Today’s readings: Numbers 21, 4-9; Philippians 2, 6-11; John 3, 13-17.
In his book The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran writes: “Some of you say that love and joy are greater than sorrow, and others say, ‘Nay, sorrow is the greater’. But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your table, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
Today’s feast of the exaltation of the Cross is rooted in a centuries-old tradition and is an invitation for us all to re-examine what constitutes the core belief of the Christian faith. There is what we call the Christian science of suffering, the philosophy behind the Christian faith as summarised today in St Paul’s letter to the Philippians in the Greek word: Kenosis, meaning that Christ emptied himself to assume our condition, to be like us humans, accepting death on a cross.
As Christians we believe that this is what changed and what can powerfully change the course of history and give a different shape to our individual lives. Faith, writes Jean Vanier, is not the preaching of an ideal life, but above all a meeting with one person: Jesus. Christ crucified is not simply a dated event which we commemorate on Good Friday every year.
There is a prolonged crucifixion which extends in time beyond cultures and religions and which demands that we take seriously the issue of what can really save us from humiliation, from all that renders us victims of destiny without any dignity. We need to distinguish between humiliation and humility. The former destroys God’s image in us, the latter reshapes our true self. In his book Prism of Love, Daniel O’Leary poses a very profound question: Why do we call Good Friday “good”? If Jesus was a man of love, why was he killed? And if this good man was killed, why do we celebrate it?
The first reading from the Book of Numbers speaks of “fiery serpents” sent by God to his people in the wilderness and their deadly bite. In the desert of life we are more prone, just like the Jews, to lose patience and hope. What happened to the Jews sounds very mythological to our ears today. Yet we can all acknowledge that the narrative is very telling of the everyday stories we go through in life, particularly when facing all that is negative which makes it so hard for us to grasp the whole picture.
John, in today’s gospel reading, revisits this Old Testament narrative while Jesus is confronting Nicodemus with what is so basic about religion: if religion is not saving, then it is alienating. This is so basic, yet Nicodemus, enlightened though he was, was finding it so difficult to grasp. The Son of Man had to be lifted up not in glory but crucified. The ongoing narrative of humanity in daily experience is the hard truth that joy and sorrow are inseparable and come together.
In its closing message addressed to the world in 1965, the Second Vatican Council pointed to all those “who feel heavily the weight of the cross, the brothers of the suffering Christ who, with him, are saving the world”. We all carry the weight of a broken body, longing to be redeemed and given wholeness. We all suffer the “bites of fiery serpents” in the desert of life, we all desire to have someone to look up to in order not to be left dying in despair.
Theologian Karl Rahner put it right when he wrote: “In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we eventually realise that, here in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished”.
In the dark nights of our soul, we all need to keep our gaze on the one who saves, who can intercede powerfully not to let us otherwise end up victims of whatever comes across in life. We exalt the Cross in the firm hope that he who was lifted up for us envisions the final picture of the various jigsaw pieces strewn across the table of our life and of the world.