Good Friday

Post date: Apr 05, 2021 9:59:22 AM

Homily for Good Friday 2021 (2/4/21)

One day, a science teacher decided to have a bit of fun with his class. He brought out a glass beaker and asked them: “If I put these three rocks into the beaker, will it be full?” Some said yes, some said no. So he put the rocks into the beaker. “Is it full now?” he said. The class wondered what was going to happen next. The teacher then brought from underneath the table a bag of stones. “If I put these stones in the beaker, will it be full?” He put the stones in the beaker. “Is it full now?” Some said yes, some said no. Then he produced a bag of sand. “If I put this in, will it be full?” He filled the beaker to the top with sand. At last, the class thought, it was safe to say that the beaker was now full. But the teacher had the last laugh. Next he brought out a measuring cylinder full of cold, fresh water, and poured it into the beaker, and the water level reached right the to top. “Now it’s full” he said.

What’s this got to do with Good Friday? Quite simply, Our Lord is the beaker, who took on all the sins of the world. He took on all the rocks, the really big sins, such as when a bank charges ridiculous interest on a poor country, and people die because the poor country is crippled by having to spend so much of its income repaying the loan and all the interest.

He took on all the stones, the bigger sins that we commit, not just murder and theft, but also other sins such as when we dishonour God by missing Mass and trampling on Sunday as if it were any other day, when we put other things and other people before God, when we deny our faith and say “I do not know Him!”. He also took on all those sins that we are extremely embarrassed and ashamed to confess.

He took on all the sand, all the smaller sins, the ones that everyone does, that little by little, add up to quite a bit of weight on our souls, the sins that we find easier to confess than the bigger ones.

And He took on all the water, the even smaller sins, the ones we forget, the ones we hardly notice. Jesus suffered for all of these sins. And yes, we don’t half have a lot to be grateful for! We could never have atoned for all those sins ourselves. There is only one Saviour, and His name is Jesus.

His suffering was so great. Not only were there the physical sufferings: the scouring, the crowning with thorns, the nailing to the Cross and so on; but there were also all the other sufferings too. He suffered anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane; on the Cross He experienced the sense of being abandoned even by God: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He experienced, paradoxically, what it is like to be separated from God by mortal sin, even though He Himself is God.

We thank Him today, we worship Him, we honour Him, and we ask that we may not add to His sufferings, but live lives of grateful service to Him and to all humanity. Peter denied Jesus, but Jesus died for Peter, and then Peter lived for Jesus, and ultimately, died for Jesus.