The Seven Last Words
Good Friday 2007

We adore Thee, O Christ, and we praise Thee.
Because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the World.

Once again, we come before the cross. It is a lonely place where we are never alone. It us a painful place in which we find peace. Here the glory of God is seen in the frailty of man. And perhaps it is also the place where the self-empting of God is able to fill up the greatest desires of the soul.

Actually the words spoken from cross do exactly that. Wounded by sin, human nature finds itself in a tailspin. The constant revolutions in its mad dash of existence create the holes that only God can fill. And no sooner are we filled then we are empty again. We are like a cup with a large, gaping hole. These needs, these desires are real. So is the grace that satisfies them. And here, at the foot of the cross, is where that happens.

THE FIRST WORD 

Luke 23:33-34 -- When they came to the place called "The Skull," they nailed Jesus to the cross there, and the two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Jesus said, "Forgive them, Father! They know not what they do."

I am struck by something we do. When we are in an argument, and especially when we lose one, we tell each other that ‘there is something you need to know.’ We feel that if they do, they will understand which somehow makes us right. It’s the same manipulative devise of the person who apologizes that ‘you took it the wrong way.’ And what scares me most, is that this how good people behave. There seems to be a need for justification and forgiveness. Common to religion and superstition alike, forgiveness is key to the human journey.

Think, if you will, of how essential this is to friendship or that most sacred bond of friendship, marriage. As bad as relationships can be with some one who has never made a mistake, it can never compare with some one who cannot forgive.

We’ve been told from the start that ‘knowledge is power’. When we have knowledge, we assume we have this elusive power. And if the human being has an innate need for breaking the bonds of guilt, the power of knowledge should do the trick. That is why we feel the party we offended ‘needs to know’ and if they do, the offence will be lessened. Even when we are in the process of offending, we whine that we just don’t understand why things are not working out. It is how we can say to the wrong-doer that they should have known better.

Jesus is the wisdom of God who saves us from thinking that knowledge will absolve us.

As they were driving in the nails, they were merely doing their brutal job in an equally brutal world. They knew what they needed to know and followed orders. The individuals concerned actually did nothing illegal or wrong. They did not even feel that Jesus had to understand that. And in the middle of this, a word of absolution is spoken. But these words were spoken not to the rationalizing efforts of flawed human beings; they are spoken to needs of human beings to be forgiven.

The Sacrifice of Calvary was offered for the pardon for sins. The rationalizing was left to Jesus, not the sinner. It is as if Jesus anticipated that mechanism and silenced it. Humanity stands mute before the Voice of God. The need is there before the words are formed to express it.

But like our flailing excuses, forgiveness has to be accepted. Like Christ accepting the cross, we have take on what we would rather not. We have to die a little by admitting what human nature tells us we need. No, it is not entirely our fault but it is still something damaging that is our inheritance. And in our pride, we imagine we are above all that. We imagine that because God understands, God forgives. We tell ourselves that we are pretty good which the world should see as close to perfect. Like an over-protective parent defending their little brat, the world needs to understand our potential and God has to ‘be reasonable.’ And anything short of that is unpleasant or – the mortal sin of modern life – inconvenient.

Well, the cross is inconvenient, but only by being near it can we hear this first word of mercy. This first word of absolution is heard by those who are raising it high on the hill.

Forgive them because they need to be.

And those near the cross silently – and gratefully – hear that they are.





THE SECOND WORD

Luke 23:39-43 -- One of the criminals hanging there threw insults at him: "Aren't you the messiah? Save yourself and us!" The other one, however, rebuked him, saying: "Don't you fear God? Here we are all under the same sentence. Ours, however, is only right, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did; but he has done no wrong." And he said to Jesus, "Remember me, Jesus, when you come as King!"  Jesus said to him, "I tell you this: Today you will be with me in Paradise."

As we approach yet another holiday, families around the world will engage in their rightful consideration of where each family member is going in life. Successes and failures will be measured against the passing of time. And how well we measure up will be held against the mystical standard of expectations.

No wonder so many hate the big family gatherings. While a normal part of communal existence, the question bespeaks a second need deep in the soul. The agent at the counter asks it. The guy at the gas station asks it. The parent always asks it: Where are you going?

Human beings expect to be mobile. We expect the day to begin and to end. We start a project in order to finish it. It’s who we are. Freedom is a right to do just that. Regardless of situation, we can see ourselves out of it. If we are poor, we see ourselves rich. If we are wealthy, we dread poverty. And with willpower, we act to assure it as best we can. We may be wrong, but we are sincere.

The Good Thief was both. He had done wrong and was paying the price. And he was sincere in his assessment of it. His regret and his hope were brought together in his desire. And the second word from the cross became his goal and his assurance. Paradise may not have been his destination but it was his goal. His cross was his reward and his revelation.

The mobile human heart is heading in a direction. We are neither random nor stationary. Our intellect and will move us and there is a certain wisdom from on high that guides us. Could there be any greater proof of that than the Second Word from the cross? Here at the lowest and worst possible moment of life comes the best and greatest possible sign. By character witness of the worst kind, the goal of life is established at the cross.

