Holy Week | Good Friday | The Cost of Love

What does it mean to love in this world? Is it to give without expecting something in return? Is it to protect the people and things you cherish from the harshness of this brutal, sometimes inhumanely secular world? Is it to sacrifice yourself or parts of yourself because you care more for another than for yourself?

There is much sin in this world. Before the birth of Jesus, there was no savior and sin did not have a penance. The wage of sin is death, and Jesus died for us, as payment for the sin of the world, for all of us.

Good Friday is a solemn and mysterious day, honoring the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Traditionally, dark colors are worn and we honor the sacrifice through repentance, reflection, and remembrance.

Today, God reveals to us what it means to love in a way that hurts us yet heals us — suffering for the sake of others at the expense of ourselves. But in return we have a glimpse of what it means to be part of the kingdom of God — where from the finite self grows infinite love.

Good Friday forces us to confront the weight of human brokenness. How many times have we acted in sin because of selfish desires and hurt others because of it? I have, many times, prioritizing my own selfish ego, desires, wants, needs, time, energy, life before someone else’s. Selfishness is rooted in sin, coming from the ego, manifested by the Dark Prince, the Devil, the Enemy, the Antichrist, Satan. Darkness comes in many forms, in many disguises, some not even visible to the eye. And through his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus defeated the darkness by becoming the True Light of this World. A light that shines even in the darkness, a light that lives and a light that loves.

For that is the victory that overcame the world — our faith.

Is love faith? Is faith trust? And what does it mean to trust?

To believe in the parts of someone else that are good and pure and excellent and true.

Can we trust God? Will God protect us from the sin of the world? As shown by this day, we indeed can trust Him. Although it took so many years, when a thousand years is like a day to Him, Jesus came into the world and saved us.

The famous 1 Corinthians verse — love is patient. God’s love for us is outside the limitations of time and space — it is all encompassing, and it isn’t within the constraints of our own time. That is why we want and pray for, whatever is good, comes to us at a time when we thought we were forgotten and forget God.

Sometimes in the waiting we discover truth. Whey crucifixion? A prolonged, unnecessarily tortuous, and painful wait for the inevitable demise of Jesus’ body. But maybe through the waiting and suffering, when all we want is for the pain to end, to just end, whether it’s through death or love or hope or healing, we discover truth.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

It ends, with a question. And, it ends, with an answer.

The deepest truth about God is that love is the willing to suffer for the sake of others. While in this world, it may appear that satisfying our very own desires, needs, wants, thirst, and hunger will sustain us and complete us, it is the very opposite — a paradox. With the fulfillment of our emptiness in our constant search for what we lack, while existing in a state of want, we experience an emptiness of God, a void, a darkness that leads to death.

An act that passes physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients was passed this year. To ease suffering, to quicken death, to relieve impatience and the need for comfort, physicians are now allowed if not required to approve the suicide of patients. Should this be allowed? If only to ease their pain and quicken death? Is death something to be desired?

(I mean, maybe they can just give the patient a ton of morphine and call it a day. Pain can be eased in many ways, and it doesn’t have to involve suicide…)

Or maybe we could play Devil’s Advocate and argue that physicians are sacrificing the state of their own soul by approving suicide of their terminally ill patients. Give the guy a needle, an injection, a pill so he can end his damned life already,

FOR THE LOVE OF…

JUST END YOUR LIFE ALREADY…

COME ON…

(No.)

The paradox is that love has a payment. You need to pay for love. And when I mean, pay, it can be in any form, all forms. Love is costly. It’s an investment.

So go to service today. It’s an advance payment for your future soul in Heaven.

Love is work. Work for love.

And we should really be grateful that we don’t have to bear the full weight of the world on our shoulders, the way Jesus did. The payment Jesus made is infinite compared to the payments we make on a daily basis. Jesus is infinite selflessness. Thanks Jesus.

Also, God just really wants us to love Him. And this is the cost…

“It is finished.” (John 19:30)