Three Meditations for Good Friday Evening

Meditation 1

That old hymn of John Bowring haunts me, I’ve quoted it on several occasions:

“In the Cross of Christ I glory,

Towering o’er the wrecks of time;

All the light of sacred story

gathers round its head sublime”

John Bowring

Why does stay with me ? I think because it speaks in such terms of the wonder of the Cross of Jesus Christ, as the centre, the key, the radiant light of Christian faith. And that intrigues me. For the Cross, the death of Jesus is undoubtedly at the heart of the New Testament, and it was too for John Bowring and his generation. But looking around the Church today, there are many great concerns and rightly so – but the light of the Cross seems shrouded in mystery, many find it difficult to grasp, difficult to understand, difficult to tell others about. We can talk well about the gospel – but not, it seems about the Cross.

I am not sure why this is, there are probably many reasons. But I am convinced one of the chief tasks before the Church today, is to recover the meaning of the Cross, so that we can stand in its light, be illuminated by its sublime radiance, make our way back to how the New Testament, and generations of saints before us, grasped, understood, rejoiced in the message of Jesus Christ – and Him crucified.

For the moment, let us share together some reflected light from the gospel story as it is in Luke. And think how each cast light on the death of Jesus.

First, the story of Barabbas. When Pilate concluded that Jesus was innocent of the charges brought against Him, and could be released, he announced this to the crowd. Instead, the crowd, according to the tradition at Passover, called out ‘Away with this man ! Release Barabbas to us !’ Barabbas was a man who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder. So Barabbas was released. And instead, the One to face death on the cross – was Jesus.

What light does this cast for us on the death of Jesus ? Well, we are not told if Barabbas was sorry for what he had done, we are not told that he became a follower of Jesus; nothing of this. But we do know this: that Barabbas’ entire life from that point on was lived because Jesus had taken his place, Barabbas was alive because Jesus had died for him. And there in the gospel, we have the first sudden glimpse, the first intimation of a far greater truth – that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And we live, because of Him.

Meditation 2

Jesus said many wonderful things, but rarely anything more wonderful than,

” Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Here, on the cross, as we read in Luke’s gospel, in the midst of the violence, and the pain, and suffering, from the depths of the heart of Jesus, there springs here the deepest forgiveness, the deepest love – a love that has its deep source, in the love of God the Father.

We remember, I am sure, the glory and the radiance that was seen in Jesus and around Him on the Mount of Transfiguration. The disciples gazed in wonder as the whole being of Jesus was transformed for a few brief moments, in glory. John would later write of that moment – we, we beheld His glory.

But here at the cross is glory too, the glory of the forgiveness that flows from Jesus - even as the nails are hammered through His hands.

A little earlier on, in Luke’s gospel, in the story of Barabbas, I said that we have there the first glimpse, the first intimation of a far greater truth – that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And we live, because of Him. Here, we find yet more of the truth. That that life we live, the life we have in God the Father – is through the forgiveness that flows from Jesus. For the prayer of Jesus: ” Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” includes us too.

Meditation 3

For our third short meditation, in search of light from the Cross, we come to these ineffable, radiant words of Jesus from the Cross: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

What light do these words cast for us on the death of Jesus ?

Well, here we see Jesus’ perfect trust in the Father, at that moment of utter rejection by men. Here, where Jesus says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

is the completion, the absolute fulfilment that faith and love for the Father that had been learnt His whole life long through, growing in intensity, and now shining in brightest light at the very point of death itself. At the Cross – in the last words of His life, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit we see Jesus’ perfect trust in the Father, even in the last moment of death, a perfect love of God seen in those last moments.

That deepest relationship of abiding love between the Father and the Son, that unbroken communion, in the Holy Spirit.

And the gospels invite us to see that trust, that unbroken trust in the Father in heaven, because Jesus Himself invites us to that same trust, to lay our own lives in the Father’s loving care. And find for ourselves – that the Father will never fail us.

AMEN.