One of Our Lord’s last parables was that of a vineyard carefully cultivated by a landowner who leases it to tenants who prove themselves wicked. When the owner sends his servants, one after another, to collect the produce, they are beaten, killed and stoned. Finally, the owner does the unimaginable: he sends his son, thinking, the son would be respected. But the tenants threw the son out of the vineyard and killed him.
The parable was a summary of salvation history. The landowner is an image of God and the vineyard an ancient image of Israel. The servants, sent over time, only to meet a brutal end, recall the times God sent his prophets to summon Israel to fidelity. The owner sending his son, despite the crimes of the tenants, recalls the Eternal Father who sent his Beloved Son into the world to die for our sins.
Today, we, along with the Church Universal, gather to contemplate this extraordinary and profound, act of God’s love for us: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16)
Today, above all others, we look upon the cross and contemplate the extraordinary and profound cost of such love, endured for us, despite our sins and transgressions.
In the texts of today’s liturgy, Jesus cries out to us from the cross: “What more should I have done for you and have not done? Indeed, I planted you as my most beautiful chosen vine and you have turned very bitter for me…”
The “good” in this “Good Friday lies precisely in this extraordinary and profound act of love. We see “good” in this somber day because in his extraordinary and profound love for us, Jesus does what no mere man can do. Only He, as the Son of God, could take upon himself the sins of the whole world to make atonement to God for the sins of the human race. Only he was able to reconcile the world to God.
The blood of animal sacrifices shed in the Old Covenant, gives way to the New Covenant sealed forever by the Blood shed by Jesus. From the cross, Jesus says, “I will love you with an everlasting love. I will be faithful to you, even when you run away from me, reject me, or betray me.” (H. Nouwen)
Today as we venerate the cross, we shall want to claim that eternal love for ourselves so that our temporal loves—for our parents, brothers, sisters, spouses, teachers, friends, and all people who are part of our lives can be reflections of God’s eternal love.
Let us approach the cross in gratitude for the Lord’s unconditional and everlasting love, a love that brought Him to the suffer the agony of the cross for us, a love that shows us how to love.
Let us pray:
O Lord, your Cross reveals to us the mystery of our sin.
You, Innocent One entered a history we spoiled by our pride
that became defiant, hateful, and violent.
But your Cross, O Lord Jesus,
reveals above all, the mystery of your love,
that is stronger than our sins, more tenacious than our rebellions,
more powerful than our hollow abilities.
O Jesus Crucified,
You are our hope through the twisted paths, we take through time.
O Jesus Crucified,
have mercy on us sinners and help us to love one another
as you have loved us.
