Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion
(Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16.5:7-9; John18:1-19:42)
Jesus’ last words in today’s gospel sound enigmatic. “It is
finished?” What is finished? Is it his life as he dies? Is it his ordeal on the cross? We can find a hint of the answer to the
question in the first chapter of the gospel.
On seeing Jesus, John the Baptist declares, “Behold the lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world.”
Jesus’ sacrifice of himself ends with his death on the cross. Pilate rendered the death sentence at midday when
the paschal lambs were being sacrificed in the temple. As a result of the lamb offerings, the Jews
believed their sins were forgiven. Now
with the death of the Lamb of God, the world is liberated from its sins.
Liberation is hinted at in a phrase just prior to Jesus’ last
words. The gospel says that they offered
him a wine-soaked sponge on a hyssop sprig to quench his thirst. We may ask, how can a hyssop sprig support a soaked
sponge? Of course, it can’t. But the hyssop is used here to remind us of
the hyssop that spread the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of the Israelites
the night before they were liberated from slavery. The angel of death came to take the
first-born of all the families of Egypt except of the Israelites with their
blood-splattered doorposts. Hyssop
became a sign of liberation.
Like the Israelites, we have been liberated. We are no longer slaves to sin but are free
to serve God and neighbor. Let us not
fall back into the slavery of sin by mostly serving ourselves. Rather let us sacrifice ourselves in the way Jesus
did. Then we will be able to say with Jesus
when our moment comes, “It is finished.”
