7 Last Words: "It is finished."

Here is my reflection on one of what is traditionally known as "the seven last words of Christ".  This reflection is on his last words, "It is finished."

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            Although it’s difficult for us to forget something that we already know, let’s imagine for a moment that we are hearing these words for the first time.  Let’s imagine that we don’t know, as Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story.”

            Imagine a mother and a friend, looking up on the one they love so dear now horribly disfigured—and how their own countenances have been disfigured by their sorrow.  Intense fear and agony overwhelm them, yet we can imagine that there was still hope: hope that in spite of all the mocking and jeering he may yet work a miracle that would save him from this death.  “It is finished.”  Even for these, the ones who were closest to Christ’s heart, as the resurrection was yet unknown to them, these words must have cast a shadow of doubt on their hope in the fulfillment of all that God had promised them throughout the ages.

            Imagine also a crowd of priests and soldiers, looking with anxiety to ensure the execution is completed.  As the intensity of their fervor diminishes—as the intensity of their mocking and jeering subsides— imagine that a certain uneasiness crept into their hearts.  “It is finished.”  Outwardly, they agree and are satisfied; yet inwardly their consciences continue to question.

            Imagine the disciples who didn’t follow their master to that hill, those who were afraid and hid away.  Imagine their questions to those who returned.  “What happened?”  “Did they kill him?”  “Did he say anything before he died?”  “It is finished.”  The intensity of their fear spikes as they hear these words.  Immediately they are flooded with confusion and doubt about their future, about what it will mean to be a follower of his way.  In the days following, fishermen will return to their nets, women will prepare the final burial spices, and pilgrims will walk the long road back to their homes questioning how this could have been the end.

            It is only the light of the resurrection, however, that can reveal that what is finished—that is, what has ended—is not our hope in one who can save, but rather our slavery to sin.  Christ proclaimed these words as a definitive statement to the evil one that his reign had ended and that death—Satan’s last power over man—had been forever destroyed.

            Friends, listen closely to these words of Christ.  In these words he says to each of us, “Your life of sin is over.  It is finished.”  May this end that we remember today lead us to begin anew our lives in Christ.

 

~ Given at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Carmel, IN - April 6, 2012

Good Friday Reflection

Here is a reflection that I gave at my parish in Carmel today. It is on one of the traditional "seven last words of Christ." May it help you rejoice more fully in the Resurrection come Sunday morning.


Luke 23:39-43: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Although the image presented in this passage of Luke’s Gospel might be somewhat unsettling to us—Christ our King crucified between two heinous criminals—it seems that he is right where he is supposed to be: the Redeemer in the middle of two men desperately in need of redemption.

On one side, a man dying in his sin is nonetheless blind to his redeemer hanging next to him on a cross. His hope is in this world and he is so completely blinded by his pride that he cannot acknowledge that it is his own sinfulness that has brought him to this condition. He cannot recognize that the one who was hanging next to him and was suffering with him came not to take away all his suffering, but rather to save him from his sinful condition. Today, this man represents all of those who are quick to say, “Where was God” when they experience suffering in this world. “Where was God when my mother was dying from cancer?” “Where was God when my son was shot and killed?” “Where was God when my sister was being raped?” “If he is such a powerful God, then why didn’t he save them and me from our suffering?” “Are you not the Messiah?” the unrepentant thief says, “save yourself and us” (Lk 23:39). This one could not see that his Redeemer would be more than a divine dose of pain killers. He could not see that he, like his Redeemer, would be made perfect in suffering (Heb. 2:10). And so he misses his chance to live.

On the other side, we see the opposite. A man, also dying in his sin, sees in the man hanging next to him his Redeemer. He can do this because he first recognizes his own emptiness, his own need of redemption. In his sinfulness he is now nailed to the cross with no hope of being removed until after he has breathed his last breath and he can acknowledge—he chooses to acknowledge—that he is left now with nothing. He recognizes his nothingness. As soon as he can recognize his nothingness, he can turn to Jesus and see clearly the fullness of him sent to suffer with him and for him. He has no need to ask, “Where is God?” He knows where he is. He is on the cross next to him, suffering with him. Renouncing all of his pride, he can then turn to Jesus with the eyes of faith and say not “save me,” but rather “remember me.” He resigned himself to his own death in his sinfulness and asked only that he be remembered by the one who—mysteriously to him—would somehow come to reign in spite of this seemingly desperate condition.

