Good Friday April 19, 2019
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
We’ve begun, during this Triduum, to explore the identity of Jesus as servant, sufferer, and savior. Last night, with the institution of the Eucharist Jesus revealed himself as an obedient servant of God, offering praise and thanksgiving to his father for saving him from death. In the washing of the feet, Jesus showed himself the willing slave… the servant of all mankind.
This identity as servant inevitably leads to Christ the sufferer; that is the result of trying to serve fallen man. Jesus did not just wash the feet of his loyal disciples, but of Judas the betrayer as well. Inevitably, if you set out to serve your fellow man, you will suffer because your fellow man is also fallen man, prone to wound and injure those around him.
But the suffering of Christ is not incidental to his service. It is the very center of it. Jesus Christ alone in all humanity has the power to prevent his own suffering. All he has to do is speak the divine name – I AM – and the people trying to arrest him fall down before his power. Yet, he lets them take him. Just as it was last night, Peter is the first to recognize and react to what is happening. And as it was last night, Peter misunderstands. Yet again, in the same way as the night before, Jesus uses the actions of Peter to actually reveal more about himself than if Peter had not reacted.
By cutting off the ear of the servant, Peter shows that Christ’s followers are capable of defense and violence. By cutting off the ear of Malchus, Peter gives Jesus the chance to show that he not only puts up with the suffering we cause him, but embraces it and even cares for us while we attack him; Jesus heals the ear of a servant who helps to arrest him and lead him to death.
He says to Peter “shall I not drink the cup that the father gave me?” This same cup that Jesus lifted up as a loving servant of God is now the cup of suffering he obediently drinks. As our second reading put it: “son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him”
This obedience is not just service to God but also service to man. The greatest service Jesus performs for mankind is to show them the way to conquer evil. Evil in this world always has the power, the upper hand. Evil wants us to join evil, to commit sin, to give in. It forces us into this compromise with violence and the threat of death. It says, “join us in evil or you will suffer and die, and what good will that do for you?” But Jesus the servant and sufferer shows us the alternative.
If we refuse to serve evil, if we continue to obey God in the face of torture and death, God will give us victory even over death. The way to conquer evil is not to resist with force, but to endure it with love and with trust in God. And then, if evil does kill us for our resistance, for staying obedient to God, then God raises us from the dead.
So, Jesus the servant is fulfilled in Jesus the sufferer who shows us why we suffer and how that suffering is not an obstacle to love, but a chance to increase our love. And in carrying out his suffering service to the very end, he leads us to know him as Jesus the savior, revealed fully by the tomb in which he now lies. A tomb that, come Easter morning will be empty.