Homily - Good Friday of the Lord's Passion

It's often said that Christ died for each one of us, and even if you were the only person in the world, Christ would have still been sent to die just to save you. We don't have any cause to doubt this. In fact, all of what we know about God gives us every reason to believe that it's true. But in my own experience, sometimes instead of making me feel incredibly loved by God, it makes me feel incredibly guilty for being the reason he had to suffer and die in such a horrific way. And so in those times, I feel the tremendous weight of sadness and responsibility when I look at Christ on the cross, and I think that it's my sins, my failures, and my most grievous fault that put him there. When I read the scripture accounts of his crucifixion, and when I really try to imagine what he went through, or I see his horrible death depicted in movies, it can almost be too much to bear. The betrayal by those whom he loved, the brutal beatings, the violent whipping, the cruel mockery, crowning with thorns, and all of these unspeakably awful things pale in comparison with the unfathomable pain of being nailed while fully conscious through his hands and feet to a cross. The terror and unmeasurable agony that he must have felt as he hung there for hours until his shoulders dislocated and then no longer able to hold himself up enough to breathe. He died of suffocation, and to think that it was because of me, because of my sin that he went through that, sometimes it causes me to do more than tremble. It literally causes me to shed tears of sadness and guilt. To think that every time I fail to address an injustice, or I miss an easy opportunity to evangelize for fear of losing friends, I too stand among the crowd in Jerusalem shouting, crucify him, crucify him. Every time I turn my back on God's will, and instead turn to my own selfish desires, I too stand with Pilate and send Jesus away to be scourged and executed. And when I fail to live up to the Ten Commandments and put my very soul in peril by committing mortal sin, I too pick up the hammer of the Roman soldier and drive the nails through Christ's hands and feet. When I don't honor my father and mother, when I use the Lord's name in vain, when I kill someone's reputation by gossip or unnecessary talk, each of my sins is another hammer blow, piercing Christ's hands, piercing Christ's feet. But our God is not a God of vengeance nor of sorrow. He's certainly not a God of defeat nor a God of death. God has crowned his Christ with victory over sin and death. And so Jesus's story does not end with his crucifixion on the cross and his burial in the tomb. He was raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, and took his seat at the right hand of the Father. And because our God is a God of mercy and forgiveness, because of Jesus Christ, my story does not end with my sin. Christ's ultimate triumph over sin and death was one for me and one for all of us, shattering the chains of darkness that bound us and opening up wide the gates of heaven. And so now when I think of those nails being driven through his hands and feet, and I picture myself as the Roman soldier holding the hammer with my bloodied hands and horrified by what I've just done, I look into Christ's eyes as I kneel before him, sinful and sorrowful, and I ask him to forgive me, to remember me as he comes into his kingdom. And through his pain and his agony, he looks back at me with tender, loving mercy and says, Father, forgive him. He doesn't know what he's doing. Then, my friends, I believe with confidence that God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has reconciled me and the rest of the world to himself, and that I am washed in the blood of the Lamb, not in condemnation but in redemption, and to think it was God, because of his love for me, that he went through that. Sometimes it causes me to do more than tremble. It causes me to shed tears of joy and gratitude.