Behold The Wood of the Cross

Joel Tabora, S.J.

Good Friday
Church of Christ the King
10 April 2009

My sisters and brothers in the Lord:

We come together today in our church stripped of its linens, its decorations, its flowers, in solemn commemoration of the Passion and Death of the Lord.  We recall the Lord, derided, tortured, flogged, crucified, stripped of his clothes, his dignity, humanity, appearing like a worm not a man, abandoned by his apostles, his disciples, his friends.

Together we come to behold the Cross.  And the man fastened to the Cross.

We come in the darkness of a global economic crisis where the poorest of the poor suffer most, but where many not numbered among the poorest – possibly ourselves included -  suffer quietly and remarkably.  We come together as innocent Red Cross workers in Jolo are kidnapped and held for power,  as hundreds are killed extra-judicially  in Davao presumably for substance abuse,  as journalists are killed by the military for exposing the truth, as thousands are killed in Mexico as rivals struggle for control of a pernicious drug trade.  We come together as North Korea threatens the fragile peace of the world with new missiles of destruction, as countries of peace decide in the name of peace to deploy more machines of destruction and more soldiers of war to Afghanistan, as drone missiles of the United States pound Taliban targets in Pakistan, as the Taliban call for an intensification of war in God’s name. 

Together we hear the invitation:  Behold, behold the wood of the Cross on which is hung our Salvation…

We come together sorely aware of injustice in our world:  in our jails, hapless human beings imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, or for minor crimes which they have committed, while well-placed people convicted of plundering the nation, convicted of participating in the murder of a national hero, convicted of the rape of children, convicted of the murder of innocent youths at the threshold of their adult lives are pardoned by a President in the name of … political expediency.  We come conscious of people who scavenge the dumps to eat, whose children’s bodies are wasted with sores and infection, who watch loved ones die for lack of simple medicine, who despair the hope of instruction in a dark world, whose hearts are broken by their inability to reverse their children’s malnourishment in a world where obesity is a major problem and food is burned to keep the cost of food high. 

Behold, behold the wood of the Cross…

We come in admission of our own sins, our own tendency in a secular world to deny the weight of the Cross, to reduce it to a pious wall decoration, or to a pendant on a necklace, or to a sacred myth, or to a sanctimonious irrelevancy.  We come admitting our own temptation to place more trust in reason than in grace, in technology than in wisdom, in power than in humility, in psychology than in forgiveness.  We come wanting to conjure up our own Messiahs to pull us out of the ruts we have mired ourselves in, even as we admit our inability to heal ourselves, or to right the wrong we have done,  We come into his sacred presence:

Behold, behold, the wood of the Cross…

We come in our sinfulness.  We come knowing we have hurt our brother, insulted out sister, neglected our parents,  denied our marriages, broken our vows, compromised our children, failed to pay our debts.  We know that the gap of sullen silence that has come about between myself and my friend, myself and my sister, myself and my brother, is ultimately because I have failed to give in, failed to be more generous, failed to place love over pride, self over selfishness. 

So often we act as though the world owes us a favor. 

We come, recalling, “It was our infirmities that he bore;  our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as smitten, as one stricken by God and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our offences, crushed for our sins; upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.  We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way;  but the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all.”

It need not have been.  He could have ignored us.  He could have condemned us.  He could have allowed his beloved Son not to drink of this bitter cup.  And the son could have walked away…

But it was otherwise.  We were somehow to him, too special, too loved,  too precious..    “Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth;  like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth.  Oppressed and condemned he was taken away and who would have thought any more of his destiny?  When he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of his people, a grave was assigned him among the wicked and a burial place with evildoers, though he had done no wrong, nor spoken any falsehood.  But the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity” (Is 52)

That sin might be crushed in us.  And in this act of self-sacrifice, obedience and love, we might feel his love.  And be saved. 

“Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered;  and when he became perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. 

Oftentimes we are not even aware.  Sometimes we are.  Today, we beg for a deeper awareness – of his love, even as we are aware that often we don’t care.  We beg, before him hanging from the Cross, to behold not  formed plaster of Paris, not carved wood, not graven silver, but flesh and blood, and eyes peering into my eyes, telling me, “All this, for you!”  We pray that our response today not be plastic, not be wooden, not be metallic.  We pray we can respond with hearts of flesh, with gratitude, with self respect.  “If you have done this for me, what ought I do for you…”

And if, from this Church, we go away not just having allowed today’s Gospel proclamation to enter one ear and out the other, if we allow our heart to be enflamed by the beating heart of the Lord, if we allow ourselves to be possessed by his Spirit, it will be different for that loved one with whom I have not spoken for so many years, it will be different for that relationship that was not quite appropriate for my station in life; it will be different for the person I have habitually defrauded, or for the persons I have cruelly judged over the years; it will be different for those children who are hungry and need food, who are sick and need medical care, who are abandoned, and need love.  In our making this difference, and in paying the price, we will understand that the Cross and ourselves are not estranged, but that we are grace-fully immersed in the suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord.  Was this not what happened to us in our baptism – of water and of life?  His sacrifice becomes our sacrificing;  his dying our dying; his loving, our loving in a world that shrugs its shoulder and knows no value other than cash value and see no beauty other than what make-up makes up.  Yet, we continue to what we must, in free response to love we value.   In our sacrifice, and in our dying, his sacrifice and dying are inextricably proclaimed – now in a child’s smile, now in a patient cured, now in a prodigal son returned to the Lord’s embrace, now in a parent accepting the limitations of a child. 

When such happens:  Behold, behold the wood of the Cross on which is hung our salvation. . .  It is here that we find Lord, peering into our eyes wearied, saying wordlessly, “It’s okay.” 

Our church is stripped of its linens, its flowers, its decorations.  Life is like that.  Sometimes we need to be rid of the distractions.  We focus all the more then on our Lord hanging from his Cross in whom we are … loved.  There is no joy more overwhelming.  There is no challenge more profound.