sin and serves as the perennial disease that infects man till today. Little did they know that this would be their curse, a curse inherited by the whole of humanity. After taking a bite of the forbidden fruit Adam is cursed, Eve is cursed, the serpent is cursed, and the ground is cursed. The effect of the curse is catastrophic – an impassable chasm now exist between man and God; it meant the loss of communion with God, each other, and the created universe. The curse bars us from eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life and thus man lost the gift of immortality. Death is now our curse.

But our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross has changed all that. Our wounded race could not begin to attempt such a massive task of healing the rift. Man could never lift the curse on his own. So the Father sent His Eternal Word to become man and accomplish the task in our place, to substitute for us. For the immortal, infinite God to empty Himself and unite Himself to a limited, vulnerable human nature was already a feat of unimaginable love and humility. But for redemption to be complete, the hero would have to withstand the greatest fury that hell and fallen humanity could hurl against him – the cross. If death should come from the self-reliance of man, life would come from obedience to God, even execution on the cross.

According to Deuteronomy 21:23 everyone hanged on a tree was cursed. It was punishment due for grievous crimes. Our Lord Jesus thus came under this curse. Yet, Saint Peter explains more clearly what was involved: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” (1 Peter 2:24) Our Lord accepted the “curse” we should have received, and underwent death in our place –so that we might not die but live. What the Son of God endured for us was the depth of human depravity, ugliness and humiliation. We need to be reminded of the tremendous personal cost of love. Everyone knows the cross is about the love of God. But it is no cheap, sentimental, fuzzy kind of love. It is a costly, deep, rich, free, painful kind of love. We must never forget this to truly appreciate the significance of Good Friday and what our Lord did for us.

We can say “Thank God it’s Friday” with a sigh of relief. Whew! The week is over. Once again the end of the week came just in time before the breakdown. It’s Friday night - we can relax, unwind, and enjoy thoughts of a weekend without appointments and traffic jams. But today, we say “Thank God it’s Friday” because it’s God who’s on the Cross. Today, we finally experience the ultimate break – not just from the tedium of a tiring week, but a break from sin, from death, and from darkness. Only God could heal us—save us—from the curse of sin and all the darkness it brings into life. Good Friday is good because the Word of God in the flesh—Jesus Christ—could endure on our behalf all the suffering and death that is the consequence of human sin. All the pain, emptiness and despair from betrayal, injustice, illness, lost and lack of love is brought to the Cross by Jesus. He assumed the curse we had wrought through our disobedience, by offering himself as a sacrifice of perfect obedience. He Himself bore our sins in His body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24). For this reason, we say without hesitation, without the slightest regret, without any trace of doubt, “Thank God it’s Friday”!

The Hour of Glory

Good Friday 2022

From the beginning of the Gospel, our Lord’s earthly life has been moving toward this moment, His “hour”: the divinely appointed time when He will pre-eminently reveal the Father’s love and accomplish His work of salvation, and the Father will reveal the Son in His glory. Every teaching or discourse of His, every “I am” statement which He has made, every sign-miracle which He has done, will find its ultimate meaning in what our Lord does today. Our Lenten preparation has been anticipating this “hour” too and today, it has finally arrived.

The “hour” of our Lord’s passion is the great showdown between light and darkness, death and life, God and Satan. It is for this reason the Passion begins with the only mention that the cohort and the guards that came to arrest Jesus were carrying “lanterns and torches” apart from weapons. John the Evangelist, artfully uses this detail in spinning a tale of irony. The darkness does not always seem dark. Satan is far more subtle. He produces counterfeit light in contrast to the true Light of the World, which is Jesus. That is why this scene takes place in the cover of night. Our Lord Himself and His motley band of disciples have no need for artificial lighting or torches because He is the Light of the World. The enemies of our Lord, on the other hand, have to carry “lanterns and torches” because they have no light of their own.

John’s Passion Narrative, while in many ways similar to the Synoptic accounts, has several theological emphases.

First, the kingship of Jesus is prominent. This is what He announced to Pilate: “I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.” But, His is “not a kingdom of this world.” Yes, Jesus is the sovereign Lord, who is in complete control over the events of His Passion, since “the Father had put everything into His power” (John 13:3). Because He is in full control, the events of His Passion happen only because He allows them to happen. In answer to Pilate’s claim that he has the power to release Him or crucify Him, our Lord responds: “You would have no power over me if it had not been given you from above” (John 19:11).

