Silence before the Cross

Good Friday
22 April 2011
Cathedral of Saint Ambrose, Des Moines


Silence. Today’s liturgy reduces us to silence. While the world around us continues to buzz with noise, as the sirens race past the Church and our businesses continue to work as if this were any normal day, today, the liturgy brings us to silence.

What can we say before the cross? When God gives up his life, when the Word of God breathes his last, what words can we possibly add?

The cross stands before us as a mystery. It causes us to stand in its shadow, and we are reduced to silence. This is the mystery of the work of God, in Christ Jesus, for our salvation.

How often do we face the work of God – how often do we stand before the Cross – and try to make sense of it? We try to reduce the work of God to our own terms, our own explanations. We see the arrest, and we fight to protect God from His divine plan. We run away from him, rather than following as his loyal disciples. We try to keep him from embracing the Cross, rather than trusting him.

We stand before him in chains and question him. We try to get him to deny his convictions – his very identity – hoping that our ideas are proven right. We want God to conform to our ideas of how he should act. We want him to see things how we see them; to think how we think. We want him to work and act according to our categories. We want him to reign as an earthly king – to take away all worldly evil – to remove all suffering from our lives. And, when he does work, act, speak differently than we want… what do we do then?

Whenever anyone speaks in the Gospel, they insult Christ. Judas betrays him, Peter denies him, the high priest commits blasphemy, Pilate denies truth.

And so, here we stand with Mary, with Magdalene, with John at the foot of the cross – in silence. As the world continues to go by, making all its noise, we stand in silence. And, it is only here that we can hear the Word of God. “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” “Everyone who belongs to the truth hears my voice.” “Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your Mother.” “Father, forgive them.” “It is finished.”

Do you hear how noisy the world is around us, how it feels even now like it wants to break in here into our profound silence? How many of us live everyday in the noise outside? How often do we let this noise surround us – fill us? How often do we let the noise outside fill us so much that we cannot hear the silence – that we cannot hear Christ speak to us in the silence? Our world drowns out the silence – with television, internet, youtube, ipods, radio, sports, practices, etc. etc. We are so used to it that we are scared of more than a few moments of silence – so scared that we run from it. And, in running, we cannot hear the still, whispering voice of God speaking from the tree.

So today, we pause to stand before the cross in silence. We come before the cross, leaving behind our own ideas of how God should work, to use our speechless mouths to kiss the way God chose to redeem us.

After this liturgy, we will go back into the world as it continues in its own noise, ignoring the cross. But, don’t let the world’s noise flood back into you. Keep the silence within. At 3:00, take a minute or two to stop. Just stop and sit in silence and remember the moment when God gave his life on the cross for you. Let the silence fill your heart and let God speak to you. Then, as the moment finishes, simply say, “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for your mercy and love. Thank you.”