Good Friday

‘The death of Christ leaves its mark upon us, and it is the mark of Love.’ Fr Dean’s reflection at the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday

He lay there for weeks.

A thin bed sheet, like a death shroud, covered him
even before he had given up the ghost.
The sheet was as thin as his skin
which showed each rib and collarbone.
His hip bones were like whale bones
abandoned on the beach.
His thin legs and cruel knees
would never hold his weight again
even though he was almost weightless now.

As his breath grew finally shallower,
deeper, slower,
he breathed his last,
like a child’s rattle,
playing games.

He was an old man.
He’d always been an old man to me, my grandfather.
Now just skin and bone and hair.
His grey hair,
which still retained a Hollywood wave,
was the only healthy thing about him.
His mind was long gone
as he looked for his mother,
now long dead,
and whom he seemed to see at the foot of his hospital bed.

Being just a teenager,
I had never seen a man die before
but we had waited for this
through the long nights sat in hospital chairs,
our feet raised high
to avoid the scuttle of the cockroaches
which came out at night.


There was nothing unnatural about his death.
He, like all of us, had it coming.
And, since he had always been a ‘miserable bugger’
who longed for the day
when he would be six feet under in Trealaw Cemetery
perhaps he would be happy now,
or at least a little bit happier.

I’m not sure if it was a little before this,
or sometime after,
that my older brother’s girlfriend died at the age of 16 years.
That was a difficult time.
These things leave their mark.

You and I could add countless experiences of death to this,
so personal and so tender,
all of which will have left their mark.

Our lives are full of many dyings and endings,
so many times of letting go and giving up.
Each causes us to grieve in some small way.
Many of these endings are so small and so insignificant.
when compared to the larger dyings,
but each one real,
each one leaves its mark upon us,

Today, we commemorate the ultimate giving up and letting go
as the heart of God aches with grief.
God the Son through whom the world was made
gives up the ghost.
The world is torn in two.
The skies break.
Hearts break.
The earth shakes.
The rocks shatters.
Lives are shattered.
Life will never be the same.

 
We are told his death changes things
and yet we still feel grief.
There is still sadness,
still madness in the world,
still badness which plays with our minds.

Where is this paradise promised to the repentant thief?
Where is the Kingdom of Love he proclaimed?
Where is the healing, 
the wholeness,
the love?

It is there,
in the breaking heart of God.
In the outstretched arms.
In the wounded back.
The pierced side.
The broken, bloody hands and feet.
The thorny crown.
The last breath.
The limp body.
The corpse of God
buried deep into the rock and the earth
in a borrowed grave.

He too is wrapped in cloth.
A thin shroud marks every contour of his body
as he is placed in the tomb,
upon the slab of rock.
On the third day,
they will find the sheet neatly folded,
as he brings order out of chaos,
life out of death,
like that first day of Creation
when God spoke the Word,
‘Let there be light.’
and there was light.

Those who watched him die
were marked for ever.
They were marked, as we are now,
with the mark of the cross.

We are marked with sacrifice and pain,
but, above, all we are marked with love.

The cross stands for us as a sign of God’s love,
and his utter commitment to us
and our little lives.
We, who wrap ourselves in death,
and tie ourselves up in knots
are liberated by this divine act of love.

If you ever doubt that you are loved,
then look at Jesus on the cross.

If you are ever overcome by grief and suffering and pain
then take some comfort from the cross.

If you feel burdened by sin or guilt
then take the cross to heart.

If you are confused or lonely,
scared or worried,
then let the cross of Christ
cut through your strange and mixed-up feelings.

If death has become too much for you
then let the cross be to you a promise of life,
and know that you are loved,
and saved,
and healed
and held.

The death of Christ
is the unusual
and universal mark
of God’s love for us.

So often
we can take love for granted
or confuse it for so many other things.

For even from that place of death
flow love and life,
blood and water flowing from his side,
his eucharistic presence for all time.

He is our hope,
our life, our love,
our salvation.

He is the beating heart of creation,
the one who sets us free,
leading us to Heaven,
leading us to God.

He is the One who has gone before us, risen from the dead,
and the One who is always at our side.

He is the One who is present in the hungry and the homeless.
He is trafficked across borders, sold into slavery,
become a commodity in the human exchange of greed.
He struggles to pay the bills.
He is hit at home and bullied at school.
He is burdened with illusions and mood swings,
struggles to find a vein to take the hit.
Takes the taunt of injustice,
the name calling, the racist slurs,
the sexist comments, the homophobic stripes.
He struggles through poverty’s difficult road to nowhere,
sits with a dying loved one,
cries the tears of a mother
whose child is lost to a single knife wound to the chest.
He lies beneath the bed sheets of a hospital bed,
and hides in a hole from enemy shelling
He is the One who leads us to where he is,
to that skull shaped hill of death,
so that experiencing his suffering and living his risen life
we may also hear and speak his words of light and life,
which brings order to chaos,
the new Creation
whose harvest is love,
and only love.

The Cross of Christ becomes the Tree of Life
whose branches are rich with mercy,
fruitful with forgiveness,
alive with love.

Yes, the death of Christ leaves its mark upon us.
And it is the mark of Love.