"By His Stripes we are Healed"

Good Friday Readings

We call today Good Friday. At first glance it may be difficult to see why this Friday is good; it is a memorial of Jesus’ death by torture and crucifixion. The God who became a human because of His love for us, was tortured to death on a cross. And yet, it is especially in Jesus’ willingness to suffer and die for us that we can best see God’s love. God loved us so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die for us. This is not the tragic death of a friend, so much as the heroic self-sacrifice of the loving God who desires to be united with us so much so that Jesus sacrificed His life for us. The first reading for today is taken from a passage usually referred to as the Suffering Servant of the Lord. This passage from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah foreshadows what we read from the Gospel of John. In the Isaiah passage, we see God’s righteous servant led like a lamb to the slaughter. God’s suffering servant dies for God’s people. “But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins; Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed” (Isaiah 53:5) He has taken our punishment upon Himself. Through His suffering death and resurrection from the dead, we are healed and made whole.

John’s Gospel informs us that it was about noon when Jesus was taken to be crucified. This was the time when the Passover lambs would begin to be sacrificed at the Temple. So Jesus, who John the Baptist has informed us is the Lamb of God (John 1:29), is now being sacrificed on the cross at the very hour the Passover lambs are being sacrificed. John also mentions that the tunic Jesus wore was seamless, in one piece. This is the same garb the high priest was to wear offering the Passover sacrifice. The sour wine lifted to Jesus’ mouth was lifted on a hyssop branch, the same type of branch used to smear the Passover lamb’s blood on the doorposts in the first Passover ceremony in Egypt, in the Book of Exodus. Finally, like the Passover lamb, Jesus’ bones were not broken. Jesus is both the sacrificial Lamb of God being sacrificed for our salvation, and at the same time, the true High Priest offering the sacrifice.

Every Mass is a memorial, re-presenting Jesus’ once and for all sacrifice for us. The Mass is the fulfilled Passover ceremony. The Mass is not celebrated on Good Friday, nor is the Eucharist stored in the tabernacle on Good Friday, recalling for us in a special way Jesus’ death on the cross. Let us recall Jesus’ death on the cross, and all of the sufferings He underwent for our sake, but let such recollections help prepare us for the joy we will experience this Easter season.

This is a special day of penance. Let us unite our sufferings to those of Christ. Let us keep in mind that Jesus the Lamb of God who today is slain for us, is the same Jesus the Lamb of God who, in the Book of Revelation, we see reigning in Heaven. Good Friday is good indeed. It is a demonstration of God’s love for all of us. It is a day to mourn Jesus’ sacrificial death, but also to remember that Good Friday is not the end of the story. Easter is the story’s climax. But the whole season of Lent, Good Friday, and Easter, imply another end to the story, when we allow Christ to live through us.

Let us strive to draw especially close to God this Triduum, but let the Easter joy we will soon celebrate help us to live lives of joy in light of Christ’s resurrection. We should be joyful people. For we are an Easter people. Lent and Good Friday are not denials of joy, nor denials of Easter. They are an anticipation and a preparation for Easter. They point to the joy of Christ’s resurrection. Let us then, live our lives in light of the gospel which has made us whole. Let us bring Christ into the lives of others, and thereby share the joy we are about to experience.