Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion
Is 52:13-53:12
See, my servant shall prosper;
he shall be exalted and lifted up,
and shall be very high.
Just as there were many who were astonished at him
—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance,
and his form beyond that of mortals—
so he shall startle many nations;
kings shall shut their mouths because of him;
for that which had not been told them they shall see,
and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.
Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
When you make his life an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
The Confusion of the Cross
“Who has believed what we have heard?” we hear in Isaiah. Who could believe what we Christians believe? No doctrine has caused as much heresy, division, and plain old confusion as Christ’s suffering on the cross. As early as St. Paul’s letters, people were confused by the cross. Little has changed in the thousands of years since.
If you are an all-powerful and all-knowing God, you have a lot of options. I find myself asking: “Really, Lord, of all the ways to save us, this is the one you would choose? You would choose to redeem the world through failure and suffering and loss?” But the simple answer is yes. Yes, God chose it for Christ and continues to choose it for us. Only when we pass through confusion can we accept the gift of the resurrection. The resurrection after all that pain and suffering is the fruit of a love that is bewildering and beyond our comprehension. The confusion forces us to ask ourselves: “Do I believe in that love as much as God does?”
—Fr. Cyril Pinchak, SJ, is a Jesuit priest of the Midwest Province studying Eastern Canon Law at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.
Prayer
Almighty and eternal God, on the edge of sadness when all seemed lost, You restored to us the Savior we thought defeated and conquered. Help us, we beg You, so to empty ourselves of self-concern that we might see Your hand in every failing and Your victory in every defeat. These things we ask in the name of Your Son, Jesus, who lives and reigns forever with You, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
—Collect from the Fourteenth Station of the Cross