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IX. JESUS

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Bible Reading
[Matthew 27: 45-54]
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" And some of the bystanders hearing it said, "This man is calling Eli'jah." And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Eli'jah will come to save him."

And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!"


Reflection
- At the beginning of the faith, the father of faith, Abraham, brought his son Isaac to sacrifice him for the Lord. On the way, Isaac, noticing wood and fire, asked his father, “but where is the lamb?” Abraham answered, “God will provide the lamb for the sacrifice.”

- Isaac’s question was answered, not by his father, but by the greatest of the prophets preparing for Christ: John the Baptist. It is he who said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” God has indeed provided the Lamb for the sacrifice. He has become the Lamb himself.

- And here we see him sacrificed, freely, without force. He is the Lamb of sacrifice and also the Priest who offers his own blood upon the altar that is his cross.

- Finally, our faith tells us that he is also the God who accepts the sacrifice. Lamb, Priest and God, Christ on every side, at every angle of the scene. Every voice we have heard tonight speaks of him. Every eye gazes at his body, hanging on the cross. Every moment in history leads up to this one moment that changed the world, and every moment since then has been a consequence of it.

- It was not enough for God to send a prophet to teach; he had to come and teach us himself. It was not enough for God to send a king to rule on his behalf; he had to bring his own Kingdom into our hearts. It was not enough for God to love us from heaven; he had to come to earth and suffer everything we suffer, to become like us “in all things but sin.”

- There is now no corner so dark that it is without God. Every inch of the universe is permeated with his presence, and every piece of our psyche is filled with his being, because he has felt it all himself, down to the darkest emotion of all.

- “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” No earthquake is powerful enough to express what Christ expressed by these words. The Son of God became man truly, really. This is not a movie. This is not television. This is not a dream. This is real. God became one of us. He walked on this earth as we walk. He ate and drank as we eat and drink. He wept as we wept. He felt abandoned, even as we sometimes do.
 
- What moment can compare with this one? What more can darkness do? What more does the devil want? God is abandoned by God. There is nothing left for Satan to do to goodness, or to the human race. Every attack, every bit of pain, every pinch of sadness was concentrated and poured out, and absorbed by Christ. “Upon him was laid the chastisement that makes us whole, and by his wounds we are healed.”

- The veil between God and man was destroyed, ripped open from top to bottom, because God ripped it open. Christ took away the separation between us, caused by sin, by taking the punishment for sin upon himself. Here, when it seems most vividly that the evil one has won, when darkness is all that is left, when God has abandoned even his most beloved, here is hope at its fullest. Here God and man are united at last.

- After the earthquake, after the body was taken down, after Mary kissed her son goodbye and watched his corpse be put into the tomb, there was darkness. But not a hopeless darkness.

Hymn: O JUST FATHER
O Just Father, behold your Son,
here sacrificed, you to appease.
Accept this Lamb who died for me,
and forgive the sins I have done before you.
Behold his Blood, poured out for me
on Golgotha, to wash my sins.
He intercedes: hear my pleading
done in his Name, sealed in his Blood.

How many sins I have done before you!
How many mercies you granted me!
And how heavy are all my sins;
but your mercy outweighs mountains.
See not my sins; see the Offering
which was brought forth by Christ my Lord:
how much greater his Sacrifice
than all the sins that I have done?

Because I sinned, my Lord endured
scourgings and wore a crown of thorn.
They nailed his feet, they nailed his hands
upon the cross, with no mercy.
Because I sinned, they stabbed a spear
into his side – opening a Spring:
his sufferings have you appeased,
and have saved me – in them I live.

Praise the Father who gave his Son,
in his great love, our salvation,
and adoration to the Word,
who has redeemed us by his Blood.
To the Spirit, all thanksgiving,
who perfects in us our salvation.
Blessed be God who had mercy
on us, from age to age, amen.

CLOSING PRAYER
May the prayer of your miserable servants be accepted, O Lord our God, before the judgment-seat of your Divinity, and may this, our assembly, be pleasing to your Majesty, that it may receive, from you through grace, the health of the body, the protection of the soul, an abundance of sustenance, the absolution of debts, the forgiveness of sins, constant peace, O Lord, and enduring tranquility, and the unity of love which will not pass away or dissolve from among us, for all the time the world remains: now, at all times, and forever and ever.