At the height of teen-aged angst or post-adolescent idealism, it is popular to question if there really is a point to it all. We think some one intelligent who constantly ponders the meaning of life. We hail the dying person a hero who is convinced they will prevail. And yet, through life, through generations, people still search for the goal. From a distance, we are constantly re-inventing the wheel.

But up close and personal, it is quite different. We can easily tell a creature from another planet why we exist and how we exist. In the mirror we have another story. Our fragile souls need to know what does not yet fall within our grasp. We fear that what we have perceived thus far is not accurate. Regardless of the wisdom from those we esteem, we find way to redefine what has been written on the human heart. We even cry out to the God who made us that He remember us.

The second word says that the we are best directed when we know, love and serve God in this life and can look to a happiness with Him forever in heaven. And this word from the cross calls out that we have been made for God and we will not rest until we do so beside His cross.

For all who seek Paradise, it is here by this tree of paradise and nowhere else.

Just ask a thief.
THE THIRD WORD

John 19:25-27 -- Standing close to Jesus' cross were his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing there; so he said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Behold your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

Over the years, I believe that modern life has created a strange paradox. Never have we had more opportunities to communicate with each other. Never have we had less of a desire to do so. We talk at each other more and speak with each other less. And the more opportunities we create are inversely proportional to what we have to say. And this proportion grows each year because we have a need for each other. Technology can create the illusion that we are islands silently selecting terms of communication. Behavior can reinforce that 3-D fantasy. But our need for both communication and community are proven by our distress at the lack of both.

Could there be a more heart-warming icon of this need fulfilled than this third scene from the cross? The one who gave the Child His first experience of community now insures her own. She who once communicated a protective love now hears loving words protecting her when He is gone. Nothing less could have been used than a simple and actual expression like this. This could never have happened over email or been texted. Not even a phone call or a letter could have the same effect. Except for rare situations and reasons, human beings are not okay with long-distance relationships or occasional friendships. It is clear from the beginning that God gave us each other for each other.

From His cross, the Word incarnate spoke to real need we all have. He sanctified that desire to be anything but isolated and commanded a charity to insure it. He didn’t construct a framework for progressive dialogical encounters. He didn’t facilitate a system for growth in interpersonal actualization. He said one thing: behold.

Look at your need. Examine your life that does not fulfill that need. Put your actions under a microscope and see why you self-destructively exclude others. But also behold those who do fill your life. See those who connect you with the world. But don’t look at this as if it were a web of entangling alliances that are constructed by fate or chance. See those in your life as a graced love. See yourself as that same gift to others. And take each other into your souls because He who hung upon the cross alone does not desire us to be.

The only communication system that works on Calvary is the only one our lonely souls can comprehend. Love is a call to the cross even as we call out to each other. Breaking our selfish isolation is a small death. We see the need of another to not be alone even as we feel our own loneliness so sharply. Beholding the need in another often means overlooking ours. Just look at a parent. This is not a matter of networking or affirming. This is a matter of love we find in this example from the cross.

So do not fear your loneliness or the need for others you find within. Do not be distressed by the truth you were not created to be a solitary island of existence. But never let that true need blind you from seeing that same need in others.

The grace of this word to see each other is more than a command to sacrifice for each other’s cure to being alone. The grace and great reward is known by those who do behold another and find in that charity a fulfillment that forms the community of the New Jerusalem.

We must go outside the walls of the old Jerusalem to hear the word how together to build the New.
THE FOURTH WORD

Mark 15: 33-34 -- And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Elo-i, elo-i, lama sabach-thani?" which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Dramatics aside, we have a fear of being forsaken. Whether a child in those terrifying moments separated in the store or some one lost in the labyrinth of the Brooklyn subway, we all suffer from separation anxiety. Sure, we grow up and learn that the end of the world is not imminent even if we can’t exactly see where the rest of the world is! But if our natural fear of being forsaken can be so strong, can’t we say that in the supernatural sphere it must be something else indeed!

We consider what it means to be forsaken by God. Look at our images. I think of the condemned sinner in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. We hear of those who survived the Holocaust confident that God abandoned them. We see sinners convinced that God would never pardon them. There is something so radically wrong with any situation when God has forsaken some one that we call it evil and horrible. From devils to vampires, monsters and mass murderers, this is an abandonment that goes straight to the soul.

The 4th Word from the cross is the most difficult. Some say Jesus was beginning Psalm 22 which ends on a hopeful note. Others leave it as it is. There seems to be confusion even around the cross as St. Mark records. But that makes sense, doesn’t it?

It’s a complex situation. A loyal God gives up. A faithful God is unreliable. A Father abandons the Son. The human soul has trouble seeing it any other way. “You say God has not abandoned me? Prove it!” Throw in some of the slings and arrows of this valley of tears and the argument shuts down. It appears incontrovertible that God is capable and in fact does abandon His own creation. And nothing speaks to a fear than proof of it.

