GOOD FRIDAY: THE SCANDAL OF THE CROSS

The cross stands for all the suffering and the evil present in the world. It was a terrible way of inflicting the death penalty. And thousands of people underwent such punishment. The Romans used it profusely, mainly on slaves and on the dominated nations. The cross went together with shame and curse. 

For the Jews it was unconceivable that the Messiah should undergo such punishment. That’s why Paul call it a “stumbling block” or “the scandal of the cross” (Gal 5:11). In spite of that scandal, Paul says openly that he preaches the “Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23). For the Greeks, such preaching was “foolishness”, a complete nonsense. However, the message of the cross, “to us who are being saved is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).

With Christ’s suffering and death upon the cross, the cross became for us a sign and instrument of blessing and salvation.

A man of sorrows

The words of Isaiah, read in today’s liturgy, help us to understand Jesus’ death on the cross:

“a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering,

a man to make people screen their faces;

he was despised and 

we took no account of him.

And yet ours were the sufferings he bore,

ours the sorrows he carried.

But we, we thought of him as someone punished,

struck by God, and brought low.

Yet he was pierced through for our faults,

crushed for our sins.” (Is 53:3-5)

Carrying our pains and our sufferings, Jesus transformed them in sources of life.

Let us not be afraid of the cross of Christ, because there is no salvation without his cross.