“Christianity, unlike any other religion in the world, begins with catastrophe and defeat.”

It was Fulton J. Sheen who said that. He didn’t finish there, of course, but I will leave his conclusion until the end of this piece.

When I read those words first it struck me as odd that I hadn’t quite seen the Cross quite as starkly as that before. ‘Catastrophe’, if you look it up, means ‘devastation, ruin, cataclysm’, while ‘defeat’ is defined as ‘vanquished, overwhelmed, conquered’. It doesn’t get much stronger than that! There is no coming back from a catastrophe and defeat effectively means that the game is over, finished, lost.

Was the death of Jesus on the Cross something there was no coming back from? Was the game over for Jesus and his small band of followers?

I think I would have to agree with Fulton Sheen that yes, the death of Jesus on the Cross was a catastrophe and a defeat. In human terms, when he ‘gave up his spirit’ and took his last breath it was over, and it was defeat and a catastrophe. He was dead, but not just that. He died a criminal – ridiculed, humiliated, paraded through the streets of Jerusalem and laughed at. The Gospels tell us that the disciples fled, many of them back to their homes and their fishing in Galilee, devastated and lost. Others hid themselves, terrified that they might be next. There was no coming back from a death like Jesus suffered. He was gone and his message was defeated. Power, wealth, authority had won again. I’m not sure it is even possible to contemplate the depth of suffering of those who stood and grieved under his Cross.

The darkness of the Cross was real. It was not a game of ‘pretend’ suffering or something secretly glorious because everyone who was there knew what was to come. After the Sabbath, on Easter Sunday morning, the women were returning to the tomb, not to witness the joy of Resurrection, but to anoint the body of Jesus and give him the dignity of a Jewish burial. They felt he was gone and were going to say a final farewell.

By acknowledging the starkness of the Cross we are saying something hugely important about our God.

Not only was our God willing to walk with us in good times, when he was a popular healer and teacher, for some even the King who was to come to free them from Roman occupation, but our God was willing to enter the depths of human suffering, going so far as to experience the total darkness of feeling abandoned by the one who gave him life.

Was Jesus serious when he said on the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” It would be very cynical to imagine that he was saying it just for our sake, or was quoting the opening verse of Psalm 22, which he knew ended in joy and victory. Would Jesus, who condemned hypocrisy all his life, stoop to the hypocrisy of pretending he felt abandoned?

I can’t believe Jesus would treat us as cynically as that. Isn’t it much more likely, and yes, much more beautiful, to believe that he was prepared to experience, for us and with us, the lowest dregs of suffering a person can experience?

That truly is love! Not just in fair weather, but in the utter darkness of pain, betrayal, rejection, humiliation, and the loss of human dignity.

We are invited on Good Friday to experience the true reality of the Cross. The liturgy is a sad and solemn one. There is no singing, no colour, no decoration. The altar is bare. While there is a celebration of Holy Communion there is no celebration of the Eucharist. The vestments are red, representing blood and martyrdom. “The lamb is led to the slaughter, opening not his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7).

On this one day of the year, Good Friday, we are invited to ‘unsee’ the Resurrection, in so far as we can, and in our prayer try to contemplate the love of a God who was prepared to enter into everything, yes everything, to be one with us.

It is as if God is saying to us, “I will follow you anywhere, even into the worst places of suffering imaginable; to places of physical pain, betrayal, loss of human dignity, degradation and humiliation, injustice, and even feeling abandoned by God. I will walk with you in all these places because that is how much I love you.”

And this is the mystery of the Cross. Within that abject suffering and loss is our hope born.

When I look at the TV News during these past weeks, I ask myself is God in the devastated ruins of towns and cities in Ukraine? Is God with the mother who saw her son shot and then had to bury him herself, alone, in her front garden? Is God with the terrified women and children hiding week after week in stinking basements, without food, water, and heat? Is God with the mothers and families of the Russian soldiers who have died in this war? They, too, mourn and cry just as Mary did under her Cross.

The Cross answers unequivocally that God is in all these places and more. On that first Good Friday he went to all places of suffering with us and for us. He walked the walk of agony and rejection without any compromise, and he continues to do so.

Ironically, it was in the experience of Jesus feeling abandoned that he showed us that we would never be abandoned! God and Jesus walk with us anywhere, everywhere, right to the threshold of death and then beyond.

This is already Resurrection. In the very Cross of Jesus, we see the dawning of Resurrection.

Did Jesus rise from the dead on Easter Sunday morning. Of course, he did!  From the moment of his conception in the womb of Mary, there had to be the Resurrection. God cannot die! The life of Jesus could never have ended in ‘catastrophe’ and ‘defeat’, to use Fulton Sheen’s words.

The trouble for all of those present on that first Good Friday was that while they lived through this awful suffering, they did not know it.

For the first disciples of Jesus, as well as for us, the Cross is the Cross precisely because we cannot see it end. It is darkness, not because there is no light, but because during the moments of our pain we cannot see the light, and often, like Thomas, one of the Apostles, we cannot even believe that there could be light.

For all of us the Cross is real. We cannot deny it, or sidestep it, or avoid it; nor must we ever try to do so. The Cross is part of who we are as human – weak, fragile, vulnerable, and sinful. Like Jesus before us, we must walk through the Crosses we encounter in our lives.

We are not, however, called to linger or stay with our Crosses. Jesus carried his own Cross, walked to Calvary, died, and was buried…. but he did not stay in the tomb. He rose from the dead, overturning forever what seemed like a ‘catastrophe’ and a ‘defeat’.

Like it or not we are, and must be, people of HOPE – people of the Resurrection. We know we will not always feel the Resurrection in our lives. Our experiences of the Cross will, at times, dim or block our experience of hope. That does not mean there is no hope. It means that at this moment I cannot see it……and that is OK.

The mystery of Easter is such a profound and overwhelming one. The Cross is, truly, death. The Resurrection is, truly, eternal life. Once death is defeated there can only be eternal life. It is the mystery and the hope and the reality of the Christian Easter.

Pope Francis, in a recent reflection on Easter said:

“Let us point out the risen Christ to those who ask us to account for the hope that is in us. Let us point him out with our lives as people who have been raised. … This is a precious service that we must give to this world of ours which all too often no longer succeeds in raising its gaze on high, no longer succeeds in rising.”

I began with the words of Fulton Sheen, “Christianity, unlike any other religion in the world, begins with catastrophe and defeat…..”

Here is his entire statement:

“Christianity, unlike any other religion in the world, begins with catastrophe and defeat. Sunshine religions and psychological inspirations collapse in calamity and wither in adversity. But the Life of the Founder of Christianity, having begun with the Cross, ends with the empty tomb and victory.”
May the peace of the empty tomb and the victory of the risen Lord be with you this Easter.

Many thanks,

Brian.

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts on this scripture reflection you would like to share, I would be delighted to hear from you – please feel free to email me at b.maher@oblates.ie