Was Christ in that forsaken place? Did God abandon Himself? Clearly God didn’t nor did God abandon God. But we are dealing here with the Incarnation. He was like us in all things but sin. If He was, who is truly confused with this fear? Who is uncomfortable with that fear lurking in the human soul? In older prayer books, doubting God was listed as a sin. Imagine where this would rank on that list! Thomas the Apostle would not fare well in that examination!

No, this is deeper than the intellect and the will. This is hell itself. And don’t we say in the Apostle’s Creed that He descended into hell? Once in royal David’s city a Baby was born to live our life – and not just the nice parts. In this word the Incarnation reaches its living depths. There is no fear more dark, more powerful than being forsaken by God. Divine neglect renders everything pointless and insipid. Dead or alive is the same. Good and bad are no different.

But this, as real as we perceive it, is nothing more than a fear. Still, the grace of this word is a comfort. That Jesus stared into this dark illusion does not remove it. It is not a moral issue of right and wrong. It is something we face but not alone. This is something our God knows and because He does, we can stare into that void securely holding His hand.

THE FIFTH WORD

John 19:28 -- After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the scripture), "I thirst."

Mother Theresa was so moved by this 5th Word, she placed it next to the crucifix in all her chapels. She, as so many saints before her, saw this as the desire of God for His wandering children. We can see, from Holy Scripture, the longing of the heart for God. And we see something a little les ethereal that these: we see what are called basic human needs. At this moment of deprivation, Jesus calls out a need. Who is speaking to? What does He expect? Who is listening?

Theoretical religion cannot handle this. It excludes such base things as needs. It is far more interested in systems of thought and adherence to principles. It reminds me of the bus driver who drove right by several crowded bus stops during rush hour in order to keep to the schedule. It is a religion of laws and doctrines that may be good and true, but thoroughly lifeless.

Let’s go back to the image of Mother Theresa. She prophetically held, spoke and preached the orthodox Gospel of the Church. She held to the standards of the most rigorous theology you can imagine. But she did so while holding a sick child or a dying man. She laughed with popes and beggars. She saw need and answered, she saw lies and spoke the truth. I remember one non-Catholic organization wanted a headliner for some gathering and secured her. This was a rather ‘progressive’ group and one of her messages was on the evil of abortion. This is not exactly preaching to the choir! The review of the event contained a remark that while they were glad she appeared, they apologized for this intrusion to their theories while acknowledging their ‘openness’ to those who may be famous but ‘abrasive’ in their beliefs – that’s a quote!

Imagine if they had booked Jesus Christ! Or St. Paul? No, theory divorced from truth is nothing more than intellectual fascism. It was the number one criticism Jesus leveled against the Pharisees. And it is one we should hold up to our own lives as we hear this plaintive word of pain.

Our neglect of basic needs of those around us is rationalized away. We can go to secular virtues of self-reliance and communal structures of government assistance. But in the end, we are left with the hard truth that we do not want to deal with this. At the cross, the need screams out to us. And doing so, we hear an echo in our own souls of our own need.

In today’s world many live precariously from paycheck to paycheck. So many are steps away from destitution. We fear it and rightly so. Chance and sloth are our weakest points. We are not comfortable with our own needs and find the struggle to meet them a real cross. And that is a very good and a very holy thing. Meeting our needs with the possible generosity we have is a call to holiness. A parent is sanctified in meeting the needs of a child. Our vocation – since the Garden of Eden – is to work. Serving each other’s needs is serving God Himself.

And those needs never end - at least in this life. They go beyond the physical but never exclude them. They are the basic needs of being human. And the Incarnate Lord counted Himself among those who share this. Failing to hear them, is failing to hear the voice of God. Neglecting them is neglecting the worship of God. Despising them is pure sacrilege.

No, we cannot nor are we expected to meet the needs of the entire world. But if we are not near the cross, we cannot hear the call of God to us. We have to be realistic but we also have to be there. Jesus gave voice to charity and graced us with the will to respond.

There is no theory here. There are no grateful peasants meekly extending their hands. There is the brutal situation of want. We are left with an answer only we can – by God’s providence – accept.

A friend of mine asked his son what he wanted for his birthday. He quietly looked up after a moment of thought and asked, “Anything?” His father quickly said, “yes.” The boy responded, “I’d like peace in the world.” My friend said, “let’s start small.” The boys said, “okay, how ‘bout a new baseball glove?”

Can we hear the echo of “I thirst” in this?

At the foot of the cross, if we listen carefully, we most certainly can.




THE SIXTH WORD

John 19:29-30 -- A bowl was there, full of cheap wine mixed with vinegar, so a sponge was soaked in it, put on hyssop and lifted up to his lips. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished."

“Wrap it up!” Oh, if I could have a dollar every time I said or thought that listening in class or in church! Bring it in, come to a conclusion, sit down. The child may ask ‘are we there yet?’ but the adult asks ‘are we done yet?’ We have limits and expect others to have them as well. We’re usually willing to see it through as long as it ends.

