Good Friday + Year C
Fr. Robert R.M. Bagwell+
Fr. Robert R.M. Bagwell+
25, March 2016
No! It couldn't have happened. God where are you? Why God? Why? I believe that the disciples had such
thoughts and others. What was this? Shock, disbelief, disillusionment fear, and
myriad other such emotions. But it
wasn't about them, what was coming was about every man, woman and child ever
born.
Today is the day that changed the
world. Heaven and earth, in their respective bunkers, fought for the sake of heaven to win back the
sons and daughters of earth. All of
human history, from the beginning, has led up to this day, that hour, that
sacrifice on the altar of a Roman cross. Think of it!
A wondrous birth in Bethlehem, accompanied by the heavenly hosts praising God and saying glory to God, on earth peace
to those with whom He is pleased. Holy men from the East greeted him as the
Great One who was coming. He was born of
a woman who had never had sexual relations with a man. He was proclaimed by a holy widow in the
temple and another prayerful servant who had received prophecy from God! He
astounded wise men at the Temple in Jerusalem when he was twelve. He gained a
following, changed water into wine, caused a voice from heaven at His baptism
to affirm him as My beloved Son! He continued to produce signs, no human could
perform including bringing life from death, producing bread and fish out of
nothing but prayer.
The portent of all of this, was
that the human genocide Lucifer had intended, the plans of the fallen angels
from the beginning suddenly were opposed by an intervention from the
Creator. To all of these signs, the ever
jealous, under-performer Lucifer screamed NO!
The rulers of this human race screamed NO! Nothing like this had ever happened, the
darkness exercised its might and Light overcame it.
The axis of God-story
or His-story was winding its way to
partial fulfillment. By the time all of this was said and done, Lucifer's plan
to thwart God's plan of salvation for the human race, would have been thwarted
by the very means Hell sought use to destroy it. Oops!
I Corinthians 5 tells us "for Christ our Passover has
been sacrificed for us. In some sense he
is always being sacrificed because, every time we sin, Christ's blood covers
our transgressions. The writer to the Hebrews invokes : the
God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant
brought back from the dead that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip
you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is
pleasing to him'
As
he wrote in his great work The Crucified God, of professer Jurgen Moltmann, writes: The religion of the cross is a
contradiction in itself for the crucified God is a contradiction of this
religion. Yet this transforming
reality has changed the world. Through
the horror of the cross, the curse of sin has been broken and we are changed
from the inside out. Why do we sing of the cross incessantly, because it is the power for those who are
being saved. (I Cor 1:18)
Yes
the Resurrection is to be proclaimed, but do not forget what Paul wrote to the
Romans: Jews
demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a
stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but
to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and
the wisdom of God. 25 For the
foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is
stronger than human strength ( I Cor 1:18)
Today
our reverent hush, our solemn stillness is not like a funeral home to show
respect. Today our reverent hush is at
the wonder, the awe, the unfathomable of what great love. The love of God that
brought us home to the God who created us and gave his own son out of love to
be The Crucified God.
No comments:
Post a Comment