Good Friday Homily 2020
“If that is the remedy, then how bad the sickness must have been.” This is perhaps what many of us are thinking right now as we deal with a pandemic in our country and in the world. We are concerned that maybe the cure is not proportionate to the sickness, that the cure is worse than the sickness itself. Yet, that quotation does not come from our current situation; rather, it was by someone years ago after watching the move, “The Passion of the Christ.” The movie portrays Christ's Passion as it probably was: intense, tortuous, gruesome. It portrays all of the multifaceted forms of evil directed at Jesus and portrays the pain and agony—physical, emotional, psychological—that Jesus endured on this day. “If that is the remedy, then how bad the sickness must have been.”
If we're honest, we may wonder why God sent His Son and why His Son, Jesus Christ, willingly went took up the Cross and died for us. There are a few ways to look at this. A first way to answer why Jesus Christ has died for us is often referred to as atonement for our sins, but maybe think about it as a remedy to our sickness. Yes, we have been plagued by an illness, by a pandemic even worse than the one the world now faces: that pandemic is sin. This plague of sin has bedeviled humanity since the Fall of our first parents, and it is the ultimate cause of hatred, wars, violence, division, cruelty, and on and on and on. To make matters worse, there is nothing on our own we can do about it: we have no cure of our own, no remedy or vaccine created by our own hands. At the heart of the plague of sin is pride and selfishness, so God sends His Son, Who in willingly takes up the Cross, remedies sin with utter humility—falsely accused, vilely mocked, stripped naked before all—and with complete and total self-giving and selflessness. The remedy of Christ's Passion and Death reveal indeed how sick we were because of sin.
Nevertheless, why would God care about curing our sickness of sin? At the risk of sounding cliché and trite, God did this because He loves us. Many of us are familiar with John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life,” but this is expanded even further. How do we know that God loves each one of us so dearly? St. Paul tells us, “Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Think of some of Jesus' last words on the Cross: “I thirst.” His thirst wasn't for water or for earthly drink. The thirst of Jesus was for each of us. Jesus poured himself out so that we may be filled with His life; He has poured out His love for us, and in return, He thirsts for our love.
Because He loves us, Jesus Christ has endured His Passion and Death in order to fight for us: to fight against our enemies of sin and death and the devil. Jesus uses not the ordinary weapons of our world, but instead cloaks Himself in weakness and vulnerability in order to enter the battlefield—the home field advantage for sin, death, and the devil—where He routs our enemies. Being the Son of God, Jesus defeats our enemies with sacrificial love. Jesus displays on the Cross strength found no where else: in sacrificial, self-giving love. No longer must sin, death, and the devil enslave us, for we have been rescued.
As we look up the Crucifix, we see a remedy. We see strength like no other. We see love, the love of God on full display. On our part, our response must be one of adoration, of love, of praise and thanksgiving. We have been healed, we have been rescued, and we are loved. As Jesus cries out, “I thirst,” may we satisfy the thirst of Jesus and give our lives unreservedly to Him.