Good Friday: Testifying to the Truth

Paolo Veronese, Crucifixion (c. 1582)

We see its likeness everywhere – on billboards, bumper stickers, and jewelry. It comes in all shapes and sizes and made of just about any material. The cross is a ubiquitous symbol, all around us, and for that reason, one that has in many ways lost its meaning, even for many Christians. In the venerations of our Catholic tradition, we tend to use the crucifix – that is, the cross with the body of Jesus on it – but even that I think at times is a symbol we have become accustomed to, and thus overlook.

Today, we are reminded again of the terrible reality of what the cross stands for – of what a crucifixion actually is. Far from a status symbol or fashion piece, it was a brutal means of execution and something meant to inspire terror in those who saw it – in short, a warning not to oppose the powers of the world.

Judged according to worldly standards, the Cross of Christ is certainly a defeat. Jesus’s public life as a preacher and healer ends with his ignominious death, hanged on a tree for all to see. But as we heard in the Gospel narrative, Jesus is not helpless. He suffers and submits to what others have plotted for him, but he does so willingly. The purpose of his life – and his death – is, in his words, to testify to the truth.

A few weeks ago, I noticed something about our crucifix behind the altar that I had not noticed before. If you look closely, Jesus’s right hand – though nailed against the wood – is in the traditional position of blessing or teaching, the thumb, index finger, and middle finger extended with the other two fingers curled against the palm. What a beautiful if subtle way of teaching us that, when seen with eyes of faith, the Cross is not a defeat but a victory, not an end but a beginning. Jesus’s death is the final teaching to humanity about the love of God for us, that the Father would send his Son to suffer and die to save us from eternal death. The Cross is an eternal blessing that opens for us the way to eternal life.

When we come forward later in a few moments to venerate the Cross, we honor the particular way that Jesus showed us the depth of his love. Jesus came to testify to the truth, by his life and by his death. When we recall his sacrifice – indeed, when we unite our own sacrifices and sufferings to his – then we too testify to the truth of God’s love.

Friends, though it has now become something common, even ordinary to us, every crucifix should remind us of the saving of Jesus – that it was real and it was terrible. But the Cross is not the last word, for Jesus is no longer dead but lives forever. United to him, he will bring us to victory over death and every power of this world. May the Cross of Christ be our foundation in faith, our hope for eternal life, and our model for how to follow the Lord.