Good Friday 2009
April 10th, 2009
Isaiah 52:13-53:12;
Hebrews 4:14-16 + 5:7-9;
John 18:-19:42
“When the soldiers came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead one of them opened his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.”
You know, my brothers and sisters, that I have been trying to interpret the Scriptures of our Holy Week celebrations through the lens of the antiphon we have been singing for Vespers throughout Lent, an antiphon which speaks of drinking from the wellsprings of salvation, and which the antiphon identifies as the wounds of Christ.
Today’s passage from St John’s Gospel is a prime source for the theology contained in our antiphon. It is where we can see God’s plan of salvation elucidated most clearly. The significance of this passage is attested to by a long line of Christian writers and exegetes, starting with Origen and culminating in our own Cistercian Father, Saint Bernard. But already the importance of this seemingly random incident (a soldier thrusting a spear into a dead man’s body) is highlighted by the Gospel writer himself. For immediately, immediately, he adds a parenthetical phrase. He makes it clear that this story comes from an eyewitness account – someone testifies, proclaims unequivocally that this action took place. “He who saw this has testified so that you may also believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.” Understanding this incident will lead to belief, to an experience of God. Now that is quite a claim! Let us look at it more closely then. If the claim is true, it will be time well spent.
The wound in Jesus’ side proves beyond doubt that Jesus truly died. He did not feign death, but suffered the end of mortal life and shared completely in the curse of Adam. The wound in Jesus’ side proved beyond doubt that Jesus was the Paschal Lamb of whom it was decreed that not one of its bones could be broken.
But there is more. Blood and water flowed from the wound in Jesus’ side. From the beginning this fact was interpreted as the symbol of the two foundational sacraments that form the church: baptism and the Eucharist. As Eve was formed from the wound inflicted by God on the sleeping Adam when he took a rib from his side, so the Church was formed from the blood and water that flowed from the opened wound of the second Adam as he slept the sleep of death on the cross. The wellsprings of the Church are the wellsprings of salvation, and these wellsprings are thus shown to be the wounds of Jesus.
But there is more. It seems to me, my brothers and sisters, when Jesus’ side was opened by the soldier’s lance, something else was opened as well. The wound in Jesus’ side becomes a door opened for us to the very heart of God. “No one has greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The wound in Jesus’ side shows the absolute givenness of Jesus’ love for us. He “loved us to the end,” to the utter handing over of his human life, his spirit, to God, as we just heard in the Gospel.
Do you remember the great theophany given to Moses on Mount Sinai? Moses asks to see God’s glory and the Lord responds by saying that Moses cannot see his face and live. But the Lord continued: “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will hide you in a cleft of the rock.” Our forebears loved to link this passage with the opened side of Jesus on the cross. This, they said, was the place we were to hide, where we were to dwell, where we could experience the glory of the Lord. For what was Moses’ experience of God? Let us read the text: “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.’”
Isn’t this what today’s readings are all about? Isn’t that the experience of God that is opened to us again today? Listen once more to Isaiah: “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” The Letter to the Hebrews built on that: “Son though he was he learned obedience from what he suffered…and became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” It is through Jesus’ wounds that we enter into the merciful love of God for us. They are indeed the wellsprings of salvation.
No one has expressed this more poetically and vibrantly, I think, than our father Saint Bernard. In a bold image, he likens the soldier’s spear to a key unlocking the sight of God’s will for us. “Why should I not gaze through the cleft (the wound opened in Jesus’side)?” he asks. “The spear cries out, the wound cries out that God is truly in Christ, reconciling the world to himself…. The secret of his heart is laid open through the clefts of his body; that mighty mystery of loving is laid open, laid open, too, the tender mercies of our God.” And Bernard concludes: “Surely his heart is laid open through his wounds! …By the open clefts of his body we are led into the holy place.”
But what about us, my brothers and sisters? Are we to remain hidden in these wounds, savoring for ourselves alone the mercies of the Lord? I suggest not.
Do you remember the other theophany on Mount Sinai, the one experienced by Elijah? He too was sheltered in the clefts of the rock; he too was given to know the mercies of the Lord in the still small breeze. But then he was sent forth to proclaim God’s word to the people of his day. So are we. Through the wounds of Jesus we have been healed and reconciled to God. We now must go out and become the reconciling presence of God in our world – starting with the brother or sister beside us.
We can do this because in the wounds of Jesus we are given the most priceless of all gifts. Through them we touch the saving plan of God. Through them we can enter the very heart of God. Let us abide in these wounds and know that we are not alone, that God cares for us and calls us together into the family of God. Let us offer this gift to one another and know that this communion is a sharing in the very communion, the koinonia, of Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen.
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