Chronic is not a status we like. Things that repeat too often and remain unresolved are not our most treasured things. In ourselves or others, this lack of resolution is a lesser trait. And when that involves any discomfort or even suffering, we are ready, willing and able to do what we can to end it. We live in a society that stands ready with the needle in the name of charity. Any excess or pill is available to those who can’t accept the ordinary.

But should we not aim for success? Don’t we want to teach each other that higher goals should be our aim and we should work to achieve them? Yes, we should. But life often throws things in our way that have no resolution, no end in sight. They are usually difficult, unfair, and tedious. The can degenerate and degridate. They are, in a word, a cross. A family member who is sick, a friend who cannot make a good choice, a value that repeatedly brings harm - these are the cross of the chronic, the crucifix of the repeat offender.

And in that cross, in that chronic and persistent situation, we find completion in this word from the cross.

When we cannot stop it and never be finished with it, we will not find peace. Our repeated stupidity and that of others prevents a tranquility of soul. We artificially provide it with opiates and quick pleasures but can never silence the demand of something we cannot control. Imagine instead a resignation. Jesus is that completion. He says that it is finished and all is complete. Effort is spent and action is now immobile. There is nothing more.

Oh how we so often make the mistake of thinking this is passive. We do not let our fields lay fallow and suffer soil exhaustion. We cannot stop working and have a heart attack. Despite the obvious reality that it is over, we do not stop and so we suffer the consequences. Even at rock bottom, we’re still digging.

Yet in resignation, in this weakest place, we hear the voice of God. In the cross is our completion because it is there in the will of God, that we find peace. The need to bring it to completion is brought out in the example of the Savior who did. It does not happen elsewhere and looking away takes us farther from the goal.

Take it to the cross and stay there. Take all the loose ends and repeated dead ends to the foot of Calvary. You’re not giving up; you’re giving over. You’re saying ‘Jesus take the wheel’ with your hands still on it.

At the cross, we are beginning to finish.

THE SEVENTH WORD

Luke 23:46 -- Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" And having said this he breathed his last.

There is a last human need we consider today. It goes to the center of everything we use and every one we know. It is the glue of society and the cement of order. It is the matter of trust. Jeremiah once said, “cursed is he who trusts in human beings.” So that leaves us with God and He is worthy of trust.

Oh really? Do we actually believe that? How can we trust a God who put us in that situation? Can I trust my reliance on God when I so clearly cannot trust myself?

Confidence is not an easy thing. We use it like a tool. We weild it like a sword. Bestowed on the worthy, we withhold it from those who are not. What Christ did at the end was not like that. His was not a choice to trust because He finally decided to. Nor was there a desperation born of a lack of options. The final message of the cross is a trust that has little to doing with a reason for confidence.

We can prove why and in what we trust based on solid evaluation and reasonable intuition. Taking a risk is not exactly trust. Usually, it’s just being dumb. This divinely patterned trust is actively resigned, not desperately passive. It is not the trust urged on the money. It is a decision based upon a desire to trust in the only reason to do so.

That’s right. Human beings need to trust. We commit to each other because we need to. We demand it from others and even God Himself. This is the reason we have a covenant with God and not simply a contract. And the cross is both the proof and the reason.

When others disappoint and betray, when agreements are shattered and treaties broken, we feel violated. Apostasy is religious infidelity. Looking fondly at death-bed conversions may give us hope but are not a program for trust. In the countless and small violations and occasions of trust in God, we grow strong in our faith, in our trust. This final act of trust we see patterned on the cross tells us that this is born of a life lived in trust and not just a last-ditch effort before death.


Trusting our needs and those of others to God can happen only on Golgotha. They are real and the honest Christian finds traces of them throughout their virtues and vices. Without fear or anxiety, they present themselves as a means of sanctification when they are reflected in the crucified humanity of the Son of God. Only being near to the cross can show this. Only in close range can the soul hear the words that satisfy the lonely, guilty, needy, and flawed heart of fallen human nature.

And being beside that tree is Paradise for those who one stood beside another tree in that same garden.

The Seven Last Words
Good Friday 2006

We adore Thee, O Christ, and we praise Thee.
Because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the World.

For generations, there has been the tradition of meditating on the Last Words of Jesus on the day we remember His death. Preachers have linked these seven recorded sayings with themes like the 7 capital sins, virtues, works of mercy and so on. They have used this time to bring topics forward that can usually go unmentioned. I am too new at this and won’t attempt that.

Instead, let’s begin this period of reflection by stating the simple human truth that the last words of any person are the most important they ever say. These encapsulate the core meaning of what they did in their years upon this earth. Those who speak them and those who record them are of the same mind. So today, we listen once again in order to try and make sense of this and find, in the sorrow of these events, the Gospel of joy.

THE FIRST WORD 

Luke 23:33-34 -- When they came to the place called "The Skull," they nailed Jesus to the cross there, and the two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Jesus said, "Forgive them, Father! They know not what they do."