Jesus gives no words to the man who remains blind to his sin. To the man who recognizes and acknowledges his own nothingness, however, Jesus gives those words of hope: “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43).

Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said that the blind man who does not know he is blind cannot hope to see, but there is hope for him when he recognizes his need to see. The only thing worse than sin, he continues, is denying that we are sinners. There is hope, however, for the one who can acknowledge his or her sinfulness: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of God is theirs” (Mt 5:3). Perhaps today we can recognize our own poverty of spirit, our own sinfulness that has crucified us, so that we might recognize Christ our Redeemer, crucified with us and for us, and say: “Remember me, Lord….” Then, in the silence of our nothingness we can hope to hear our Savior say, “Amen, I say to you….”

Given at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Church – Carmel, Indiana
Good Friday, April 22, 2011

Seven Last Words of Christ: "I Thirst."

Happy and blessed Easter to all!

Below is a reflection that I recently wrote for Good Friday on one of the seven last "words" (phrases, really) of Christ and I thought that I would share.

A couple of weeks ago, I had an opportunity to visit my family in Illinois to celebrate my sister’s birthday, a rare treat for me since entering the seminary. Although it wasn’t an official three-day weekend, it worked out that my classes for Monday were cancelled, which allowed me an extra day before returning to the seminary. Prompted by the amount of work I had waiting for me at the seminary, but moved by an interior conviction that felt strangely outside of myself, I decided to leave on Sunday instead. Throughout the six-hour drive back to southern Indiana, I sat with an aching in my heart, a longing for that denied opportunity to spend more time with my family. I had every reason, it seemed, to stay at home and enjoy them for another day. As the miles rolled away I came to see that it was God that had asked me to leave, and in doing so to feel a great longing for more. As I prayed the rosary while driving, I began to see the connection between my longing for my family and Christ’s longing on the Cross when he said, “I thirst.” It was then that I could connect this very tangible sense of longing for my family to the longing that my soul feels for God, and I began to understand what the Psalmist means when he says, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God” (Ps 42:2)

In Lent we purposely make a hole in our lives – we leave an urge unfulfilled. In other words, we thirst. We allow ourselves a tiny bit of suffering not to punish ourselves, but rather to awaken in us an awareness of the spiritual thirst that is constantly raging in our souls.

When we cover up our physical thirsts by satisfying them, we cover up our inner emptiness, and pursuing worldly satisfaction becomes our never-ending concern. When we subject ourselves to fasts for the sole purpose of penance, it seems senseless because it doesn’t point to the spiritual thirst that arrests each of our souls. However, if we allow our fasting and abstinences to point to the longing that our souls have for God, then we learn to tolerate, what spiritual writer Henri Nouwen calls, the sweet pain of that longing because our inner emptiness becomes filled with promise.

Jesus, in His physical agony on the Cross, did not long to satisfy his physical thirst, even though it was immeasurable. Rather, the thirst that he proclaimed from the Cross was a spiritual one. His thirst was that in and through his agony humanity might be made new, and that his prayer that we may all be made one might be fulfilled.

Today we have a great opportunity to come to a deeper understanding of this thirst of Christ. As we sit with our physical thirsts throughout the day, let us allow them to draw us to recognize the deep groaning inside each of us that echoes the words of the Psalmist when he says, “My being thirsts for God, the living God” (Ps 42:3), for it is when we acknowledge our inner emptiness that we also find the promise that fills it. Then we will be able to say with the Psalmist, “Why are you cast down my soul? Why do you groan within me? Wait for God, whom I shall praise again, my savior and my God” (Ps 42:12).

Given at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Church – Carmel, Indiana
Good Friday, April 2, 2010