They sat down and kept watch over him (Matthew 27:36)

This series of talks focuses on the seven words or sayings spoken by Jesus from the Cross.  The chief purpose of the talks is to provide material for self-examination and meditation. The most fruitful part, therefore, will be your use of a time of silence after each talk, a time which you will be spending alone with the Crucified.

If you give to him your mind and your heart then this time will bring you a deeper and perhaps a new understanding of the love of the Crucified for you; and that understanding will in turn deepen your penitence and increase your love for him.

“They sat down and kept watch over him there”.

Today we take our place at the Cross.  There are those in the world outside who, if they think at all, do so only to scorn like the passers-by on Calvary that first Good Friday.  But as then we would have chosen to be in the company of his Mother and St John, so now we wait in spirit at the feet of the Crucified.

Good Friday appeals only to those whose hearts are touched by the Saviour’s love.  The decorations and general atmosphere of the festivals of the Church provide sufficient outward show to attract the casual and the thoughtless.  There is, however, nothing outwardly pleasant or attractive about the desolation of Good Friday – only a grim, stark realism symbolised by the altar stripped and bare, except for the Cross.

The Crucified Christ, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, despised and rejected by men and having no beauty that we should desire him (Isaiah 53:3,2), he appeals only to those who glimpse something of the inner meaning and reality of Good Friday.  And that Our Lord has revealed to us in the Parable of the Good Shepherd who willingly gives his all, even to the sacrifice of his life, that we his flock may be saved.

In all the sacrifices we make, there is some ulterior motive, however hard we may endeavour to suppress it: it may the desire for people’s praise or respect; it may be the hope of being rewarded hereafter.  But in the sacrifice of Calvary there was no such hidden selfish aim.  For Jesus had actually relinquished Heaven itself to be reviled and spat upon.  His only motive was that he loved us and desired that we should find our complete happiness in loving him in return.

And it is just at this point that the Crucifixion becomes something very close and personal between the Crucified and us.  He came into this world to save the souls of us sinners and to bring us back to his Father; and the price of his coming was the Crucifixion.  So by the sins which we have committed we share in the responsibility not only for his mission to save us, but also for the Crucifixion to which that mission inevitably led.

If we had never sinned at all, then we could stand aside with a clear conscience and say “the Crucifixion had nothing to do with me”.  But we cannot say that.  It was because we sinned that he came and was crucified for coming.

Our love for him, therefore, will find its expression this Good Friday in our personal penitence for our sins of thought, of word and of act. And as we contemplate the Crucified we can truly say:

“Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee.
'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee:
I crucified thee”. (1)

But our response does not end there.  For when we look on the Crucified we see not only his personal love for us, but also its incredible depths – a love that was proved for ever on that first Good Friday, and which no sins or coldness of ours can ever weaken.  Once that fact comes home to us, can we hold back our love from him any longer?

As St John says, “We love him because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19), or as Our Blessed Lord himself declared, “…I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (NRSV, John 12:32).

And what a powerful attraction, indeed, does the Crucified have for those who are willing to be drawn, his arms stretched out in silent yet compelling invitation to give ourselves to him to be his for ever.

Reference

1. Heermann, J. (1585-1647) (trans. Bridges, R. (1844-1930) Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended.  Available from: http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/a/a084.html (Accessed 17 March 2011) (Internet).