The Lord Is My Chef Good Friday Recipe, 29 March 2024
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 > + < Hebrews 4:14-16;5:7-9 > + < John 18:1-19:42
The evangelists tell us that Jesus died on the Cross on a Friday at about 3PM. And they tell us too that our Lord died praying, exactly what most of the Seven Last Words expressed.
But from the gospel we have heard this afternoon written by the beloved disciple, we discover something very beautiful about the death of Jesus, that He was very calm and peaceful in His prayer unto death.
After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.” There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.
John 19:28-30
When we are deep in suffering, in severe pain like Jesus on the cross, what do we usually pray? Most often, we pray that the terrible ordeal we are going through would finally end, would be finished.
And sometimes, due to desperation, we even pray for death, of how we wish God would finally end our life to be free from all the problems we are going to.
One of the things I keep telling to sick people I visit came from Meryl Streep who acted as mother of Winona Ryder in the 1990’s movie “House of Spirits” when she said, “Do not pray for death because death surely comes.” Sometimes in our desperation, we feel death is the solution to our problems and sufferings. But when Jesus died on the Cross, He made death an offering, a gift of self in love.
In the original Greek text, the word used to express Jesus Christ’s final prayer “It is finished” is tetelestai from the root word telos meaning the final end and direction. It is not just an ending but a direction too.
From the very start, Jesus was clear with His mission and how it would be accomplished. He has always been sure of Himself, of who He is. Notice how the beloved disciple repeated many times in his account of the Last Supper how Jesus was “fully aware” of everything that was going to happen to Him that He was actually in control and never left to the whims and powers of His enemies when He went through His Passion and Death.
Last night we heard how Jesus knew everything was coming to end that He washed the feet of His disciples after their supper. Most of all, Jesus was so composed and serene that He even gave bread to His betrayer Judas Iscariot during their meal. In fact in the washing of the feet of His disciples to His agony in the garden, Jesus calmly and courageously faced death that in the end, on the Cross, He had the upper hand that He was able to pray “It is finished” because He was never made under the power of death completely as He would rise again on Easter.
In praying “It is finished,” Jesus consecrated not only Himself but also all humanity to the Father so that we are able to bear and face death squarely like Him. Very notable in this part is how we find only in the fourth gospel how Jesus died by “handing over his spirit to the Father.”
Remember the verb to hand over is the literal meaning of the Greek word used paradidomi or betrayal. But here at the death of Jesus, handing over has no negative connotation but purely positive; Jesus never betrayed or handed anyone over to sufferings. He bore all sufferings and handed these over to the Father. That is true passion in the active sense when we let things happen not because we are helpless and resigned to the situation but we passively take everything in the positive sense because we have that firm faith and deep conviction that being silent, being patient, being persevering will eventually bear fruit for us like the death of Jesus that led to Easter.
Suffering and death thus are not resignation nor mere surrender but submission to the higher power of God to convert darkness into light, sadness into joy, and death into life. There on the Cross Jesus showed that true power is in weakness.
After the consecration of the bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood in the Mass, we proclaim “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.” We call it as “the mystery of our faith” because when we say “Christ has died,” we admit that truly, the Son of God went through all kinds of sufferings in life we all go through like betrayal, rejection, loneliness, sickness, hunger, thirst, and yes, even death. And His sufferings continue as we suffer more in this world marred by evil and sins, making us cry, asking when would these end and be finished.
There lies the mystery of our faith on the Cross that led to Easter: when we look at Jesus Christ on His Cross, we see our own pains and agony as God’s pains and agony too. Jesus joined us in our anguish and death so that we could experience all the more His immense love for us. Without Jesus and His Cross, we would never be able to bear or even face the many deaths we go through daily. May we recognize God’s immense love for us again this afternoon when we venerate the Cross and see it as the merging point of human and Divine suffering. Keep praying with Jesus who has the final say with death in Easter. Amen.
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