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ET2 GF – 30 Mar 2018
It is finished (Good Friday, Solemn Commemoration)
Message by: Fr Richard M Healey
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The Commemoration of the Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of John is very different to the other gospels. Although it is brutal and heart-breaking, Jesus is always in control of his destiny and he exerts a regal air over all that he interacts with. In contrast to the Gospel of Mark that we heard on Passion Sunday (and again this morning in the Scenes of the Cross) where Jesus mostly remains silent, speaking only a few lines during his agony in the garden, then during his trial, and he only says one line from the cross. But Jesus speaks a few single lines from the cross. His final words are very instructive, because in declaring that “It is finished” or “It is completed” he speaks of the whole experience of trying to be made right with God that punctuates the pages and experiences of the Hebrew Scriptures. Even people who do not believe in God still experience the dysfunction of addiction or relationship breakdown. We long to make sense of all of these experiences. And the cross of Jesus points us definitively in the direction of grace and mercy. The suffering that Jesus went through opened the way for us to experience true and lasting mercy. And that is why this day is such a Good Friday.
