Meditation for Good Friday
 hen
I was seventeen, I had what most Protestants would call a classic
conversion experience. In a particular moment in time, I spoke with God
and knew that I was loved, accepted and forgiven. In the early days of
my walk I found and began listening to a local Conservative Baptist
Church owned radio station. All day long they played syndicated and
locally produced Bible teachings, and classic Gospel music. I learned a
lot about Scripture from them and I learned to really appreciate Gospel
music.
I’ll never forget the first time that I heard the song, “The Old Rugged
Cross”. It spoke and said all that my heart knew and felt about the
cross upon which Jesus willingly suffered and died. Today, nearly
thirty-five years later, I still love that song. It still speaks and
says what my heart knows and feels about the cross upon which Jesus
died. The only difference is that today I have a better understanding of
the cross than I did then.
St John takes great pains to explain to us that the last meal Jesus had
with His disciples was not the Passover meal. The Passover was not yet
upon them. He explains that this year the coming Sabbath was to be one
of special solemnity. Why? This Sabbath was to be both a Sabbath and the
night of the Passover Feast. Because the Great Feast had not yet
arrived, Annas and Caiaphas and the rest of the Sanhedrin who sought to
be rid of Jesus refused to enter into the Praetorium when they arrived
at Pilate’s Judgment Hall. If they went in, they would thereby become
ritually defiled and unable to lawfully partake of the Passover Meal.
Their scrupulosity made them stay outside and so they besought Pilate
from there. They said to him, ‘We have no law to put a man to death. You
do it for us.’ After examining Him, and after trying to settle the issue
by giving Jesus a scourging, Pilate finally relented and sent Jesus off
to be crucified.
Why are these ritual details important? Only for this reason; it means
that Jesus, whom St. John introduced at the very beginning of the
narrative of His ministry as the Lamb of God, is crucified at the very
time when the priests are sacrificing the Passover lambs. The Lamb of
God’s Blood is shed at the very time when the blood of the lambs is
being shed. Upon the Cross of Calvary, Jesus, the Great and Eternal High
Priest, is celebrating the Great and Eternal Passover of our God.
Our reading from the Book of Hebrews makes explicit the reality that
Christ’s sacrifice of Himself is once for all and final. “He, on the
other hand, has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken
his seat for ever, at the right hand of God, where he is now waiting
till his enemies are made his footstool. By virtue of that one single
offering, he has achieved the eternal perfection of all who are
sanctified. The Holy Spirit attests this to us, for after saying: No,
this is the covenant I will make with them, when those days have come.
The Lord says: In their minds I will plant my Laws writing them on their
hearts, and I shall never more call their sins to mind, or their
offences.”
Jesus Himself testified to this. Even as His Life’s Blood slowly drained
out of His Body. As He hung upon that Cross, condemned and near unto
death, He cried out not in defeat, but victoriously, “It is finished!”
The old rugged cross, once “an emblem of suffering and shame” thus
became, ‘by His one oblation of Himself, once offered’, the altar upon
which our sin and guilt, the firstborn of our disobedience, have been
destroyed, while we have been Passed Over. What was once symbolic of
nothing but man’s ever greater capacity for causing his fellows
suffering, pain, and death has become the icon of God’s Love, and His
never ending capacity for forgiveness and Grace. What was once nothing
but an instrument of death has become the way and means of life and
peace.
|
ALMIGHTY God, we beseech thee graciously to
behold this thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ was
contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men,
and to suffer death upon the cross; who now liveth and reigneth with
thee and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of the
Church is governed and sanctified; Receive our supplications and
prayers, which we offer before thee for all estates of men in thy
holy Church, that every member of the same, in his vocation and
ministry, may truly and godly serve thee; through our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
O MERCIFUL God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou
hast made, nor desirest the death of a sinner, but rather that he
should be converted and live; Have mercy upon all who know thee not
as thou art revealed in the Gospel of thy Son. Take from them all
ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch
them home, blessed Lord, to thy fold, that they may be made one
flock under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and
reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.
Amen.
|
|
All Meditations ©2004-2007
Randolph A. Brown (IP not subject to Fair Use Clause). Permission will not
be given for reprint†.
Previous Meditations
2nd Sunday After Easter (April 22, 2007)
Thomas / Low Sunday (April 15, 2007)
Easter, The Feast of Feasts (April 8, 2007)
Good Friday (April 6, 2007)
Palm Sunday (April 1, 2007)
5th Sunday in Lent (March 25, 2007)
4th Sunday in Lent (March 18, 2007)
3rd Sunday in Lent (March 11, 2007)
2nd Sunday in Lent (March 4, 2007)
1st sunday in lent (February 25, 2007)
Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent (February 21,
2007)
Last Sunday After the Epiphany / Quinquagesima
(February 18, 2007)
6th Sunday After the Epiphany / Septugesima (February
11, 2007)
5th Sunday After the Epiphany / Septugesima (February 4, 2007)
4th Sunday After the Epiphany (January 28, 2007)
†Regarding the copyright,
Bp. Brown would like us to mention that it is not his intention to be
stingy. It's only that he has future plans for the writings which do not
facilitate their being shared at this time.
Personal Blog of Abp. Brown:
|
|
hey then led
Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the Praetorium. It was now morning. They did
not go into the Praetorium themselves to avoid becoming defiled and unable to
eat the Passover. So Pilate came outside to them and said, ‘What charge do you
bring against this man?' They replied, ‘If he were not a criminal, we should not
have handed him over to you.' Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves, and try him by
your own Law.' The Jews answered, ‘We are not allowed to put anyone to death.'
This was to fulfill the words Jesus had spoken indicating the way he was going
to die.