Reflection (THERE IS NO ZOOM LECTIO DIVINA ON GOOD FRIDAY)
Reading the passion story is always a deeply confronting experience. It’s not just the detail of the trial, torture and death of Jesus. It is the realisation that God has emptied himself of everything we expect gods to have – might, power, astonishing wealth, swift and fierce retribution, preferential treatment for some and oppression for others, life itself.
In the person of Jesus, God emptied himself into a fragile, naked, tortured human being at the mercy of civil and religious authorities. The God that the religious authorities and the people of Jesus’ time expected in the Messiah is not the God who showed up in the carpenter’s son. Often, too, the God we expect and want is not the God we see in Jesus.
We also remember today all those who share the passion of Jesus in one way or another. We think of people unjustly persecuted, tortured and killed, of those who face a daily passion in their search for food, water, shelter and care, of those who are today the victims of harsh civil and religious authorities, of those in war-ravaged countries, especially Ukraine.
What we see in the passion of Jesus is just how passionate God is about us humans. May we, too, be just as passionate about each other.
CAH Good Friday Year C 15 April 2022
CAH Passion Sunday Year C 10 April 2022