Readings:
Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 31: John 18:1-19:42

Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed… By his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself… while he was bearing the faults of many and praying all the time for sinners.
Isaiah 53:5, 11,12

‘So you are a king, then?’ said Pilate. ‘It is you who say it,’ answered Jesus. ‘Yes, 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’ … The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king except Caesar’ … When they came to Jesus they found that he was already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance, and immediately there came out blood and water.
John 18:37, 19:16, 33-35

There is a place and time for thinking about the Passion, for reading commentaries, theorizing about its meaning, but today is a time for being still, standing in imagination in the event and begging God to lead us into the mystery of his love. The death of Jesus was once for all, an historical event, but the love of God which expressed itself in this event is the love in which we now live and move.

How can we say that God is good when we look at the horrors of human life? Natural disasters, droughts, earthquakes, hurricanes, the animal world preying on one another, the inbuilt destructive viruses bringing disease and death, are bad enough, but human minds and hearts are the most destructive force in nature, capable of destroying all life on our planet. Can we be honest with ourselves and still say, ‘God is good?’

Reason, philosophies and theologies of the problem of evil can only nibble at its surface. The mystery of Christ’s Passion and death upsets all our theories. If God is ‘The supreme Spirit who alone exists of himself and is infinite in all perfections’, ‘the First Mover’, ‘the Uncaused Cause’, then in he not ultimately responsible for the existence of evil?

Jesus reveals a most surprising God. ‘God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength’ (1 Corinthians 1:25). God, in Jesus, refuses to exercise power as we understand it, identifies himself with every human being, ‘emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave’ (Philippians 2:6), a powerless, vulnerable, silent and hidden God, who enters into the pain, weakness, sinfulness and corruption of human life. God, in Jesus, absorbs in himself the concentrated and venomous onslaught of sin, and transforms it. On the cross he prays, ‘Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing’ (Luke 23:34). John expresses the transformation with, ‘When they came to Jesus, they found he was already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water’ (John 19:33-34).

If Jesus has suffered for us, why do we still have to suffer the effects of our and other people’s sinfulness? Because if we are to be healed, and if we are to be at one with God in his work of transformation, we have to enter, with him, the pain of things. It is in our woundedness, not in our power, that we find him. He is a God who weeps in our hearts, but his tears are healing tears, springs of everlasting life, cleansing, sustaining, transforming, giving us hope when everything seems hopeless and the inner assurance that in all our bewilderment, uncertainty, disillusionment, stupidity and ignorance, yet ‘All things will be well, all manner of things will be well’ (Mother Julian). In the tears of things, love is always there, invincible, indomitable, but hidden, apparently powerless, yet reconciling all that is in heaven and all that is on earth (Colossians 1:20).

Prayer
God, in the sufferings and death of Christ, from whose side there came the blood and water, you are showing us your love. Open our eyes so we can recognize your love and accept it in every event of our lives. We ask you this through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.