Letter on Good Friday: the limitless love of God

“After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A Jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
(John 19:28-30).

Dear Reader,
Good Friday is, undoubtedly, a difficult day. I have been moved to tears before on this day. It is difficult because we are forced to confront the hardest truth of our Christian faith.

We profess it in creeds and sermons, and we see it in readings throughout the year: Jesus died for us. But in the vivid imagery of the crucifixion, often represented visually as an aid alongside the words of the gospel, the stark reality of what that means is brought home to us. That reality is that our redemption came at a price – the price Jesus paid with his life. God himself endures every humiliation imaginable, followed by the most agonising of deaths, and that is done for me.

God’s love, you see, is limitless. That means it is not diluted the more it is shared around. What God does for the collective of humanity, he does for each and every one of us as individuals. The degree to which that suffering was endured for me, Aidan Kiely, is not lessened because it was also done for you and for everyone else. As you reflect on Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross and the brutality of his execution, you should keep these words in your head: “All this he did for me.”

Jesus, as we know, was both fully human and fully divine. Yet it is as a human being that we remember him today: he was flesh, bone and blood, just like each and every one of us. That is why we can comprehend, at least to some degree, the suffering he endured.

That is why this is a day of sorrow, grief and anguish. It is the day we face the sinful reality of our condition. It is the day we remember with particular clarity, the ways in which our actions towards others can help contribute to whatever cross they are carrying. It is a day where, focussed on Christ on the cross, we remember how those who suffer are united with Christ on that cross.

Today is, therefore, a day to look inwardly upon ourselves. We must have the humility to acknowledge that we have sinned, and that there is a burden that we and others must carry because of the wrong we have done. We pray to God in repentance, giving thanks for his saving sacrifice. It is also a day where we must look to the evils in the world.

Given the tragic events in Brussels, it is not hard to see how humanity’s fallen condition heaps suffering on the innocent. We must pray for the conversion of the hard-hearted, the angry and the vengeful. We must pray that Christ’s saving sacrifice brings those most in need of repentance to reconciliation with God, and to peaceful living.

I watched some clips of the Atheist intellectual Richard Dawkins a couple of weeks ago (always entertaining). Dawkins was challenged by someone who pointed out the very different character of the merciful New Testament God from the angry God of the old. Dawkins took issue with this contrast, arguing that a loving God could have just wiped the slate clean. He did not have to allow an innocent man to be punished in the most hideous way to satisfy his need for vengeance.

That really got me thinking. It made me realise, perhaps in a way that religious reflections don’t as easily, that God himself endured those things. God himself, manifest in human form, took the punishment in our place. If he had not made such a sacrifice to restore us to grace, would we really be able to appreciate the extent of his love? That was the bit that Dawkins was missing: God’s plan of salvation served to demonstrate the reality of his enduring, limitless love for us. That is what is ‘good’ about this saddest of days.

May God bless you.