Good Friday 2018 - Veneration of the Cross

Good Friday 2018

Veneration of the Cross

Homily

Crucifixion is possibly the cruellest method we humans have ever devised of killing another human – and we, as a species are very good at doing that! It was deliberately designed to humiliate and shame as well as to kill. People could last for days on the cross, depending on their strength and how they were secured to it.

The Romans place their crucifixion places outside the city gates for maximum exposure. The early Christians would have been very familiar with practice. For these reasons it is quite incredible that the Christians took what happened on that weekend in Jerusalem as their central image. Paul talks about this – a stumbling block and a scandal he calls it. Yet from the very beginning Christians did not hide from it.

This makes it all the more likely that the events the four Gospel writers pretty much happened as they describe it. If you were founding a religion in the Greco-Roman, you would’nt be putting forward as your founder a peasant who was friendly with outcasts and women, let alone crucified!

The differences in the four Gospels – and they are there, are differences of emphasis. Mark’s, which we heard last week, is the starkest. John, the last to be written has Jesus as very much in control of the events. He chooses what to answer. He allows events to take their course.

But they do take their course. John, as we heard, is very definite on the accuracy of his description of events.

We finish the Gospel with Jesus in the tomb. Can we join him there? We know that the story is not over. We are now part of that story. Where are we taking it?

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