<sub>Holy Spirit Catholic Church
Homilies

Good Friday (A) 2011:
Veneration of the Cross</sub>   

In the Book of Genesis, on the sixth day of creation, God's work was finished.  Today on Good Friday, on the sixth day of the Jewish week and on a hill outside Jerusalem, Jesus repeats those same words, "It is finished."  In Genesis, the sixth day was followed by God's Sabbath rest.  Now this sixth day will be followed by Jesus' rest in the tomb.

"It is finished."  The meaning of that word is ambiguous in English.  In the biblical languages, it is not.  Jesus is not expressing defeat.  He is not saying, "I've tried my best but it's over and done."  When Jesus says, "It is finished," He means everything is completed, perfected, accomplished.  Like God at the completion of creation, Jesus announces that the work He came to do is complete and accomplished.

But what exactly is finished on Good Friday?  The answer to that question was hinted at in the very first chapter of John's Gospel.  Two times in the beginning of the gospel, John the Baptist points to Jesus and says, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."  That forgiveness of sin is accomplished fully and completely on the cross.  "Christ 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," First Peter (2:24) says.

Yet despite the fullness of God's forgiving, healing love flowing from the cross, it remains all too easy to live with chronic bitterness and unforgiveness.  Maybe we blame ourselves for things that have gone wrong.  More likely we blame others . . . parents, children, and spouses . . . for our misery.  Along with that, many people are weighed down with an enormous sense of obligation: to be perfect for God's sake, to live up to demands for another's sake, to work non-stop and achieve the highest goals for one's own sake. 

But, limited as we are, we are bound to fail all those expectations.  And in failing, it becomes all too easy to be burdened with guilt and to lose a sense of forgiveness or healing.

More than that, beyond merely failing to measure up to expectations or living under personal disappointments, we are burdened by sins and dark secrets we hardly dare mention, whether it's to God or to others. 

Last Spring, former First Lady Laura Bush published her autobiography, Spoken from the Heart.  In the book she describes a heartbreaking car accident she had as a teenager, an accident in which the car she was driving crashed into her friend's car, an accident in which her friend died.  For decades afterward, she was burdened by unspoken grief and deep guilt.  She says she coped the way many of us cope: by not talking about it.  Yet even now, she is haunted by the memory and says she cannot be sure that she is forgiven for her part in causing the accident and her friend's death.

Bearing pain like that is nearly impossible to imagine and can only be healed with tender love.  That love is revealed in Jesus the Son sent by God to the world in love.  That healing is extended through the cross of Christ where our wounds are healed.

On Good Friday we dare claim that what Jesus accomplished on the cross has taken away the sin of the world so that none of us need doubt our forgiveness in Christ.  Over the mess of the world, over the brokenness and sin of our lives, over guilt both real and imagined, Jesus speaks His word.  "It is finished."  Jesus has dealt with it.

To borrow a line from one of the psalms, "As far as the east is from the west, so far have our sins been removed from us" (Ps 103:12). 

In Christ, our forgiveness is accomplished and completed.  The only reason for hanging on to any guilt and sense of failure is . . . well, there is no reason to hang on to it.  It is finished!

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13).  And we, Jesus says, are His friends.  Gathered tonight to reflect, to pray, and to ponder the mystery of Good Friday, we stand at the foot of the cross as Jesus' forgiven friends.  This is God's gift to the world, to all who are baptized into Jesus' death and resurrection.

In Christ, every breath we take can have a sense of relief, of letting the past go, of forgiveness, of God's own Spirit breathing life into our lives.  On Jesus' finished work we live our lives, our loves, and our hopes.  And that is why we call this Friday "good."