Sharing in the death and resurrection life of Christ

Sermon preached at the 2pm Good Friday liturgy at St. Alphege Church, Solihull.
2pm, Good Friday, 10th April 2009.

Readings: Isaiah 52:13- 53: 12 John chapters 18 and 19


Over Lent we have been thinking about God’s call in our lives. The practice of following God’s call encourages us to think of our life as a journey, a journey which we walk with God moment by moment, step by step. It is a journey that slowly transforms us and develops within us the desires and capabilities [the virtues?] that we will need to live the life of heaven. And I think this Lenten reflection has been very helpful and very renewing for all of us as individuals and as a parish.
And yet we all know that the Christian journey can be extremely hard. We can pass through periods that feel barren, and periods that are very painful. Sometimes it is very hard to accept these. In such situations it we can feel let down by God. We might say, “How can God, who is Love, allow such a thing to happen?” There is a temptation to blame God, or get angry at God or worse still, turn away from God altogether.
But on Good Friday we reflect on the passion of Jesus, on the really painful moments of his journey on this earth. Jesus is betrayal by Judas, he is denied Peter. He is accused by the chief priests and, rejected by the crowd. Roman justice does not defend him. He is scourged. He is mocked. He is crucified. In the accounts of Matthew and Mark, Jesus cries out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” It seems that even God has departed from him. Jesus, who is God, experiences the pain of feeling abandoned by God. Jesus, in his humanity, experiences suffering exactly as we experience it. And he experiences it in the most extreme way possible.
The crucifixion is as bad as it can get. Yet we know that this is not the end of the story. We know that Easter Day comes, we know that resurrection life is revealed and found to be eternal and more powerful than the life that Jesus had before. And, more than this, the great barrier of sin that separated God from humanity is broken. The relationship between God and humanity has been restored. We have been redeemed.
This pattern of death, leading to new life is central to Christianity. It is profoundly linked to the restoration of broken relationships that is accomplished through Jesus’ passion and death. This is absolutely what Christianity is all about; the restoration of broken relationships and the passing from death to live. And all this is all made possible because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
And we too, as individual Christians are also called to enter into this pattern of Christ, this pattern of death leading to reconciliation and new life. So how in practice do we do this?
Well one way is to walk with Christ through the Easter Triduum. These great liturgies that we act out over these three days so help us to enter into the great mysteries of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Another way is to come regularly to the Eucharist. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist we proclaim Christ’s death (c.f. 1 Cor 11: 26) and his resurrection. Participating in the Eucharist helps us to join ourselves into the Christ’s death, into Christ’s reconciliation and into the new life he wants to share with us.
But I would like to share with you today another way of doing this in our everyday lives, both inside and out of church. In Focolare spirituality we try to see every suffering that crosses our path as an opportunity to identify ourselves more closely with Jesus dying on the cross, and to love him more. And this can be done with any suffering of any kind. The suffering can be great or small, physical or psychological or spiritual, it can be our own suffering, or someone else’s. It can be caused by us, or by someone else or by no one at all. There are the small sufferings of everyday life; we spill food down our front, or cut our finger on some paper. There are the sufferings that come through our relationships; a son who is going of the rails, a neighbour who we can’t get on with, elderly parent who needs nursing, a lady who was rude to us in the supermarket car park. Then there are the sufferings that come from our own frailties, weaknesses and sins; perhaps we feel bad because we were rude to someone in the supermarket car park! Perhaps we eat or drink or gamble too much. Perhaps we get angry and hurt people who are close to us. Perhaps we are aware of some profoundly un-Christian attitudes deep within us. Then there are the big sufferings; being ill, an accident, losing a job, being bereaved, a divorce in the family.
Whatever suffering crosses our path, we can pray, “Jesus, in this suffering I am made a little like you, dying on the cross. May I love you more and sharing with you in your suffering and death, may I so also share with you in your resurrection.” I think this what Peter means when he says (in 1 Peter 4: 12), “rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” I also think it is also what Paul means when he says (in Philippians 3: 10-11), “I want to know Christ … and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
And this approach starts to give meaning to our sufferings. We start to see them as part of our relationship with God. We start to value the fact that they draw us closer to God. We experience new life, healing and reconciliation with God. We start to see how our sufferings have helped us in responding to God’s call, and walking the Christian journey. We understand that particular situations have helped us to grow in the virtues, or have helped us to become the person we are.
Chiara Lubich, foundress of the Focolare writes, “I wish to bare witness before the world, that Jesus Forsaken has filled every void, illuminated every darkness, accompanied every solitude, annulled every suffering, cancelled every sin.” [Meditations London: New City 1989 p33].
Now I can’t speak with the authority of Chiara, but I can say that my own experience to date convinces me that Chiara is right. Learning to love the forsaken Christ allows Christ to share his resurrection life, and this has immense value for each of us as individuals and for our church communities at every level.
So as we come forward today to venerate the cross, and as we see his broken figure hanging there, let’s renew our commitment to love Christ in his sufferings. Let’s then try to do this by loving Jesus forsaken in the sufferings of our daily lives. And in this way, may it please Christ to share with us his resurrection life. Amen.