We thank God for this special grace to celebrate the solemnity of Good Friday across continents, while staying home with our families and household. I thank Fr, Prof. Odozor for making me an active participant in this program. We thank God for our modern technology that has made this possible. This demonstrates once again that modern technology need not push us away from, less still, against our Creator and God. In this case, it has brought us closer to God and to one another in prayerful worship. I bring you best wishes from Abuja, Nigeria, as we join the rest of the Church world wide in one universal, global celebration of the Passion of Christ on this Good Friday.
Good Friday, any time, any day, is always a most moving celebration, as we recall the Passion of Christ. This is highlighted in the major components of the worship structure for today’s liturgy: the Stations of the Cross, the reading of the Passion story, the solemn Prayer of the Faithful for the needs of the entire human family, with no exception, the veneration of the Cross, the wood on which our salvation was achieved, concluding with the distribution of Holy Communion.
Please note that today, there is no Holy Mass, just as tomorrow, the whole day is silent until the Holy Saturday night vigil. This is a powerful witness to the great silence and darkness that covered the earth from the death of Christ until his glorious resurrection on Sunday morning. In these days, every aspect of the liturgy of the Church is full of meaning, for us to reflect upon and learn from. This is Good Friday, even in normal times.
But this year, Good Friday is particularly moving! The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a debilitating lock down on all of us, all across the globe. In this predicament, there is no distinction between rich and poor nations. For once, God has shown us that we are all poor fragile human beings, a lesson that we hope will survive the hopefully short period of the pandemic. In these circumstances, we have been forced to celebrate Good Friday, without the usual teeming congregations, elaborate community singing and worship in gorgeous big cathedrals and Basilicas. Good Friday has been, as it were, stripped of all historical and cultural encrustations of pomp and pageantry. We are taken to the original event of Jesus, alone before His heavenly Father, against his enemies. His friends abandoned him: there was none by his side in his hour of greatest need.
Alone, he faced his accusers and judges, his executioners and murderers. All abandoned him with very few exceptions: Peter who followed but stayed afar off, John the Beloved who showed up only at the foot of the cross with his Mother Mary. Two other gentlemen appeared AFTER his death: I call them Joe and Nic;, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who facilitated a minimum of dignity at his burial. The apostles were no where to be found. The hailing crowds had vanished. In a similar way, today, we are having to make do with skeletal celebrations in empty churches, with virtual congregation and participation, as we are now doing.
But God has a way of drawing good from every situation. This has forced us to pay a greater attention to the essentials of Good Friday: to recall the extraordinary event of that Friday, never before seen or heard, and never since then. The Son of God willingly embraces his passion and death, in furtherance of God’s plan for our salvation. We now have a better chance to contemplate this great mystery, away from the large crowds, on our own, and within our family environment, the domestic Church that we have heard much about in theory. This is an opportunity that we must not waste. Let us spend quality time, reading the scriptures, reflecting on God’s saving act, raising our hearts in fervent prayers, not only for ourselves and for our families, but for the whole world.
Now let us come to the centre of today’s liturgy, the Passion story. We have read from the Gospel according to St. John, not only an eye witness account but the record of a participant in the events. The story depicts Jesus as the lamb of God, who carries away the sins of the world. He shed his blood as the Blood of the New and Eternal covenant, for the remission of our sins. This has replaced and superceeded the Passover Blood of goats and rams of the Old Testament.
We are reminded that the passion of Christ was a real event, going to the inner recesses of the mystery of God made man for our salvation. Among the many lessons we can learn from the passion story, I would like to draw attention to two interconnected important aspects, one spiritual and the other physical.
On the spiritual level, Jesus suffered the sense of being abandoned by all.
– He was abandoned by his Father, (Eli Eli Lamma Sabacthani?) was a real cry of agony and anguish. He was not just reciting a psalm!
– He was abandoned by his friends, betrayed by one of them and publicly denied by their leader. None stood by his side when it mattered most.
He suffered the spiritual agony of being subjected to unjust tribunals, Jewish and Roman. The religious leaders who had been after him for some time finally caught up with him, and gleefully mocked at him hanging in the cross.
The Roman, Pontius Pilate cut a very sad figure, as Jesus watched him struggling between doing the right thing and set him free, and caving in to the wicked “white-mail” of the Jews and save his career. Pilate ended up with a tragic place in history, as everyone now knows that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate”, a bad reputation that no amount of washing of hands can cleanse. We see here the limits of human justice, at its worst.
On the physical level, Jesus suffered real pain. It was not a make belief or pretense, just as his human nature was not only an external covering for a human show. Here, we can only bow down and worship before this ineffable mystery of God’s power, love and mercy. The pronouncements of the Prophet Isaias, which we read in the first reading, are being fulfilled before our eyes.
“He was crushed for our sins, and through his wounds, we are healed”.
For Jesus, all this was not only in line with the will of the Father. It was also the moment of his glory. He had earlier declared: “When I am lifted up, I shall draw all men to myself”.
The story of Good Friday is not just a tragic report of an event that took place 2000 years ago. It continues to be relevant to us today, as Christians.
– By the cross of Christ, we have been redeemed. We can now trust in the mercy of God, who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for our salvation. As St. Paul tells us, if God went that far, what else would He not do for us?
– Furthermore, Good Friday reminds us of our need to be ready to share in the Passion of Christ. After all, did He not tell us that we must bend down and take up our own cross and follow him, if we are to be his disciples? St Paul has put it as a challenge and a condition for sharing in the resurrection of Christ.
– The Cross of Christ has given deep meaning to the inevitability of suffering and the certainty of dying. That is why we should be able to accept whatever suffering comes our way with equanimity. We can always see in it the cost of the remission of our own personal sins and infidelities. And who among us is without sins? “If you O Lord should mark our guilt, who would survive?”
In any case, scripture tells us to accept our suffering as our share in the suffering of Christ, for the salvation of the world. St, Paul talks of “making up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.” We can therefore always see our suffering as a sacrifice for the good of others: family, friends, nation, and indeed, for the entire humanity. Thus the mystery of suffering is immersed with the mystery of Christ Crucified on Good Friday.
I wish everyone a holy Good Friday and a glorious Easter celebration. The predicaments of the COVID 19 pandemic are not outside the plans of God, nor are they beyond His power to control. While in faith, we call on Him to have mercy on us, we continue to do our best to stay safe – and to reach out to one another, especially to the needy, in charity and solidarity. The Lord, the Risen Christ, is firmly seated on His Throne.
John Cardinal Onaiyekan is Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja
