Good Friday 2024

Jesus teaches that it is enough for his disciples to become like him. On Good Friday, we should ask ourselves if Jesus is enough for us, especially in times of suffering. We have two options: to deal with suffering dysfunctionally or to bring it to Jesus. Jesus bore our sufferings and brings healing. We can find our own suffering in the Passion of Jesus. The Cross represents physical suffering, institutional injustice, false accusation, humiliation, and betrayal. Jesus also experienced psychological and spiritual suffering. All types of suffering are present in the Cross, and Jesus is with us in all of it. God sent Jesus to show that his love is stronger than suffering. When we turn to Jesus and unite our sufferings with his, we can find healing, freedom, and peace. The more we turn to Jesus, the more we become like him and find true satisfaction. There's a verse in Matthew's Gospel, Matthew 10, chapter 10, verse 25, where Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and he says that it is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, the slave that he become like his master. And on this Good Friday, that's a very important question for us to ask ourselves. Is Jesus enough for me? Is it enough for me to become like Jesus? Particularly in suffering, when I experience suffering in my life. Or do I look for ways to medicate suffering, run away from it, or drown it out with distractions or addictions or sinful behavior? Or do I bring it to Jesus? And those really are two options, right? To deal with our suffering in some sort of dysfunctional way, or to bring it to Jesus. In our first reading from Isaiah, Prophet Isaiah speaks very powerfully about what Jesus does for us. That he bore our sufferings. He says, yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured. He goes on to say that upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole. By his stripes, we were healed. So that Jesus knows our suffering, experiences our suffering, and brings healing out of it. Right? If we will bring it to him. And we can see this in the Passion on the Cross. During Jesus' Passion, every kind of suffering imaginable was present. So when we suffer in our own lives, we can just think, what am I afraid of? What kind of suffering pain am I going through? And I can find it in the Cross. I can find it in the Passion of Jesus. Am I afraid of physical suffering? Certainly that is present, the Cross, the cruelty of the method of crucifixion, this violent form of torture. There's the institutional injustice, the corrupt government of the Romans. We just heard in the Passion narrative, Pilate is well aware that Jesus is innocent. He tries to release him at different points. And yet he caves in to social pressure. We see the corruption of government institutions, and the pain that we can experience through that or through other institutions that fail us, that don't live up to what they're supposed to be. We see false accusation, what it means to be falsely accused. Humiliation. Crucifixion is a very humiliating form of torture and of death. People passing by Jesus, reviling him, mocking him, spitting upon him. And think of the betrayal, the suffering that we experience when a close friend or family member betrays us, betrays our trust, or uses our vulnerability against us and wounds us in some way. It's obviously present among Saint Peter, it's present among Judas, who betrays Jesus, it's present among all the other disciples that fled and left Jesus in his time of need. You can then think about psychological pain, mental pain, of Jesus feeling abandoned, of being alone. The spiritual suffering, that sense of distance or abandonment by God, that feeling of being cut off from him. Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? So all of it, all of the suffering that you or I can ever experience is present in the cross. And God is with us, Jesus is with us in all of it. And his love is stronger than all of it. One image I think that can be helpful for us is the Father, God the Father sending his Son to save us from suffering, to save us from sin and death, from ultimate suffering, of being separated from him forever. And the conversation goes something like this, the Father sending Jesus on this mission to the Son, go all the way down, go into everything that terrifies them and frightens them, every suffering they could ever experience or be afraid of, go into all of it, experience all of it. And then show them in that, my love is stronger, that I am with them in the midst of their suffering. And that if they turn to me, if they come to me, I will bring them healing and peace, a healing and a peace that only I can bring. So my brothers and sisters, that is exactly what Jesus offers us on this Good Friday. Not freedom from all suffering, we are going to suffer in this life, but that when we turn to him, when we unite our sufferings with him, with his, we can experience healing, freedom, and peace in the midst of suffering, because we are not alone, because we are united with Jesus, the one who is far, far stronger and more powerful than any suffering or evil that we can endure. And the more we turn to Jesus with our sufferings, the more we will become like him, our master. And the more we become like him, the more that we will be completely at peace and be satisfied, and that will truly be enough for us.