A simple record of a singular event included place, location, and activity. No details are added to drum up sympathy. Everyone knew what was involved because they had heard and smelled and seen the unpleasant tool the army used to deal with ‘problems.’ But then, something is remembered that stood out. In the middle of this personal horror, a new message comes through.

Yes, Jesus is about forgiveness. It was central to all those sermons on the mountains, in the towns, by the seashore. It made sense that He would forgive. But there is one more thing. Sure He forgave, but then He excused them.

This is the problem with the world, isn’t it? Everybody is so willing to excuse that no one is responsible anymore. We demand that our society get ‘tough on crime’ and ‘lock ‘em away’ if they do wrong. Sure we can forgive but justice must be served.

So what do we do?

We give adults the freedom to dispose of their pre-born children and then hold those fortunate enough to survive to higher moral standards. We say children can be punished as adults if the adults around them are angry enough and they confuse that anger with justice. We pump students with socially-acceptable drugs but never let that excuse the way they live. We say a person should be responsible for their actions even if they have no idea what responsibility is. But when it comes to ourselves, well that is a completely different story. Our intentions are all good and the world doesn’t accept them. We excuse our faults by blaming others. We are misunderstood because we are not noticed. To quote West Side Story, “we’re depraved on account we’re deprived.”

We accuse others while we excuse ourselves.

That is not the way of Christ. In this terrible moment, He excused the world. He held His children to a higher standard than justice. He dropped the importance of social and personal responsibility. He took the things by which life is judged and said that they didn’t count. From our point of view, what He did was dangerous and wrong. He was untying the fabric of civility and the foundation of any just society.

But in that excuse, there was freedom. In the cross, there is liberty. Like it or not, we are free and there are some who do not like it. They want others to be held captive by their own mistakes. They even want to be incarcerated themselves in the guilt they create for their own foolishness. Ritualistic absolution is great, but don’t take it too far. Anyway, what would anyone do with all that freedom?

For Christ, this deepest liberty is the first gift of the cross. From the eternal perspective, human responsibility is of no value in the overwhelming reality of God Himself. If our taste of forgiveness is only a sample of the fullness of redemption, why do we get so hung up on how we owe each other more than we can afford? No, when we are forgiven, we are free. And so is every one else. We may not like it, we may not always practice it, but it is the way of the Cross.

And so, you are excused.
THE SECOND WORD

Luke 23:39-43 -- One of the criminals hanging there threw insults at him: "Aren't you the messiah? Save yourself and us!" The other one, however, rebuked him, saying: "Don't you fear God? Here we are all under the same sentence. Ours, however, is only right, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did; but he has done no wrong." And he said to Jesus, "Remember me, Jesus, when you come as King!"  Jesus said to him, "I tell you this: Today you will be with me in Paradise."

Some Messiah! Do something! Work a miracle! What – nothing? Still hanging there? Boy, were they ever wrong about you!

This thief spoke for the world and everyone in it. How many have asked if there could be a God in a world where there is so much evil? How could there be a God when so many are suffering, when things can be so unfair? If there is a God, why doesn’t He do something. This theif is the voice of every human being who has looked up to the silent heavens and said, “Hello? Any one listening?”

Jesus must have looked over at him and once again, said nothing.

And it wasn’t the last time. Nor was it the first. The words of the cross are also found in its silence. The thief wasn’t tempting God; he was desperate. He wasn’t doubting the divinity of Christ; he was dying. He wasn’t lacking in faith; it’s just that he wasn’t speaking from it.

Well that’s some setting to demand faith, isn’t it? In the most awful, shameful and agonizing possibility there is a demand of faith? That’s like saying we should expect more from folks who are undergoing chemotherapy. It’s like saying that a person who has lost everything should be full of thanksgiving. It’s rather harsh, isn’t it? I mean if this really was God, couldn’t He have done something other than ask for faith?

But there was another thief going through the same thing. Though maybe only a couple of yards apart, his was a comment from another place. He spoke from the sparsely populated locale of hope. There is no reason to think that one thief had faith and the other didn’t. As we look on, we see a difference in what exactly that faith was about. The first thief wanted a God who would do something. The second thief didn’t. The first needed something, the second was accepting. The first wanted it now, the second hoped for later.

Our faith demands so much from us. We are under the obligation to love the unlovable, forgive the unforgivable, hope the impossible. In the economy of life, we’re willing to do all this but there has to be something in return. We are more comfortable with a God who rewards the good and makes the bad suffer. We like a religion where virtue leads to happiness and fidelity leads to success. But this is bargaining, not faith.

Here is a word from the cross. It is a tough one. It is neither fun nor popular. Pure faith doesn’t ask why God let this happen. Pure faith asks why we have a problem seeing God in it. Does that mean our faith is weak, imperfect and tainted? Okay, it does. So I guess we really don’t have faith, do we? No, not at all. It’s not like that. God is not looking for perfect over an imperfect faith. He is not looking for blind adherence over demanding fidelity. This isn’t about what faith we have and do not have. It’s not about us. It’s about the ability to turn to God and ask to be remembered.

