Today, as we commemorate the passion and death of our Savior, we may feel a darkness surrounding us. And this is certainly understandable when we consider what we hear in the passion narrative of the gospel of today’s Mass (John18:1-19:42) – the betrayal, arrest, and abandonment of Jesus, the unjust accusations and judgements, the mockery and humiliation, the brutally unfair condemnation, and the horrific torture and crucifixion.
But another way of looking at this is by focusing, not on the evil that envelopes the passion events, but on the love and goodness that the entire event is founded on. For we know that Jesus’ willing self-sacrifice is the ultimate revelation of the goodness of our God, the merciful love that God has for all of us, and the compassion and forgiveness that God extends to all of us all the time.
Pope Francis says “The cross represents all the love of God which is greater than our iniquities and our betrayals…in the cross we see the immensity of the mercy of God, who does not treat us according to our sins but according to his mercy…the cross reveals a judgment, namely that God judges us by loving us”.
It is true that today is marked by an intense darkness as we recall the terrible events of Jesus’ passion and death. But we know that this darkness is overcome by God’s merciful love, a love that brings forth a new dawn with Jesus’ resurrection and our redemption on the horizon.