Transcript of Abbot Clement=s Good Friday Homily, March 25, 2005

St. John=s introduction to the Passion, which we read yesterday at the beginning of the Last Supper says, that Jesus loved his own and he loved them to the end. Like many sentences in John=s gospel it=s intentionally ambiguous, that is, it has many meanings, all of which John intends. First Jesus loved his own to the end of his own life. But also he loved his own in the reaching out to the fulness of human nature and even to the fulness of divine possibility. He loved his own without limit, he loved them to the end.

We are to understand this not simply as an introductory statement but as a backdrop and a kind of tone that is to throw light on all that is to come in the passion of Jesus, how each event, each gesture, each word of the Lord is to be received and perceived. The Passion is a story of death, of suffering, of anguish, and of humiliation, but it is also a story of triumph, of love, and of freedom.

When the servant strikes the face of Jesus, when Jesus responds to the High Priest, he sees that there=s no fear in Jesus and he interprets it as insolence. The fact is that it wasn=t insolence it shows that Jesus was totally free. He had no other thoughts but to do the will of his Father and to bear the guilt of all those who were his own and embrace the wrath of the Father.

The early church and in the Middle Ages they often speak of God=s wrath. But today we shake in our boots and we say that can=t possibly be. Yet God=s wrath is everywhere present. God was furious, he was angry with man, with his creature. With everyone since all were under sin as Paul tells us.

I think it becomes even more strange, more need for reflection on our part as we grow older, and we come a litter closer to this mystery. When we learn to live a little bit more in mystery in paradox we tend to think of a few things. Suffering, anguish, hatred and sin, and it=s grip on people, and it=s alienation are sooner or later encountered by everyone in some measure.

Why would God strike out at Jesus in wrath? Or anyone else for that matter. I think that the statement of Jesus at the beginning of his Passion in John=s Gospel, that he loved his own to the end can give us some satisfaction and some understanding of God=s wrath.

God=s wrath is his love. God cannot give himself half-heartedly, partly, bit by bit. God gives himself, his whole love that is the problem. Man does not take it seriously. It is rejected and refused. God=s wrath is the gift of his whole being. Therefore, in his love which is being poured out is over whelming. At the same time it is the gift of his majesty. His power. His glory. His beauty. These are what is being rejected. If God=s wrath weren=t real it would not be love either. It is this love that is spurned by us. By those to whom that love is directed. What Relke mentions that he felt crushed in the presence of an angel=s glory. To be in the presence of God=s love which is so powerful that he offers it to us freely. Jesus was willing to endure God=s wrath, the suffering on the cross, and all else because he understood something of God=s glory. In fact he understood it as God himself does. He was willing to die for those who did not understand God=s glory nor God=s love. So he found this acceptable. He knew how the Father wanted to give himself to each of those who were his own. And in this knowledge Jesus strove to reestablish our relationship to God the Father with us who are his children.