This past week, I came face to face with the reality that most people do not love God as He deserves. I realize that seems a harsh thing to say, but stay with me as I explain. And let me state upfront that I have, at times in my life, fallen into the category of “most people,” which is why I feel this is important to say.
Let me give you the context for my saying this.
My family recently received an invitation to a social event at 3pm on Good Friday. 3pm on Good Friday is the hour of Christ’s death, a death that He endured in order to save every single person who was, who is and who will be.
I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I physically felt a portion of the rejection that Christ feels. I felt heartbroken. Yet, I know it’s nothing compared to what He experiences. Jesus feels this pain constantly, as He looks upon his beloved children, who have turned away from Him.
Would we host a party if our parent had just died? Would we gather for a celebration if our child had just passed away? And yet, our Savior hangs on a cross and this is where we find ourselves, in a post-Christian society that views Good Friday as any other day off from work or school, as an opportunity to fit in a social gathering.
This day is set aside to recall the single saddest day in the history of humanity. That’s it.
The drama of that day is an abiding one. For Calvary is not just a mere historical incident, like the battle of Waterloo; it is not something, which has happened — it is something, which is also happening. Christ is still on the cross.
Ven. Fulton Sheen, The Divine Romance
Good Friday is for mourning the death of our Savior, a time when we kneel before the crucifix and grieve the fact that our own personal sins have put Jesus upon it.
The crucifixion has never really ended. Christ is still enduring the rejection, humiliation, suffering and pain – for us, because of us, and in spite of our hard-hearted ignorance.
It is important to say now, I am heaping no condemnation upon anyone. I know firsthand how hard it is to actually know and love God. The battle to turn one’s life away from sin is difficult, and I spent a great many years living a hard-hearted life. I have been a part of the group who are ignorant of the both the sorrow and the goodness of Good Friday.
And, save by the grace of God, I very much have the capacity to go back to that reality, so I have empathy for those who find themselves in situations that draw them away from God. I have made the words of Jesus’ cry from the cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34) my own prayer, for myself and others.
But also, I don’t live that reality anymore. For whatever His reason, God has deigned to grant me enormous graces. God has taken me to a place that I never could have arrived at without Him. I’ve been granted a new heart by a gracious and merciful Savior.
And that notion is both freeing and heavy. I am no longer blind and hard of heart. Our Lord has given me the gift of faith and the ability to love Him, however weakly I may actually do so. And simultaneously this means that I have a responsibility to be an instrument through which another’s heart can be softened.
There is a beautiful poem by Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, also from The Divine Romance, that I can hardly read without tears welling in my eyes:
“Whenever there is silence around me
By day or by night —
I am startled by a cry.
It came down from the cross —
The first time I heard it.
I went out and searched —
And found a man in the throes of crucifixion
And I said, ‘I will take you down’,
And I tried to take the nails out of his feet.
But He said, ‘Let them be
For I cannot be taken down
Until every man, every woman, and every child
Come together to take me down.’
And I said, ‘But I cannot bear your cry,
What can I do?’
And He said, ‘Go about the world —
Tell every one that you meet —
That there is a man on the cross.'”
So here I am to tell you about the Man on the cross…
Jesus Christ has literally laid down everything, His very life, for you, so that you might have everything. He chose the cross, so that YOU, in 2021, may have Hope and Joy and Peace.
Christ loves YOU unto death, even death on the cross (Phil 2:8). You were lost, but He redeemed you. You were dead from your sin (Eph 2:1), but He has given you new life.
All that you have and all that you are is from the Man on the cross.
And all that your life can be will be through Him, who was crucified for you.
When we think on this truth, we should wonder in awe at the goodness and mercy of Our God. The crucifixion should make us feel like weeping in gratitude to Jesus, and it should leave us with no other response but to surrender our very life back to Christ.
And yet a great many people do not wonder at the cross. As St. Paul tells us:
“The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…
We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom.”
1 Corinthians 1: 18, 23-25
With St. Paul, I proclaim Christ crucified. And this Good Friday, you will find me kneeling at the foot of the cross, for I am foolishly in love with my Savior.
I pray that you will be there too, because there is a Man hanging on the cross for you.
