Homilies

The Church has lingered long tonight beside the works of God. We have listened as the great story unfolded: the beauty of the first creation, the wound of our fall, the ache of exile, the call of Abraham, the deliverance through the sea, the voice of the prophets, the promises spoken again and again to a people who could not remain faithful for long. The pattern was painfully familiar. God gave. Man squandered. God called. Man wandered. God rescued. Man returned to dust and disobedience. And then, in the fullness of time, God sent his Son.

Evil usually does not look obviously evil. It does not wear a sign and announce itself as such. It usually arrives in compromised hearts and the quiet surrender of courage. Good Friday forces us to confront that.

The Passion according to John does not present a stage crowded with cartoon villains. Pilate is weak and calculating, yet he is not blind. He knows Jesus is innocent. He sees the malice and envy around him. He senses that something holy stands before him. Still, he yields. The empire presses on him. The crowd presses on him. His own desire to preserve himself presses on him most of all. And so a man who can still recognize justice and truth refuses to act in defense of them. That is how evil works its way into history.

When I was a kid, WWJD was everywhere—bracelets, t-shirts, billboards. “What would Jesus do?” I never cared for it. It was a bad question. Jesus would walk on water, give sight to the blind, and raise the dead. I was not going to do that. A better question, a concrete and real question is, “What does Jesus want me to do,” WDJWMTD. That would look silly on a t-shirt. But that is okay. The Lord is not a slogan or an abstract ideal. He is a living person who speaks to us and loves us.