WE CONTEMPLATED A LOVE STRONGER THAN DEATH
The dramatic agony on the cross has often led the preachers of the past to insist excessively on the gory aspects of Jesus’ passion. From this preaching, images, popular representations, and some devotions, which aggravates the violence of the blows, of the scourging, the falls under the weight of the cross, the sadism of the exasperated soldiers, are derived.
This type of approach to the Gospel texts is a disservice to the understanding of the Easter events. Indeed, it blurs the meaning. The Gospels are moving in a completely different perspective. They are very sober in telling the horrendous torments inflicted on Jesus. Their goal is not to impress or move the readers, but to make them understand the immensity of God’s love revealed in Christ. They do not linger on the sufferings because the passion they present is not that of suffering, but the passion of love. They want to show us that:
“For love is strong as death
its jealousy lasting as the power of death
it burns like a blazing fire
it blazes like a mighty flame.
No flood can extinguish love
nor river submerge it.
If a man were to buy love
with all the wealth of his house
contempt is all he would purchase” (Song 8:6-7).
In presenting the gory aspects of the passion, John is the soberest of all the evangelists. He skips all the humiliating details such as beatings on the head and the spatting. He refers only to the flagellation and the slaps. His story—what today’s liturgy makes us meditate— does not narrate the journey of Jesus to death, but to glory.
With Christ on the cross, we are made to understand where sin leads to: it renders a person unrecognizable. But immediately John has us contemplate God’s response to sin: the gift of his Spirit and the resurrection of the Holy and Just One.
To internalize the message, we repeat:
Lord, make me understand how great is your passion of love.
CONTINUE READING:
http://www.avona.org/homilies/good_friday.pdf
Fr. Franco Pereira, S.D.B.
