✞ Good Friday tots
Before I continue however, I’d like to apologize for the late posts T-T. I noticed that this blog was becoming less a stewardship and more an ownership. But nothing is truly mine. It’s a mission you’re entrusted with. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t trust my own strength very much. Any plan that I have based on my own strength falls apart if I don’t pray about it. Then any plan that has God in it? Everything comes together smoothly as long as I cooperate. Quite funny.
Another thing to note is how unique it is to have Holy Week in the Philippines. Although the pervasive lukewarm Catholic culture disappoints me (not all of them, however, no overgeneralization allowed here), I love seeing those religious and cultural traditions we have regarding the Faith here—the processions and the lavishly decorated, yet deeply human expressions of the Santos on the carrozas, the Chrism Mass, sitting with the Presence in the Blessed Sacrament…it makes me miss serving back in Kuwait (yes, girls are allowed to altar serve there). Although the crowds are certainly a problem with my condition, I try to keep my attention on Who I’m really there for.
Today was an unfairly beautiful morning. It was sunny and cool with the remnants of the Amihan winds, which is very unusual, they say, of Holy Week. But it seems almost inappropriate for what we commemorate today as Christians—which is the death of Jesus today on the Cross.
In the Readings today, we witness the foreshadowing on Isaiah, the fulfillment of the “high priest that can relate to us” role in His death, and the (albeit shortened) account of Jesus’s Passion, from the garden, to Cross, to tomb. I just decided to ponder that today, fighting sleep at 3pm just to be awake at around the same time He breathed His final breath, about 1,990 to 1,996 years ago—the final sacrifice and the ultimate act of redemption of humanity.
I remember on Good Friday last year, we watched the Passion of the Christ (yes, the one directed by Mel Gibson), and we might watch it tonight, but I’m not sure. I cried and cried watching that one. Although I cry very often while watching movies, the scene that was the most convicting was the scourging. I felt that every whip, and stripe, was a sin I committed. Every thoughtless word, or selfish choice, a thorn on His crown. It was my sins, not the soldiers, that have scourged Him and nailed Him to that Cross. I almost couldn’t stand it, seeing Him hit again and again by what I know I did—what we have done—but I felt not crippling guilt, but conviction. That despite what I have done, He loved me enough to lay down His life for me—for all of us—because He doesn’t want us to be far away from Him anymore.
There is this persistent brokenness that one can observe in humanity—we hate, we kill. We take advantage and we self-sabotage. The cycle of humanity is one of brokenness. Rays of goodness shine forth, but despite our best efforts, we’re not perfect. And for every mistake, every failing, there is a price to pay. It isn’t fair that we are doomed to the consequences of our mistakes. But if life were indeed fair, we would all be hanging on crosses ourselves.
Jesus’s sacrifice means more than just a guy dying a painful death. I don’t know who you are and what religion you practice, or what you believe in, but for me, that death was a gift that we all didn’t deserve. Death was the rightful sentence for that brokenness, that sin, that Someone else took for us. Not because He expects anything back, not because He was sinless, and not even because He had to. He just did it. Because He loves you. He didn’t die for just Catholics, for just Christians, but He died for all of us, and that includes you.
I originally thought I had to have the perfect theology to convince you of the significance of Jesus’s death. But after burning out, I realized something else: God doesn’t need you to be perfect to accomplish His work. He just needs you to be obedient. Perhaps you are not convinced, or have many questions and doubts. But maybe if we regarded God as less a “don’t touch me” deity and more as a God who wants to be close to us, perhaps you would see what I see—a powerful teacher, Father, and Friend who used that power to show us just how much He loves us. That’s a funny use of power, but that’s how I see it. And after seeing all that? What other response is there but to accept that overflowing Love and let it transform our lives?