Of all the words of Jesus from the cross, the ones that mean most to me are the ones in our Gospel today (Matt 26:24-27:66) You can see and hear me give this Homily on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TTd38L2W24&t=256s
I have two reasons for this. The first is that we hear the actual words that Jesus spoke, rather than a translation. So we hear, “Eli Eli lama sabachtani.” In English “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is of course good to meditate on what those words mean, which I will do in a minute, but there is a kind of power, of immediacy, in hearing or saying the actual words, the actual sounds he uttered. All the words of Jesus are precious to us his followers. Think of the Prayer he taught us, “Our Father” and how wonderful it is to use his words rather than our own; but of course, however special these words are, they are a translation from the words he actually used.
When I was a University Chaplain, I became much more aware how strange it is for people to have to pray in a different language from the one they’re used to. I chose therefore to have certain prayers in Latin, so that we were all praying in a language that was not our own. Some of the English students complained, of course, until I pointed out that they were only experiencing the strangeness all those whose first language was not English were facing all the way through the Mass. I suspect that the writers of the Gospel recorded those words of Jesus in his own language because most of what he said at his trial would have been said in Greek, so that Pilate could understand him. The other reason was probably because they are an exact quotation from a Psalm, and so were words he would have learnt as a child, sung with his mother on her knee; because the whole Psalm is both a cry of desolation, and yet becomes at its end a strong affirmation that in the midst of immense sorrow and agony, the faithful still put their trust in the Lord.
So we hear: “I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you…. For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.”
And a bit later: “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him..”
And this is the second reason why these words mean so much to me. It is because they express the way Jesus on the cross identifies with all of us, his sad and suffering fellow men and women. We heard St Paul declare in our 2nd Reading (Phil 2:6-11) that because Jesus chose this way, because he humbled himself to become like us in every way, even to death on a cross, “Every tongue should acclaim (him) as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” But how should our tongues acclaim him? How can we acclaim such sacrificial love? An answer is given us in the 1st Reading, (Isaiah 50:4-7) where the word “tongue” is also used. Here we are told that “The Lord has given me a disciple’s tongue. ….Each morning he wakes me to hear, to listen like a disciple. The Lord has opened my ear.” And who is our example, who is the one who most perfectly listens to God the Father like a disciple? Jesus, of course. He says, predicting his death on the cross, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that…. I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.” (John 8:28) And of course in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he prays in his agony of fear to the Father “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42)
In the end, Jesus acclaims who he is, not by what he says, not by what he teaches, however important that may be, but by his actions of love and service and sacrifice. That is what we will be bringing to mind in Holy Week. The dirtiest job – washing the disciple’s feet : the giving of his life - that he makes present in the Bread and Wine at the Last Supper : the Watch of Prayer that I have already mentioned, and of course what we heard in the Passion – his suffering and death on the cross. It reminds me, full of words as I am, that in the end it is what I am and what I do that speaks more loudly than any words. Internet priest that I am, the only way I can put this into practice online is to offer to pray for people, but then, when anyone does ask for prayer, making sure I respond, both by actually praying for them at my daily Mass, and by replying to tell them that I am doing this. As I said to one person recently who had asked me for prayer. My prayer may not change what you are feeling about life, but the fact that someone somewhere cares is the most powerful prayer of all.
In the same way, it may seem strange to say that the death of a man 2000 years ago, saying just before he dies “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” can make a difference. Looked at from a worldly point of view, it can make no difference at all; but for those of us who believe, who put our trust in him, it makes all the difference in the world, and inspires us, as best we can, to imitate his death and thus share in his resurrection.
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