Homily for Good Friday 2010

There was nothing dignified about Jesus' death on Calvary. Mary and John and others watched the complete degradation of someone they loved who had offered them new hope. For his family and friends to watch as it happened must have been devastating.

These days there are calls for people to be allowed to die with dignity. Some want to be able to take their own lives or for someone else to administer a deadly drug to achieve this.

It is very difficult to sit and wait while someone you love slowly dies. They have to let go of all they own bit by bit. They have to let go of any control they had over their lives. They have to let go of any control over their bodies. Some courageous people try to keep a sense of dignity about themselves as they become more and more dependant on others. People can move emotionally between denial, anger and bitterness, acceptance and peace. Such people are an inspiration.

Some people reject all such struggle as pointless. And certainly if one is without faith then it can pointless. We, however, gather on this Good Friday to remember the suffering and death of Jesus as a redeeming act. There was nothing dignified about it as he died naked on a cross for all to see and scoff.

So there is a world of difference between Jesus death and someone who takes their own life in a final desperate attempt at a dignified death. In the end no death can be completely dignified. Because death is the ultimate taking away of all possibility of rational human behaviour.

The Eucharist, and the message of the cross, is telling us that it is not in grasping onto what we have and what we are that makes us human or gives us dignity. It is the letting go of everything so that we are completely free to accept the love of God. The self sacrificial love of Jesus, illustrated so clearly when he washed his disciples feet at the Last Supper, knows no limits. This love without limits he demonstrated by his death on the cross. Such love is what saves. So for us salvation is not in a clean quick death. It is found in embracing life and all it puts before us, including suffering and death.

We venerate the cross of Jesus today that we might be able to accept it in our own lives. Then we may know the dignity that belongs to the sons and daughters of God.

Fr Graham