This winter I took a walk
through Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.
Its undulating lawns were covered with snow
and its many leafless trees and its tombs and memorials
were encased in a cold, haunting white silence.
Yet, amidst its stillness and death-like nothingness,
there was a hint of life.
The stick-like trees harbored tiny buds awaiting to burst forth.
Some families paying their respects taught me
that painful separation gives way to thankful remembrances.
And the faith of those buried into God’s embrace,
reminded me of the promise of everlasting life.
Indeed, in the face of death,
it is not just nothingness we see but the promise of life.
This is the ‘good’ we gather to remember,
to celebrate and to believe in
as we turn to the contemplate the Cross this evening.
We remember the Cross
and the evil born of human sin that scourges Jesus,
crowns him with thorns and nails him painfully to his death.
But our eyes of faith see more;
we see Love hanging on this Cross.
Jesus’ boundless love for humankind
moved him to lay down his life
so that we can have life to the full in God.
The real scandal of the Cross
is that it is Jesus’ love for God and neighbor, and only this love,
--for you and me, really--
that moves him to do this. No
No greater love has a friend than to lay down his life.
And it is this kind of love that saves us for God.
We celebrate the Cross,
not with joyful acclamations
but with a quiet and sobering gratitude
that this is our way to salvation.
Jesus on the Cross reveals that our redemption
comes through his total, free and loving self-giving.
His faithfulness to God and his mercy
for others allowed him to do this.
Even as we struggle
with our own fidelity to God and our compassion for our neighbors, Jesus’ Cross must be our guide to salvation.
When God calls us, he bids us to come and die to ourselves
in order to have life to the full;
the way to do this is Jesus’ way of the Cross.
We believe in the Cross
because here is where God
transforms distorted human love that sins and does evil
and perfects it through Jesus.
The Cross is where we are saved,
where we are redeemed into the beauty of who we are to God.
Not worthless sinners meant for judgment and condemnation
but as God’s beloved, worthy to be redeemed for eternal life.
Indeed, the Cross is where we come to know more fully
that our God created us to save us as God’s own.
This is our Christian belief, and today we experience it most fully.
Death, then, cannot be the last word in our lives.
Rather, like the spring to come,
the death of Jesus on the Cross,
breaks open the truth of our faith:
with Jesus, there is indeed fullness of life with God.
Preached at the Good Friday Service Celebrating the Passion of the Lord at Blessed Mother Teresa, Dorchester, Boston
photo: from thehomeschoolroadtrip.com
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