Nothing more.
Nothing less.
THE THIRD WORD

John 19:25-27 -- Standing close to Jesus' cross were his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing there; so he said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Behold your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

No one would forget this. It is too heart-breaking. In these last moments, we go back to the first ones. As the only son, it was His job to care for His mother. His other relations – cousins, possible step-brothers and the rest – were not under the same obligation. It was something so tender, so human right there in the heart of this world-changing scene.

Some have had the theory that Jesus somehow did not actually die on the cross. The angels came in at the last moment and rescued Him. Others say this was only a symbol and we should focus on that. But the humanity of Christ can find no better expression than in the so ordinary bond of a mother and her child. All the theology of the Incarnation – true, false and somewhere in between – stands silent in this (apparently) last family gesture. And in this gesture a word of sanctification is spoken from the cross.

If you take some of the meaning of Calvary and apply it to the highest aspirations of humanity, there is so much it boggles the mind. Redemption, satisfaction, expiation – all these wonders of faith have a sharpness today. And there is another. The regular and often unnoticed interaction among family members takes on a meaning beyond the ordinary. An act of care is infused with sheer holiness. ‘Take care of each’ would be a modern version of this Third Word.

Imagine that! What we should do, what we need to do, becomes the very activity of God Himself. We take care of each other because God told us to, because he showed us to, and because when we do, we find Him there.

Okay, we’ve heard that before. We see the Holy Family working away in Nazareth. We are reminded that whatever we do for the least we do for Christ. We know we should love one another because that’s the Golden rule. And all of these are great and true reasons. Today we see a shift. On the Cross, we see our good and human functions transformed.

And taking care of one another is, in itself, a cross. We all have our own problems and goals. We have things to do and reservations for our own luxuries. Other people, to put it bluntly, can be a real imposition. Why does some one in the their late teens get stuck with taking care of a middle aged widow? After violently losing her child, why should this older woman get to care for another? It is a story that is repeated generation after generation. It is the price we pay for being part of the human family.

But notice what Jesus said. He did not ask John to take on the medical proxy or power of attorney for Mary. He did not ask Mary to get a court order of custody for John. He ask them simply to look at each other. He wanted them to see more than the duties of being related. He wanted them to see each other as He saw them.

We only care about what we value. If we do not see the value in a thing, our interest in it is only passing. When we look and perceive the dignity and value and worth of a person, care is not something we ‘do’ because we have to. It comes from a deeper place of recognition. In that glance of the soul, we see in others the tremendous marvel of one created in the image of God. And in seeing that icon of the Divine, we find it within ourselves.

We ask the Father of all good things that ‘He may see and love in us what He sees and loves in Christ.’ As we stand with John and Mary, we ask the same of ourselves and each other.
THE FOURTH WORD

Mark 15: 33-34 -- And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Elo-i, elo-i, lama sabach-thani?" which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

So many artists display the scene of Calvary with one emotion above others. Almost every person, other than Jesus, has the look of shock in their face. It is a religious amazement and a pious wonder. There is a sorrow that is sad but not like our hum-drum sadness.

We know that look, don’t we? We see it in each other when something truly awful happens. We see it when we feel that what has happened is very wrong and even obscene. It is the silent scream of people demanding, even if they don’t verbalize it, why God seems to be ignoring us. Why do the good suffer, the innocent go through pain, the faithful treated so poorly. After the Holocaust, there was a serious trend in religion, and particularly in Judaism, of a theory called the ‘Death of God.’ It saw the horrors of the modern world and tried to explain how a God, as we have envisioned Him, could be what we thought He was. It looked at the world, and the God who created it, with that same stare of disbelieving belief.

It also echoed the Fourth Word of the Cross. “My God, my God, why hast Thou abandoned me.” Some have said that Jesus was beginning to pray Psalm 22 (which ends on positive note) but only the first line is recorded. Who can blame them for that interpretation? Who would choose the feeling of such loneliness and despair if there was another reasonable option to choose? We all want a pretty religion with lots of comforting and meaningful things. We want to feel good and have our senses filled with pleasing input and stimulation. And when the nice flowers are artfully arranged, the sounds all harmonious and the words flowing and balanced, all is right in the world and heaven is smiling.

That is not what we have here. This scary cry breaks through those desired images of faith with the disturbing crash of screeching metal and glass. Here, in the totality of this divine humanity, Jesus goes to that darkest place within us. He looks into that terrible abyss of fear and joins us. He refuses to look only beyond without looking straight ahead. He embraces what we would rather let go. He cries out what only our astonished faces can say.

He is there. In the darkness, in the doubt He stands – or rather, He hangs – there on the cross. He only says what we feel. He doesn’t answer it, does He? He doesn’t comfort us with assurances that all this is the will of the Father. He refuses to tell us to just cheer up and put a smile on our faith. He certainly doesn’t tell us to think positively. He just is there, in the same pain and same confounded amazement that we feel.

