Why Holy Friday?

Why Holy Friday? My God My God why have you forsaken me??
How does Jesus experience this tragic martyrdom? What does he feel as he sees the failure of his plan for the reign of God, the abandonment of his closest followers, and the hostility surrounding him? How does he react to a death so ignominious and cruel? It would be a mistake to try getting inside Jesus' inner world through a psychological inquiry. The gospel sources do not give us a psychological description of his passion, but they do invite us to understand his basic attitude in light of the suffering of the righteous innocent, as described in psalms well known to the Jewish people.It is a wrenching scene. Jesus enters the olive orchard amid the dark shadows of the night. He becomes more and more distressed and agitated. Then he walks away from his disciples, as was his custom, seeking silence and peace. He throws himself on the ground prostrate, with his face touching the earth. The texts portray his distress with a variety of terms and expressions. Mark speaks of sadness: Jesus is deeply, mortally sad; nothing can put joy in his soul. A lament escapes him: I am deeply grieved, even to death. He also speaks of anguish: he is alone and overwhelmed; one thought has overpowered him; he is going to die. John sees him as perturbed; Jesus is disconcerted, internally broken. Luke emphasizes his anguish; what Jesus is feeling is not fearfulness or worry, but horror at what is coming. The letter to the Hebrews says that he prayed with loud cries and tears.Jesus' silence in the final hours is heart-rending. As he died, however, he cried out with a loud voice. This last, inarticulate cry is the most historically certain memory in the tradition.In Mark and Matthew he cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?Luke omits these words but quotes him as saying, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. In John, shortly before he dies Jesus says, I am thirsty; after taking the vinegar they offered him, he exclaims, It is finished. What do we know about these words? Were they spoken by Jesus? Are they Christian words, inviting us to penetrate the mystery of Jesus' silence which was
broken only by his heart-rending cry at the end?broken It is not hard to understand the description given us by John, the last of the gospel writers. In his theological vision, for Jesus being raised up on the cross means returning to the Father and entering his glory. There is no anguish or terror. There is no resistance to drinking the bitter cup of the cross: Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me? His death is simply the culmination of his deepest desire. Thus he says, I am thirsty; I want to finish my work; I feel a thirst for God, I want to enter into his glory now. And after drinking the vinegar he exclaims, It is finished. He has been faithful to the end. His death is not a descent into sheol, but a passage from this world to the Father. Everyone in the Christian communities is certain of that.We can also understand Luke's response. Jesus' anguished cry of protest over God's abandonment seems harsh to Luke. Mark had no problem attributing it to Jesus, but people might misunderstand. So Luke takes the liberty of replacing it with other words, more appropriate from his viewpoint: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. He needs to make clear that Jesus' anguish . never altered his attitude of trust and total commitment to the Father. Nothing and no one could ever separate him from God. At the end of his life Jesus trust- ingly gave himself up to the Father who had been the source of all his activity. Luke wants to make that clear.But in spite of these concerns, the cry quoted by Mark-- Eloi, Eloi, lema sabakthani?, that is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? is the oldest in the Christian tradition and may well have come from Jesus. There is amazing sincerity in these words, spoken in Aramaic, Jesus' mother tongue, in the midst of his loneliness and total abandonment. If he hadn't spoken them, would anyone in the Christian community have dared put them in his mouth? Jesus is totally alone at his death. Around him he can only hear mockery and scorn. In spite of his cries to the Father in Gethsemane, God has not come to help him. His beloved Father has left him alone to face an ignominious death. Why? Jesus is not calling God by his usual name Abba, Father. He calls him Eloi, my God, as any human being would. Yet his prayer is still an expression of trust: My God! God is still his God in spite of everything. Jesus does not doubt God's existence or his power to save him. His complaint is about God's silence: Where is he? Why doesn't he say something? Why has God forsaken him just when he needs him most? Jesus dies in the dark of night. He doesn't enter his death enlightened by a sublime vision. He dies with why? on his lips. Now it is all in the hands of the Father.

[@antonybharath7562]

Praise the lord 🙏🏻🙏🙏🏻🌷🌷

[@jamesantony8613]

Holy Friday ❤