by Fr Fabian Dicom
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 30:2,6,12-13,15-17,25
Hebrews 4:14-16,5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42
Theme: The Cross – The Symbol of Victory
My dear brothers and sisters, today we stand before the Cross:
~ Not to feel crushed by it but to be opened by it;
~ Not to be condemned but to be changed;
~ Not just to witness a death but to see a deep transformation taking place.
This is important. The Cross is not about a payment to an angry God. The Cross is not to settle a debt. It is sad and very frustrating that many of us look at it in this way and it paralyses us. We cannot move forward because we are preoccupied with this. Because this, the whole death of Jesus, is not a transaction. It does not work that way.
It is a revelation. It reveals who God is and who we are meant to become.
On the Good Friday, Jesus does not just die for us. He dies as us. It is each and every one of us:
~ He becomes the very rejected person;
~ He becomes every suffering child, every broken body, every humiliated soul;
~ He takes it all in and He holds it not with hatred but with love. Not with resistance but with trust.
He is the Lamb, not the lion. The one who absorbs evil and does not pass it on. Does not pass it on at all.
The one who chooses solidarity, that I cry with my brother and sister, that I feel with my brother and sister, that whatever they go through I will go through. He chooses solidarity not authority, mercy not might and power. And doing so, He reveals the love that is beyond comprehension, utterly free, utterly forgiving, utterly faithful.
We heard in the First Reading from Isaiah, the image of the suffering servant. He was despised and rejected, Man of sorrows, pierced for our sins, by His wounds, we are healed. This is not just a prophesy. It is the portrait of Jesus on the Cross – silent, faithful, willing to bear all of it. Willing to bear all of it for love. For love.
This is the pattern of the Cross – the path of descent, of loss, of letting go. Jesus shows us that the only way through it, through pain, is through it, not around it. There is no bypass, no shortcut, no spiritual numbness or spiritual high. Just the long faithful walk into the heart of it until love redeems even this.
This is not a sad day. This is a true day. It tells the truth about life, that suffering is real. It also tells the deeper truth that love is stronger.
Now in our world, we go to great lengths to avoid pain, any kind of pain, be it physical, mental, spiritual, emotional. We bury it under work. We bury it under entertainment, shopping, scrolling, even religious activity. Think about that.
We hide our wounds behind smiles. We tell ourselves “I am okay” even when we are not because we have been taught, we have been programmed that being strong means holding it all together, imagining we are in control, never letting anyone see us bleed.
How can I let you see this? How can I let you see my pain when I am supposed to minister to you? I don’t want to. I want you to see me that I, Fr Fabian, is in control of everything so that I can be there for you. But it doesn’t work that way.
In our world, we go through great lengths to avoid pain. But the Cross invites me, invites you, invites us to stop running, to stand still, to open our hearts, to allow God to meet us right there in that raw, messy, honest place of our lives, of our pain.
Because what dies on the Cross, what dies on the Cross or who dies on the Cross is not just Jesus. It is also our illusions. Our illusions because much of these illusions cause us pain:
~ Our illusion that strength is domination;
~ Our illusion that God is an angry judge;
~ Our illusion that love must always win in the way that looks like winning;
~ Our illusion that we can control outcomes if we just try hard enough;
~ Our illusion that the suffering, that suffering is a sign of divine absence and that is why we suffer.
But here is the paradox, my dear brothers and sisters:
~ The Cross is defeat that becomes a victory;
~ The Cross is power that looks like weakness. Can we get that?~ The Cross is glory hidden in suffering;
~ The Cross is God, not thundering from the heavens but hanging from a tree, from the Cross.
Now John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus’ final words were: “It is accomplished.” Now Jesus’ last words in all Gospel accounts were not bitter. There were some cries but it was a quiet surrender, a deep trust. And while the Gospel of John does not include the words “Into your hands I commend my spirit”, that is from Luke 23:46, but they appear in today, our response to the Responsorial Psalm “Into your hands I commend my spirit.“
It is the cry of someone who trusts completely in the midst of darkness, who trusts completely in the midst of death. It is faith in a God who does not always rescue but always accompanies. Faith in a love that does not remove pain but redeems it. Faith in the quiet certainty that death is never the last word.
And as in the letter to the Hebrews, our Second Reading, tells us Jesus understands our witness. He is the high priest who suffers with us and for us. And if I can say this, He sanctifies our pain by sharing it.
Maybe today is not about guilt or shame.
Maybe it is about allowing ourselves to feel deeply, to look at our wounds and the wounds of others and not turn away, to let God’s grace touch these wounds.
Fr Richard Rohr says this:
The wound is the place where the light gets in.
And I testify to that. I can testify because in my life I know that in that wounds that I have had in my life, the light of God has come in. Not always that I am aware of it but I know. And you can testify to that as well.
If we can hold our suffering the way Jesus held his, without bitterness, without blame, we become part of that great pattern. We become channels of resurrection. Even now we join the divine flow where nothing is wasted, not even pain. Especially not pain.
Good Friday is not the end but it is necessary. It is the portal, the threshold, the tearing of the veil. So let the Cross do what it must do. Let it strip away our defenses, our need to be right, our illusion of control. Let it name the things we cling to, to invite us to release them. Let it break our hearts. Let it break your heart, let it break my heart so that it may grow larger here (heart). Because only a heart broken, more spacious by grace, can truly love.
The heart that knows that it is first loved. And because of Jesus, we know that. And only that love, that love, can roll the stone away so that Easter morning can break through it.
Amen.
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