Good Friday – A
March 21, 2008
Fr. Carl McCarthy

            The cross hung above my parents’ bed. As a child, it seemed so large and majestic. It was a sick call set. I remember sneaking into my parents’ room and climbing up on the bed to take it down. When it was down, I would slide the corpus off of it, lay it to the side, and put the candles in their holders. Then I would take out the bottle of holy water and sprinkle the room, and myself, like I had seen the priest do when he came to pray over my sick grandmother. 

As Christians, we take great pride in the cross. It is a symbol of God’s love for us and of our love for God. At our baptism, we are signed with the cross. We begin and end every prayer with the cross. We wear the cross as jewelry, and we place it on our clothing. We are proud of the cross.

But how often have we said that our cross is too heavy? We were promised that we would not be given any cross that we could not handle.  Yet we plead, “God please lighten the burden of the cross that I carry.”

One day in Calcutta, Mother Teresa observed a group of sisters as they left the convent to go and work in the streets. One of the sisters looked sad and gloomy. Seeing her, Mother Teresa stopped her and told her that her problem was that she was carrying her cross ahead of Christ. We must not lead but follow. Jesus has already led the way with his cross.

From the very beginning to the very end of the passion narrative of John’s Gospel, Jesus has full knowledge of what is taking place. From the moment that he is arrested to the moment that he is scourged, stripped of his garments, receives the crown of the thorns on his head, and accepts the cross, he is in charge. The identity of Jesus is revealed in the cross. Unlike the other Gospels in which Jesus receives help carrying his cross, in this Gospel, he has no help. He needs no help in taking his final steps to glory. He carries the cross by himself and is lifted high for all the world to see.

The cross is glorious; it is majestic, and from the cross, Jesus has won salvation for us. We can often feel that our cross is too heavy and that we can’t go on. Then, we must stop and ask ourselves, who is in control? Are we in control? Or is Jesus in control?

The message of the cross is that we must surrender and allow Jesus to do what he has come to do, and this is to lead us. If our cross is too heavy, then we have picked up too much. Jesus has already carried it for us; all we need to do is follow his path of love.