Second, the emphasis on our Lord’s kingly sovereignty and power, underscores the freedom with which He goes to the cross. Our Lord was not caught by surprise by the arresting party but as the Evangelist tells us, “knowing everything that was going to happen to him” (John 18:4), He willingly submitted to His Passion. Our Lord had earlier said, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again” (John 10:18). By freely going to the cross, our Lord offers His life as a perfect gift of love, given to the Father for the world’s salvation. Love is never accidental or forced. Our Lord is the unblemished Victim, the perfect sin Holocaust, who doesn’t play victim. That’s the irony of His victimhood. In today’s culture, where so many like to play victim to solicit pity and sympathy whilst being unwilling to make sacrifices for others, our Lord’s example is truly counter-cultural. He shows us what true sacrifice means.

Third, by freely laying down His life in obedience to the Father, our Lord reveals the infinite depths of the Father’s love and mercy toward sinners. Love is not just defined by passionate feelings or nice platitudes. Love is costly but not in the way that most of us would understand. Most people show the depth of their love in the form of expensive gifts. God shows His love by sacrificing the life of His only Son, a sacrifice which the Son makes freely because of His love for the Father.

Perceiving the revelation of divine love in the cross where our Lord Jesus died, requires faith, and John invites us to view the Passion with the eyes of faith through his use of irony. On the spiritual level, the situation is exactly the opposite of what it is on the natural level. On the surface our Lord’s death on the cross seems to be defeat and humiliation, but in fact, it is God’s victory and triumph. Through the cross, God takes on and overcomes sin and death with His infinitely greater merciful love.

Here then, is the paradox of faith. Christ, as He dies, brings life to us, who are already dead. Sin has placed a death sentence over our heads. But as the world watches the apparent defeat of Christ, we are actually seeing a greater victory. The very thing that carries the stench of death, our Lord’s crucifixion, is the source of new life. As Christ dies, our sins are lifted from us. Our separation from God is removed forever. Our failures are replaced by His victory. Our weakness is replaced by His strength. Our dead lives are reborn and given new life again, through His dying. But remember that “our victory,” is never ours to boast about, it is His victory given to us. We have failed but He has not. We are weak but He is strong. We have often been overcome by evil; He has not. This is the reason why we must pause here on Good Friday and stand beneath that Cross. This is the “hour” where all will be revealed!” It is here that we must make our final stand!

Stat crux dum volvitur orbis

 Good Friday

At the height of last year’s pandemic and on the eve of Holy Week, our Holy Father, Pope Francis drew the world’s attention as he gave a special Urbi et Orbi blessing to the world. The scene was surreal. In the darkened and empty plaza in front of the Basilica of St Peter, the solitary figure of this pope walking up the steps leading to the basilica and pausing to pray before the miraculous crucifix of the Church of St Marcellus that had been specially brought there for this occasion. Many were moved and touched by the words of the Pope as he addressed his flock and the world, with words of faith and hope in a time of unprecedented turbulence. But perhaps what spoke loudest was the powerful image of the Holy Father standing before the crucifix. As the entire world seem to spin in the maelstrom of this pandemic, with no remedy or solution in sight, our Pope holds on to the one thing that remains steady, unmoving and firmly grounded – the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. One commentator noted this scene with this penetrating and insightful phrase, “the cross stands while the world turns.”

‘Stat crux dum volvitur orbis,’ ‘The cross stands while the world turns’, is the English translation to the Latin motto of one of the strictest religious orders in the Church - the Carthusians. It is often said that the Carthusians are the only religious order in the Catholic Church that can boast of having never been reformed because it has never been deformed. Perhaps, this is the clearest testimony to the veracity of their motto: “the cross stands while the world turns and revolves.” The world changes but the Carthusians remain steadfast to their original spirit and vision.

Yes, the cross stands, unmovable, strong, solid, firmly grounded like a peg that holds the tent from being blown away by the wind or an anchor that keeps the ship from going adrift. Everyone understands the need for stability, even in a world that promotes rapid change. If nothing remains constant in the midst of change, everything descends into chaos. The cross is like a single coordinate point in the map of life, while other things are moving, shifting and changing, this point remains fixed, providing us with the needed reference point to guide our orientation and chart our direction. The cross stands erect, unshaken even in the midst of the tumultuous storms of life and the crisis which trails every moment of transition and change.

Rather than seeing the cross as an object to be feared or to be avoided at all cost, the cross is perhaps the most consoling symbol of our Christian faith. Of course, the cross alone provides us with little to no consolation. In fact, it should invoke horror and derision. But because of what our Lord did today, Good Friday, we will never be able to look at the cross in the same way again. As the priest unveils and shows the cross, he intones the chant: “behold the wood of the cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.” We are asked to behold not an empty cross. Our gaze and attention is drawn to the One who hangs on the cross, the One who is the “Salvation of the World”! Christ is our Rock, Christ is our Anchor, Christ is the axis of the World, He stands steady and unmoving even as the world revolves and turns.

