It was Good Friday some years ago and I was on my way to the Cathedral to take part in the Three Hours Devotion when the seven words of Jesus on the Cross are remembered. The radio was on and out came the voice of an angel. Well, not really, an actress taking on the role of an angel and imagining what the death of Jesus looked like from the perspective of the angels. Profound sadness was expressed at the way the Son of God was treated by the humankind He came to save. Of course that had to be set against the purpose of His death which would ultimately see Jesus triumphant over sin and death. But, said the angel, Good Friday would always carry a sadness for the angels because from that day onward Jesus would always be closer to humans than to them. They had known Him from all eternity, he belonged to them, but Good Friday saw His experience as a human being completed. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews might say, He was made ‘a little lower than the angels . . . so that He might taste death for everyone.‘ (Hebrews 2: 9)
It is something that sometimes gets lost in our Holy Week observance. Eager to get through the ever deepening darkness of Jesus’ last week and to celebrate Easter morning we do not linger on the fact that Jesus died. We are familiar with the limitations that His humanity placed on Him, the hunger, the tiredness, the temptations that could only come to Him as the appointed Saviour of the world. But it is on the Cross that we see His humanity complete as He gives up His life.
How would the angels have reacted when they heard that cry more anguished than any ever heard in the history of humankind: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15: 34). How can it be that the immortal Son of God is experiencing the loss of God? But even as they wrestle with this the voice of Jesus rings out: ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ (Luke 23: 46) It is with a sense of the love of the Father and an assurance of His good purpose that Jesus offers His life and dies. From that moment we can see Jesus as one who fully identifies with our human experience from His beginnings as a single cell in the womb of Mary until the extinguishing of His life on the Cross. The writer to the Hebrews again: ‘We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin.’ (Hebrews 4: 15) In every dark moment that would threaten to take us to the end of ourselves we can be sure that Jesus stands with us, even when we approach the final challenge.
I once heard the writer William McIlvanney speak of his perspective on the lives we lead: ‘We live as best we can before we go into a darkness we do not know.‘ The good news of Good Friday is that we do not go into that darkness alone. The Psalmist was speaking from his own experience but surely the spirit of prophesy was upon him when he said:
‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff they comfort me.’ (Psalm 23: 4)
We go into the darkness with Jesus who has been there before us and who has paid the price for our sin, made forgiveness possible, and made the way clear for us to be eternally in the presence of the Father He trusted in the perfection and completeness of His Kingdom. In Him we are in the company of One who is not only able to sympathise with our weaknesses but who through His death has secured our destiny to be part of the renewed Creation that was from the first in the mind of the Father. The apostle John was given glimpses of this in his sufferings:
‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’ ” (Revelation 7: 17)
The angels may well be sad that in some ways Jesus in His being has been removed from them but I find it hard to believe that they grudge you and me a place in the final triumph of Jesus. If they rejoice whenever a sinner repents they surely rejoice when we finally enjoy with them the glories of the Eternal Kingdom, a destiny that will forever mean that Friday in Holy Week is good.