And that is the key. This is the salvation we are looking for because we are looking for Him in precisely the same situation. The stark reality that He is there is more than enough. He poses our question and becomes the answer. This is not a God who shoots down a secret answer of mystical comfort only to those equipped for it. It is a God whose very presence with us in that strange payer is of eternal merit.

We can say, when things are bad, that others have it worse. We comfort ourselves that things can be even more awful and so we should be grateful that they are not. Humanity has been telling itself that for ages. The Fourth Word changes all that. It says that ours is a God who is more than just compassionate and understanding.

Our God is us.
THE FIFTH WORD

John 19:28 -- After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the scripture), "I thirst."

This wasn’t the first time. In His human memory, He thought of all those others. The woman He met at the well, the long days of preaching in the hot summer sun, coming home after playing with His friends. Now, for the last time, He was thirsty again.

What an ordinary need. How total unremarkable. And at this crossing of the divine and the human, there is something touching about it. When we hear it, we sympathize. There is a good rule we were taught in our preaching class – don’t mention something like this or half the congregation will find a way to get up and get a drink.

That’s right; it’s all about us. How often we hear some one else’s story and immediately compare it to our own. We even say that we can ‘relate’ to a neighbor’s problem because what we really mean is that we have had something like it. It may be of small comfort to that person that we can understand it, but what really counts is the we understand it. The shift moves our focus from the other person to ourselves. It’s a natural form of selfishness. It is a way we form the bonds of friendship and community. But in the end, it really doesn’t matter if we can relate. Whether we do or not has no bearing on the pain some one else is going through. If that pain is real, no amount of positive energy, good thoughts, or honest caring will amount to a hill of beans. That sympathy is merely a starting point of charity. Necessary, bit only a beginning.

What was Jesus saying as this was recorded? Were we supposed to plummet the depth of our compassion for human need? Good, that’s a fine application. Were we supposed to bring up a deep guilty feeling because our sins put Him in this parched position? Okay, we can go with that. Or are we to interpret, as Mother Theresa and so many saints have, that this is a spiritual longing for souls? That too is a wonderful thought.

But can we also just stand here, without reference to self and own experience, and see the thirst of Jesus? Can we just be satisfied by the reality of this simple yet compelling need? We are not within the perimeter established by the Roman soldiers and we can’t do anything. Neither can we look away and go on to something else. This is not like passing a homeless person on a subway grate in the City. We can’t just keep moving.

Actually, we can. Human needs are like that. We can elicit feelings that make us feel good about ourselves and take a few steps on to the next thing. We, to quote the Gilded Rule of city life, don’t get involved: no eye contact, no talking, don’t appear interested. The option is always ours. We are so uncomfortable with a lack of basic needs, especially when we see them in front of us. Well, here is another. And in this display, faith has one possible response: deal with it. Deal with the reality of a God in need. Don’t run from it; don’t turn away. You cannot do anything to stop it or end it. Don’t console yourself with the appeasing thought that you know what He’s going through. You don’t and you can’t. The God who formed the waters of creation and who provided the living stream in the desert now asks just a little for Himself.

What He asks us today is to be real enough to know that there are needs among us just as real as His own on the cross. How well can live with this will be that one foundation for action. There was no need to form a Hydration Needs Assessment Committee. There was no time to conduct a poll or commission a study on hydro-tesource availability. There never is when some one is thirsty. But when we begin perceive some else’s lack, without reference to ourselves, we are in a position to do something about it. When we leave the theories of a utopian society on the desk and use our eyes to see the reality of what is in front of us, doing nice things can become true charity.

In seeing the thirst of Christ, we see the thirst of others and in seeing both, we find the ability to offer that cold cup of water which will never go without its eternal reward.
THE SIXTH WORD

John 19:29-30 -- A bowl was there, full of cheap wine mixed with vinegar, so a sponge was soaked in it, put on hyssop and lifted up to his lips. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished."

How many times have we come to the end of a test or completed a chore and said, with a sigh of relief, “there. I’m done?” Yes, when all the items are checked off that list, we announce with pride “finished!.” And when some awful ride finally stops we can say with delight that ‘it’s over.” We really like coming to the end, don’t we?

On the other hand, when the last day of vacation ends or the cruise ship pulls into the home port, we say those same words but with a very different tone. We are telling ourselves the melancholy truth that this period of good times is terminating. That’s why we walk away with memories, souvenirs and plans to do it again.

But the Sixth word is not about either. There is no fond remembrance of better times or dread of a frightening tomorrow. It was something else. A story, possible apocryphal, emerged as Pope John Paul II was dying. The thousands were gathered outside his window praying the Rosary. As he heard them, he looked over and then turned to some one in the room and whispered “Amen.” It was, perhaps, a statement of witness that what was called found an answer, what was given as a mission had come forth. It was not a task accomplished or an obstacle overcome. It was as it should have been. It was an echo of the Sixth Word.

