Homily for Good Friday 10 April 2009
In the Prologue to his Rule, dear brothers and sisters, St Benedict says, 'Today, if you should hear his voice, do not harden your hearts' (RB Prol 10) and then he goes on to say, 'Let anyone with ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the Churches' (RB Prol 11). In both cases, as you might have guessed, Benedict is taking verses from the Scriptures - from Psalm 94 (Ps 94.7) and from the Book of Revelation (Rev 3.22) - and the advice he gives to his monks is absolutely fitting for you and for me today. We have heard the Passion of St John and the other liturgical texts for Good Friday so often that they are apt simply to flow over us. It is for this reason, among others, that we have changed the musical setting of the Passion to make it possible for us to experience the words of St John in a new and fresh way so that the words hit home and penetrate to the depths of our hearts.
Let us begin our reflection on the Word of God by turning to the letter to the Hebrews. The writer says 'For it is not as though we had a high priest who was incapable of feeling our weaknesses with us; but we have one who has been tempted in every way that we are, though he is without sin' (Heb 4.15). Our high priest is our Saviour Jesus Christ and the writer asserts powerfully that he is a human being like you and me. Jesus, the Son of God, was born of a woman, as all of us have been born from our mothers. Jesus experienced human life, just as we experience human life - its joys and sorrows, its temptations and its victories. Jesus died, as the Passion narrative we have just heard told us, just as we in our turn will experience death. There is only one aspect of the human life of Jesus Christ which is unlike your life and mine: when he was put to the test he remained faithful to his Father's will; he did not fall into sin. Some people have wondered whether this lack of sin makes Jesus somehow less than human. The truth is that it is us sinners who are less than human: Jesus is perfectly human, perfectly human just as we were created to be.
If this is really true then we can ask how it was possible for Jesus to achieve human perfection. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews tells us that it was possible because 'he learnt to obey through suffering; but having been made perfect, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation' (Heb 5.9). It is Christ's obedience to the will of God the Father that marks him out as different from you and me - but at the same time it is this very human obedience, which was learnt through suffering, which marks out for us the path which we can follow - if we wish to follow it. No one forces us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ; it has to be our own free choice. The call has been addressed to us just as surely and clearly as it was addressed to the disciples beside the Sea of Galilee, but whether we choose to follow is entirely in our own hands. Still, we must be quite sure of what this call means for us - and to understand that call let us turn to the Passion of our Saviour and reflect upon its message.
The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we all understand very well indeed, is in part the historical account of the closing days of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. John lays out for us in simple and clear terms just what happened: how his own people plotted his death, how his closest friends deserted him, how the message he had preached, God's message of forgiveness and love addressed to ordinary men and women, led to him being executed as a political messiah.
But it is also true that in this Passion narrative we will find all the details of our own lives. We are all aware of those moments when we have played the part of Judas. The memory of them tears us apart. We ask ourselves where we can turn for forgiveness. We are painfully conscious of the times when in our own humdrum lives we have sacrificed our belief in Jesus Christ on the altar of political expediency: we, too, have played the part of Caiaphas. And then again we have so often identified ourselves with Peter, 'I do not know the man'. It is not easy to stand up for our belief in Jesus Christ and the good news which we brings. It is often so much more convenient to slide away into the background. And we have allowed ourselves to become one of the crowd. We have revelled in human pain like the Roman soldiers. We have shared in the cowardice of Pilate. The story of our weakness and sin could go on and on. It is true that most of us are not extraordinary sinners - so we must not paint the story in colours which are too vivid to be believed; no, if the truth is told, we are simply mediocre sinners, just as we tend to be pretty average in much of the rest of our lives. But, and this is important, if we leave the story there we have told only half of the history of our lives because by baptism we have become one with Christ and whilst it is perfectly true that we have often failed to live up to that baptism, there are other moments when we have embraced the life of Christ wholeheartedly: we have celebrated with our friends just as Christ celebrated with his friends; we have handed on the good news to those around us, we have relieved the suffering of those who are afflicted, and somertimes we have embraced the Cross when it has been given to us, praying, as Christ prayed, for the salvation of all men and women.
On this Good Friday the call of Christ is being addressed to us again, 'Come, follow me'. How are we going to respond to that call in the coming year? The Fathers of the Church delighted in telling us that Christ became man so that men might become gods. Let us remember what that means. We have been invited to become perfectly human, to accept the humanity which Adam and Eve were prepared to reject, to accept the humanity which Christ makes visible for us. We have been invited to share the life of Christ - to become obedient to the Father, as he was obedient, during our lives on earth; to share the life of the resurrection, to stand with Christ in the presence of Our Father in heaven. On this Good Friday we are invited once again to unite our lives with the life of Christ.
As we come to the Cross in procession this afternoon let us remember the words addressed to us at the beginning of our Lenten journey: 'Turn away from sin and believe in the Gospel' (from the Distribution of Ashes on Ash Wednesday). 'Today, if you would listen to his voice, harden not your hearts' (Ps 94.7, Grail). As we gaze upon the Cross of Christ by which we have been reconciled to the Father, before we come to our celebration of Easter, let us repent and in humble confession let us cast aside the burden of our sins. Then we will be free to recall in our renewal of the Baptismal Promises that Christ died to give us back true human freedom, freedom to reject sin and death, freedom to accept the responsibilities of living life in obedience to the will of God our Father and Creator.
Rt Rev Cuthbert Madden OSB, Abbot of Ampleforth