In one of the most poignant scenes in the movie Captain America- Civil War, where our hero is at the funeral of his old beau, sitting beside him in the church is the niece of his former girlfriend. The niece reminisces and shares a quote from her auntie Maggie, a quote that would help our hero come to the enormously difficult decision that would end in alienating his friends and setting the whole world against him:

“Compromise where you can. Where you can't, don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move, it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and say 'No, you move'.”

That is what our Lord did, and that is what Christians are called to do. Good Friday is the day when our Lord took a stand and when we too are asked to take a stand with Him by the cross. If you want everyone in the world to like you, then you can’t take a stand. You will be shifting and swaying with every changing fad or fashion, you will be moving with the crowd. But the moment you take a stand, the moment you have principles and are prepared to defend them, be ready to be hated. That is the cost to pay for standing up for the truth and for what is good.

But we know that we are not alone. We have an anchor that holds us firm and solid through any storm. It doesn’t mean that the storm will pass quickly, or that we won’t suffer from it. What it means is that we have a firm and sure foundation, and the One to whom we hold tight has gone before us and prepares a place for those who trust in Him. We know that though the wind is raging all around and even though the waves may rise to the point of sinking our ship, there’s a place of stillness in the storm. And you can find it in the One who hangs from the cross. Yes, the cross stands steady, while the world spins and shifts and revolves.

On the cross, it appeared that God had been vanquished. As ever so often, humanity and goodness appeared to have been crushed. Our Lord was killed, and yet the cross endures. It stands because it is sustained by what does not change.

‘The cross stands while the world turns’. The world may revolve. Fashions come and go, and public opinion rushes from one event to another. Sometimes Christianity itself falls out of favour. But we are assured that when we stand on the side of right, God stands with us. The cross is the sign of a divine fidelity to us that can never be destroyed. And that is why in the midst of suffering, confusion and turmoil, the cross is to be embraced and not avoided. This is because the cross is the necessary doorway to eternal glory – there is no other way in. There is no shortcut, there is no happy ending, in any ordinary sense. Death precedes glory, and the cross before the crown.

There is a second part to the Carthusian motto which is often omitted in popular quotes and lengthy discussions, “et mundo inconcussa supersto”, which translates “and steadfast/unshaken I stand on top of the world”. So, here’s the full saying:

 

Stat crux dum volvitur orbis

et mundo inconcussa supersto

The cross stands while the world turns

and steadfast/unshaken I stand on top of the world

Let us hold firmly to the cross, the only thing which stands steady in a changing world, in the midst of chaos, death and destruction, and we can proudly declare with our Lord, “steadfast unshaken I stand on top of the world.”

We should like to see Jesus

 Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B

“We should like to see Jesus.” For the past few months, many Catholics had been longing and praying for this same request: “we should like to see Jesus,” not just virtually, on the screen of their television, computers or handheld devices, but to truly see our Lord in the flesh, in the tabernacle, in the church, as His body is placed on our palms or on our tongues.

So many would have sighed with relief, still others moved to tears, as they stepped into church last week. It is one thing to gaze lovingly at an image of a loved one in a picture, and an entirely different experience to meet him or her face to face. The former is just a pale shadow of the latter. But today, many would be shocked and troubled again the moment they stepped into church to behold the image of our Beloved Lord hidden behind a purple veil. Just when we had found Him after longing to see Him, His visage is hidden from our sight once again.

Coming into our churches with our crucifixes and holy images covered, evokes within us the emptiness of a world without Christ. This is not just a hypothetical scenario in a dystopian world that has forgotten God. We have experienced it most painfully in the past few months. With our churches and chapels closed, it does seem as if Christ has abandoned us to our misery and predicament. 

But it is also in the midst of such visible absence of our Lord’s presence that we come to recognise how wrong we have been. The world has always needed Jesus Christ and always will, although we have often taken that for granted. It is only when the Lord had been taken away from us, when our churches and chapels were closed, that we came to realise how much we really missed Him. In a paradoxical way, His absence helped us to appreciate His presence.

This is what our Lord did when He went to the cross. His death is an embodiment of the words He utters in today’s gospel: “unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.” By mounting the wood of the Cross that first Good Friday, He opened the gates of heaven and the doorway of salvation to all peoples.  He united God and humanity, and humanity with each other.  On the Cross He gave every last drop of Himself as blood and water flowed from His pierced side, the same blood and water types for the Sacraments that His Mystical Body (the Church) offers for Salvation, Baptism and the Eucharist.  Because of His death, our Lord had removed the mourning veil, and tore the veil which hid the mystery of God from man’s gaze. It is ironic that the veil of our crosses reveal more than they hide. They expose the folly of our ambitions and spotlight the wisdom of God’s plan. Hidden now from our sight, the veils are a reminder that we see God clearest of all when we see Him hanging from the cross.