But did it mean that it was over? Was Christ’s work and mission complete? Was every thing done in such a way that He could say that? I’m sure there was a crowd who would say no. Think of all the people Jesus did not heal. Or how about the crowds that didn’t buy His message of loving their neighbor? And what about the spellbound audience whose lives had not significantly improved? What was finished and how could he claim that it was?

He didn’t and never had. In fact the Apostles were given, despite being AWOL at the present time, the task of doing that. But what was finished and fulfilled was of a very different order. I doubt anyone standing there could figure it out. I am sure that most of them didn’t even notice. But something had happened; a solution had been activated.

In Mel Gibson’s Passion, Mary runs up to Christ carrying the cross. In a moment of tenderness, he puts on Jesus’ lips a quote from the book of Revelation and says, “Mother, I am making all things new.” Now some fundamentalists were livid over this because it was not ‘biblically accurate.’ But it was in the sense that this horror was doing something so unique, so transforming that all things would be new. Sin held people damned for ages. Hope was cheapened to a few extra years of life without famine or war. Charity was a mandated ethic to preserve the blessings of a favored community. But now, all was new because of what was finished on the cross. What brought it to the end was sacrifice of all time.

It began at the Offertory in the Garden of Gethsemane. There Jesus offered His consent, His will to the Father. It was intentional and it was perfect, but it was not without struggle. Then before Pilate and Herod and at the hands of the soldiers, the Offering was prepared. And on the Altar of the cross, the Sacrifice was finally offered slowly as His life drained away. As He knew the end was so close, He also knew that this original Mass was coming to an end. The offering was complete and by it, all was made new.

Sacrifice is composed of two Latin words: sacra, meaning holy and facere, meaning to make. What was finished on the cross was the making-holy of those for whom it was offered. The world (and particularly those who inhabit it) were given a wild blessing. Nothing more could be done or needed to be done. Offered by the Son, accepted by Father, the renovation of all things and all people was now communicated through the Holy Spirit and given to us.

It is indeed finished. And because it was, it has also begun. As we hear these words, we are grateful not just because the suffering is coming to an end and not because the difficulty is soon to pass. We are grateful that because it is finished, all is made new. And every time we think of it, remember it, and receive it in the Eucharist, we are also made new again.
THE SEVENTH WORD

Luke 23:46 -- Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" And having said this he breathed his last.

We die as we live. Deathbed conversions are beautiful but rare. A nasty person can spend their last moments as nasty as the ever were. A sweet person can exit in that same, wonderful way they spent their life. Obituaries attempt to polish up the edges and eulogies try to focus on the positive. But we still are who we are even as we cease to exist in this world. The Scriptures say that it is by how some one ends their time that they are best known. If that is true, then what an example we have in this last Word from the cross!

When we hear it, we respond with faith. We see an icon of trust and love and hope. We pray that our end would be the same as our Master and even go so far as to make it a part of Compline, the official night prayer of the Church. As He bows His head in the silence of death, He does so only after the loud cry of trust to the Father in heaven. But that silence is not be mistaken for quiet of annihilation. It is a silence following the summation of a life so complete there is no need for words. His last words were no different from His earliest ones. He died the way He lived.

That the way of things, isn’t it? Well, not to all.

Many go about wondering if we have any real purpose. Some give up and just live for today. Others avoid the whole question and say we just keep doing it over and over again. The Greek word telos best describes where we are headed. We have a direction and fixed end to all that we do in life. When people cannot see a purpose to life I think it is because they have no notice of where they are going now. When all they hope for is to do it over again it because they don’t like how they are going there.

And it’s not just them. Look at how we describe death itself. We speak of it in euphemisms to avoid our own fear of it as we cloak it in terms that cannot offend any atheist anywhere. And as we speak of those who have died, we extol their culinary and recreational talents as the highest virtues of human endeavor. No wonder people feel lost in such a religion. When they say it has no meaning for them, they’re right.

But that is not the comfort of this Last Word. In the ultimate moments of one life ending on top a garbage dump outside the city, we are whispered the greatest secret given to human beings. We hear in weakening voice of this dying carpenter the plans for constructing a life more enduring than the pyramids.

He tells us, as He dies in the way He lived, eternity begins now and it belongs to you. By the grace given and the choice you make, how you live will also be the way you enter what God has prepared forever. Yes, there is fear and anger and pain – that is what it means to be human. There is mourning and loss because love requires it. But I make all things new and these will have no part of that world. Commend your life into the Father’s hands today and each day and night to follow. And on that last day, as you do today, that act of trust will be like Mine and have the same result. There will be, in that new creation, no difference or change in time as you have in this world. A long way off and close at hand are the same instant in a love that trusts in our Father’s embrace. The silence of that bond is not the suffocation of despair but the contented peace of such eternal attention.


My final word to you from this cross is simple:
Do as I do,
Do as I say
And be as I am – safe and loved in My Father’s house.