Good Friday Reflections

 

On that day  

The sins of the world,

Was in the form of whips

Had the severity of Gagultha

It was the tone of shouts.

It was the weight of the cross.

The sharpness of piercing nails

The pain of piercing thorn

 But He was there to accept everything without complaint. He was silent like a lamb led to the slaughter, like a sheep before its shearers. A Good Friday commemoration takes place, renewing the memory of Christ offering himself to be the sacrificial object for the atonement of mankind.

Every sadness has a face of love and patience. John the disciple testifies that God is love. This is the testimony of John who experienced Jesus. We are taught about the depth of God's love and care through the parables of the shepherd who goes looking for the lost sheep and the prodigal son. Jesus, who teaches to love unconditionally, taught that there is no greater love than laying down one's life for a loved one and showed it through his own life.

He himself is offered as a sacrificial offering to atone for the sins of mankind. It is in this sacrifice on the cross that we find the culmination of God's love. Many of us have experienced the apparent conflict between love and suffering. When we go through the green realities of life, the conflict between love and suffering is evident. We highlight sorrow and suffering as proof that God does not love. Sorrows and miseries in life become the yardsticks for measuring God's love. It is necessary to understand life experiences with the basic principle that God is love.

Are our Good Friday observances merely an occasion to renew the memory of those who died on the cross and to show our sympathy? Or does this observance of Good Friday provide an opportunity for a transformation in my life? As long as we do not read the experiences of life in the light of God's love, suffering will raise the barbarity in us. The cross proves that there is no conflict between love and suffering. Suffering is inevitable for those who follow Jesus Christ. We should be ready to face the hardships of life with confidence.

Does remembering Jesus' suffering and death on the cross help me come to terms with the suffering in my life? Seeing the suffering, cross and death of Jesus as part of a divine plan, I should be able to understand the sufferings in life as part of a plan that God has prepared for me. I should be able to accept the sufferings that happen in my life knowing that it is God's will. Sufferings of many kinds - separation of loved ones, unexpected illnesses, rejections, financial difficulties, and so on and so forth creep into our lives... My God, do you leave me alone in my sorrows? When that happens, there will be an urge to doubt God's love and care.

On this occasion, what comes to my mind is a Jesus youth  activist named Anjana George from Thevara Kochi, who was diagnosed with cancer two or three years ago and was taken to the presence of God. A person who walked with many dreams and started working as a college teacher in the same college where she studied as a college teacher, who ran for Jesus. One morning the knowledge that she had cancer overwhelmed her. But coming to terms with her sufferings, the realization that this was part of God's plan strengthened her faith. Power is stored in the depths of Jesus' divine mercy. As the sky of divine mercy. After enduring five years of suffering, he happily passed into God's presence. Anjana's way of life teaches us that we can take on the sufferings in life with confidence by relying on God.

Suffering prepares us for a change of faith, strengthening family ties, sanctification and renewal of life. Suffering provides an opportunity to share in the sufferings of Jesus through our sufferings, to declare solidarity with those who suffer, and to be reconciled. By cooperating with God's plan, we gain the strength to overcome suffering when we face it. It is in the sacrifice of the cross that the God-man, broken by sin, establishes the relationship with God. That co-sacrifice offered through the ultimate sacrifice on the cross, offering itself as the sacrificial and oblation in place of the Passover lamb offered for their atonement, has salvific value. He offered the only eternal sacrifice for the sins of mankind. Our sufferings take on a salvific value when we relate our personal sufferings to Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.

In 1956, a young nun named Sister Nobert, who took her first vows in the FCC community, accidentally slipped while cleaning the altar and fell to the bed. She started her monastic life with a lot of hopes and it was the beginning of a life of suffering. For 50 long years she lived her monastic life in a wheelchair and became the praying mother of Sister Marathakkara who sought refuge in the divine mercy of Jesus. For many it became an experience of healing when one's own sufferings and the sufferings of others were added to the sufferings of the Lord on the cross. To forget his own pains and meanings and spread love, happiness and prayers.

We should be able to strengthen our personal relationship with Jesus. The conviction that I am a redeemed person in the holy body of Jesus, which was thought of in Calvary's burnt offering, should strengthen my personal relationship with Jesus. He was wounded for our transgressions. His punishment saved us. By his wounds we are healed. This realization will strengthen the relationship with Jesus and I must realize that the body broken and blood shed are signs of unconditional love and sharing for me on every occasion of participating mysteriously in the supreme sacrifice of Calvary. Jesus showed the depth of his love for me on the cross.

On October 10, 1982, Father Maximillian Kolbe was canonized by Pope John Paul II as a Martyr of Charity. A Polish man named Francisk Gayonysak, who was participating in that ceremony, was crying loudly and saying, "My life is the gift of this man." Much of his life after World War II was devoted to Father Maximillian Kolbe. This man used to say that I owe it to myself to speak about Father Maximillian Kolbe till the last breath of my life. It is no exaggeration to say that it influenced his life.

Life renewal and life sanctification is the first step in Jesus becoming an experience for the person who strengthens his personal relationship with Jesus. Our fifty days  Lent observance began with a desire to recognize our condition in life and walk into the presence of the Father. A prodigal away from his loving father, the son's self-consciousness from his weakest state made him walk back to his father. Does this Good Friday observance bring me to a similar realization? Whoever is in Christ is a new creation. We are members of the body of Christ. Peter, who had denied the Master, loved him more strongly when he realized it. Saul, who came down to persecute his church, was made a brave soldier by imparting the experience that I am the one who is the “persecuted Jesus”. “He is crucified with Christ. He grew to realize that it is no longer I but Christ who lives in me. "My present life is a life of faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

 

George, who gained notoriety in the 1980 KarikanVilla murder case, became a reformed person when he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. Released from prison in 1992, Renee is part of the Prison Fellowship, which works for the rehabilitation of prisoners and their children. Together with his wife Tina and daughter, he runs a movement called Precious Children's Home, which protects the children of prisoners. A person who accepts Jesus as Savior and Lord must be stripped of the old man contaminated by sin and become a new person renewed in Christ. Be ye renewed in spirit, and put on the new man, created in the likeness of God in true holiness and righteousness (Ep4/23-24).

 

A person who accepts Jesus as Lord and Saviour must be ready to adopt the lifestyle of Christ's disciple. Be prepared to take up the cross. He can pray as Jesus prayed, to love as Jesus loved and to minister as Jesus ministered. It is an expression of concern for others of a nullification. A life that sees their goodness without being self-centred. Jesus' instruction to go the distance of two peacocks with him who compels him to go the same distance with him highlights all his teachings. "Walking Extra Peacock" is a lifestyle. It should be possible to adopt this lifestyle. To overcome evil with good, to heartily forgive those who do wrong,... Jesus says that whoever follows me, let him take up my cross and follow me as he teaches that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend.

Amen in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, praying that the memory of Jesus' suffering and death on the cross will sound the trumpet of renewal in each of our lives.