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The Cross of Christ ~ for Good Friday 2004
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Good Friday 2004
Most of us, I dare say, are inclined to take each day as it comes. Modern life keeps us moving at such a pace that we have little energy or inclination to ponder the larger questions of life. We spend more time watching mindless TV programs than thinking about the meaning of things or the interpretation of the world and situations about us. Appropriately, we exert considerable mental and emotional energy in regard to our financial and family obligations: mortgage and car payments, getting the kids into college and financing them through school. But the larger questions of life: Why am I in the particular situation and circumstances I am in now? How will this develop and conclude? What is the world situation now and how is it different from the time of my childhood? What are the forces at work that brought the current world or personal condition to be what it is? What is the meaning of it all?
For the most part, we follow our inclinations as they come. We seem guided primarily by pleasure and pain, not by principle, conscience or reason. We don't attempt to interpret the world or discover patterns that might help us understand what it means.
Shall we face life optimistically and joyfully with purpose and conviction? Or do our observations demand a pessimistic and despondent view that cripples us? Do we make life a big joke and take everything lightly? Or do we make light of serious things and treat serious things lightly? Do we study the past and look for lessons from history, or do we focus on the future, or perhaps be absorbed totally in the here and now?
The ceremony of reception of ashes that begins our observance of Lent puts us in a reflective mood. We are led to look within and wonder. We realize that our time on earth is brief and issues in an eternity that we ourselves choose by our manner of life here and now. Choices swarm about us in numbers and manners unknown as recently as our parents' time. What are we to think of all these things? Shall we use them and if so, how and to what purpose?
The central point of Lent gives us the key we desperately need to answer these gnawing questions. That point, that event is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The death of Jesus Christ on the Cross teaches us how to think about and value our world and all that is in it.
The world, viewed superficially, seems made for pleasure and happiness. The doctrine of the Cross seems to create a problem rather than solve it. But when age has brought us long experience of life, we are ready to cry out with Qoheleth: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." 1
While a superficial view of the world reveals all things bright and beautiful, we need only look just beneath the surface to see depths of pain that dwell there. Look around you and see the fortunes being made and lost on Wall St., the trade wars and arms races among nations, the environmental rape of nature for profit, the internecine wars in so many areas of the world, the slavery, abuse, and domination of many for the pleasure of the few, the rampant spread of disease, natural disasters, and poverty, the hierarchy's criminal and evil cover-up of the felonious and evil sexual abuse of children and other vulnerable persons for the power and pleasure of the clergy of our own church.
"Jesus Christ and Him crucified" 2 is "a hidden wisdom" 3 St. Paul tells us, where we as Christians live with Christ and learn the lessons of love that prompted Jesus to such a great sacrifice. We learn that this world, as we know it, is passing away but it will give place to what "eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for them that love him." 4
Borrowing from Cardinal Newman: "..as regards this world with all its enjoyments, yet disappointments: ...Let us begin with faith. Let us begin with Christ. Let us begin with His Cross and the humiliation to which it leads. Let us first be drawn to Him who is lifted up, that so He may, with Himself, freely give us all things.
They alone are able truly to enjoy this world....they alone are able to use the world who have learned not to abuse it; they alone inherit it, who take it as a shadow of the world to come." 5
1 Qo 1:2
2 1 Co 2:2
3 1 Co 2:7
4 1 Co 2:9
5 "The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World" from The Parochial and Plain Sermons of John Henry Newman copyright 04/01/04 Copyright 04/01/04 s of John Henry Newman
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