Good Friday 2015

Good Friday 2015

“Woman, behold thy son; son, behold thy mother”.

Only four people remained loyal to Jesus at the very end. They were his mother and her two companions (her sister and Mary Magdalene) and John. Everyone else rejected Jesus.

Judas betrayed Jesus through pride then committed suicide from despair. Peter denied that he even knew Jesus three times. Others fled and went into hiding. The religious authorities condemned Jesus for fear he would challenge their position. The political authorities executed Jesus for fear he would upset the balance of power.

All who betrayed, rejected, abandoned, condemned and killed Jesus shared one thing in common. Thy reacted to Jesus in fear.

Only four people responded to Jesus from the place of love. They risked their own lives to be present to Jesus and for Jesus at his moment of deepest pain and isolation. They could only go so far but it was enough. They could only stand at the foot of the cross but it was farther than any of Jesus’s apostles and disciples were willing to go.

Where they could not go was the place of desolation. It was the abomination of desolation that only Jesus could enter as the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for sin. Holy Mother Mary saw that place but could not enter. Her sorrow was unlike the sorrow of millions of mothers who see their sons and daughters killed by war, starvation, poverty, disease. Her sorrow was grounded in the realization that her son had entered into the very center of human separation from God. In that place Jesus experienced the consequences of every sin people will ever commit. In that place Jesus experienced the death of every individual human being who has lived and will ever live.

What brought Jesus to the cross was love. What allowed Jesus to enter into the abomination of desolation was love. It is not the love we experience. It  is steadfast, holy, universal, unconditional, infinite and eternal love. It is the defining quality of God.

All who rejected, killed and abandoned Jesus did so from the place of fear. The three women and one teen who remained loyal to Jesus, who stood by him and with him at the foot of the cross made that choice from the place of love.

Holy Mother Mary (with her two companions) and John form the nucleus of the Church. Jesus forms the church on Calvary by instructing his holy mother: take care of John, complete his spiritual formation in union with the Holy Spirit. This is a pattern for the universal Church. Holy Mother Mary shows us and demonstrates for us how we can overcome fear through love.

Jesus also commends John to respect and care for Mary as his spiritual mother. Son – behold thy mother. Respect her as Moses taught us to respect our parents. Listen to her. Learn from her. Follow the way of humility she embodies.

To us today, Jesus reminds us that in order to follow the way of love we must live and move and have our being in community. Love cannot exist in isolation. Isolation is the abomination of desolation.

Before Jesus entered into the place of isolation he sealed the faithful into the community of divine love. Holy Mother Mary and the Apostle John came to the cross in love and experienced the ongoing transforming quality of love in union with Jesus and in community with each other.

Jesus saves us individually by his sacrifice on the cross. He saves us from isolation. And he saves us for the new community of love by grace through faith.