Just as months of fasting from sacramental communion had heightened our hunger and thirst for the Lord and for communion with Him, the fasting of our senses through this veiling of His image should deepen our longing and love for the Lord. We are confident that our hunger will be sated, our prayers will be answered, our longing will be satisfied on Good Friday when the cross will be unveiled and we will get to behold the beauty of our Lord once again. The Cross is the lens through which we are called to see Him, the world and each other; the Cross gives us our perspective and opens our eyes to reality as God sees it. From the cross we will see an end to sin and division: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men to myself!”

Christ looks lovingly at us through pained eyes on the Cross, eyes now hidden from our sight, dare we look back at him? What is His response if we do? Judgement? Condemnation? …. No …. I can tell you with certainty that when He is looking back at you from behind the veil, it is a look of love, mercy and longing … longing that we love more perfectly in our lives by living life through the lens of the Cross. As we echo the words of the Greeks who came in search of Him in today’s gospel, “we should like to see Jesus,” He reveals to us that the only way that we are going to see Him, is to do what He tells us to do: “Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for the eternal life.” Like Him, we must become that wheat of grain that falls on the ground and dies in order to yield the rich harvest of eternal life.

Mercy covers Justice

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B

The readings for this Sunday help us to reconcile two aspects of God’s nature - He is a God of mercy who wants to save us and He is also a God of Justice who will hold us accountable for our deeds. On the face of it, these two aspects of God may seem to be on diametrically opposite ends of a spectrum. When you show mercy, are you not excusing someone from the dictates of justice, and when you demand justice, are you not withholding mercy?

Scripture reminds us that God is rich in mercy (Eph 2: 4). Modern man has no issue with this. This is the preferred face of God. Who would like a harsh and demanding parent, what more a God who metes out justice without batting an eye? But what is mercy? Just like many other terms and concepts, the concept of mercy has often suffered distortion under the hands of those who live under the woke banner of “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Mercy has become another synonym of these fundamental values of modern society.

But true mercy is the face of God’s love turned toward sinners, searching them out, and offering them pardon and salvation. This is what the Lord declares in the gospel, perhaps one of the most quoted verses of the bible, “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.” That’s it - the ultimate goal of mercy is our salvation.

When we reflect on mercy the question naturally arises about the relationship of mercy to justice. God is not merciful at the expense of His justice. Mercy does not exclude His justice, nor is it opposed to it. God’s justice entails that He takes sin seriously. God does not gloss over sin nor does He pull blinkers over His own eyes pretending as if sin does not exist. And because God takes sin seriously, He is willing to pay the greatest price in order to be rid of it - He sent His only Son to save us by dying for us. Jesus Christ’s finished work is the full and sufficient cause of our salvation. He has undergone the cross because of our sins, redeeming us from them, healing us from the deep wound of original sin and its effects and reconciling us to the Father. So, when we ignore the gravity of sin in the name of false mercy, we are actually diminishing and trivialising what our Lord did for us on the cross. When God’s justice is obscured, His mercy is reduced to something insignificant.

The gospel wishes to highlight that although the Father has given the Son the authority to judge the world, the Son has chosen not to do so. Rather, people are judged by their own reaction to the Son. Throughout the gospel of St John, we encounter individuals who are judged by their peers and society but as they come to the Lord, they receive no judgment. Instead, if they are judged, it is because of their response to the light of truth which our Lord brings. They are either drawn to the light and are transformed and saved, or they shun the light and condemn themselves to remain in the darkness. In other words, if hell does exist, and it does, it is not part of God’s creation or sentence. Hell is the product of man’s free choice- his choice to reject the light, to reject God and the One whom God had sent into the world to save us.

It is clear that justice and mercy are not opposites because both have their origin in God’s holy love. These two, says Saint John Paul II, “spring completely from love: from the love of the Father and of the Son, and completely bears fruit in love”. Pope Francis explains that “[justice and mercy] are not two contradictory realities, but two dimensions of a single reality that unfolds progressively until it culminates in the fullness of love” (Misericordiae Vultus §20).

In sum, the cross takes our sins away because it is the act of God’s gracious judgment on Christ for our benefit. In layman’s language, Christ takes the fall for us, He takes the punch for us. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). Why would He do that? The answer is simple: He loves us.  “Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16)

Today, we encounter the God of Mercy and Justice in the sacrament of penance - in confession. Many people are afraid to confess their sins to a priest for fear of judgment. Others believe that God is so merciful that He would not demand that we subject ourselves to such awkwardness and humiliation by exposing our most sordid secrets to a priest. And yet, we see the truth of what takes place in this sacrament. We are invited to come before the fountain of love, for both mercy and justice springs forth from the same source. We must take our sins seriously, as seriously as our Lord did by dying on the cross to atone for our sins. We must also be confident that the Lord will embrace us in mercy, if we come before Him with penitent hearts. For the sacrament of penance is a rehearsal of the Final Judgment. To the unrepentant sinner, there is reason to be afraid as he will be condemned by his sins. But to the repentant sinner, he should stand before God’s judgment without fear, because “there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 Jn 4:17-18).

Scripture does not reveal a God of justice in opposition to a God of mercy. Instead, Scripture discloses a just and long-suffering God, who intervenes in history to mercifully restore our dignity defaced by sin, precisely by leading us towards a renewed righteousness and justice. At the end, mercy triumphs over judgment. I enjoy teaching servers and little children that when they clasp their hands in prayer, with the right thumb (which symbolises mercy) placed over the left thumb (which symbolises justice) in the shape of a cross, it signifies this eternal truth – at the end and on the cross, mercy covers over justice.

Why would we call it "good"?

Good Friday

Today is the day we remember how our Lord, innocent though He was, was put to death by His enemies. Today is the day our Saviour is nailed to the cross because those whom He had come to save rejected Him. Today is the day when His thousands of followers and even His most intimate friends abandoned Him and leaving just four women and a man to accompany Him during this horrible ordeal. Today, the Word of God is silenced on the cross - no farewell speech to encourage or inspire His followers. And yet we Christians call this day “Good Friday” and our Eastern brethren have an even more audacious sounding name for it - the Great Friday.

Why on earth would Christians refer to this Friday as “good”?

It’s called Good Friday because even while powerful men were conspiring to kill the Son of God, God Himself was acting to save the world from itself, once and for all. Even while the world’s authorities were conspiring to perpetrate history’s greatest evil, God was working to bring about history’s greatest good.

Yes, we Christians have not made a great blunder in naming today as Good Friday. It isn’t a misnomer. Far from a mistake, our Lord’s death and sacrifice on the cross is God’s greatest achievement, His most prized trophy.

Today is good because on the cross, our Lord suffered so that we would not have to suffer eternally. Yes, we are not saying that Christians are insulated from suffering because of what Christ did. Christians are no strangers to suffering. It’s part of our DNA. In fact, to be a Christian means to deny ourselves and take up our crosses in imitation of our Lord. But all suffering in this life, no matter how unbearable it may seem, is only temporary. Suffering has a shelf life because of what our Lord did today.

What Christ did is that He “traded places” with us. He lived the sinless life that we should live, and died the death that we deserve to die. He took our guilty record, died for it, and offers us His perfect record in return. That is why Saint Paul declared that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).

Today is also not just a good day but a great day because by His death on the cross, our Lord Jesus reconciled us to the Father. Long before social distancing became the norm, man had already socially distanced himself from God by our sins. It is not God who had distanced Himself from us; it is not God who had abandoned us. It is we who have abandoned Him through sin. Because of our sins, we have alienated ourselves from God and others, but Jesus saves us from our sins in order to mend those relationships. The reconciling powers of Christ will cause all relational barriers to be torn down, including the barriers of ethnicity and nationality (Rev 5:9-10).

Finally because of the cross and the resurrection, we have hope for the future. As you all know, Good Friday is not a stand-alone feast. The story doesn’t just climax and end with Jesus dying on the cross on Good Friday. The real ending is found on Easter when Jesus will burst forth from the tomb, break the shackles and prison of death and rise again so that now we may have new life. With every darkening which seems to come with Good Friday, there is the new dawn of Easter.

Though Christ’s death has defeated the powers of death, suffering and evil, we must still wait for the day when He will return to put all these enemies under His feet. Until then, we must hope and believe that the victory is already His, that death is not the end, that suffering will not have the final say. Mission accomplished. This pandemic or any other calamity, natural or otherwise will have no hold over us. The work of Christ is complete. From the cross, He assures us, “It is accomplished.”

It does seem odd to refer to anybody’s death as “good.” Yet, God’s good plan is often counterintuitive: As Jesus says, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life will find it; “the first shall be the last and the last shall be first” (Mark 10:31). And yes, through the “good” death of God’s Son, humanity can receive new life, abundant life. He has given us eternal life that will never be defeated by any infection, calamity or even death.