Thomas Griffin 3/29/24
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Were you there when they tortured and killed God? For many Catholics, Good Friday is unlike any other day of the year. From a young age we are told about this serious and somber day when Jesus was brutally beaten and killed. God became one of us, and the response of humanity was to murder Him. On this day, humanity showed its ugliness and God showed His reckless love.
As a young boy, I vividly remember going to the Stations of the Cross and the 3:00pm service at my parish. My parents’ commitment to taking the family to these opportunities for prayer are among the most formative moments in my faith life. There was something different about them. Every Sunday we would go to Mass, say our prayers, and go home for a relaxing Sunday. People at Mass appeared to be praying but it seemed more routine than anything else.
Good Friday was different. It felt like I was attending God’s funeral.
I remember seeing Catholics of all ages walk around the church property in silence reflecting on what it would have been like to be there as Jesus was condemned, whipped, spat on, and nailed to the wooden beams of the cross. As we walked around the parish campus we would sing, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”
Writing those words transports me back to what it feels like to reflect on the death of Jesus on Good Friday. It is like we are at his funeral. The difference between this day and any other funeral is that we have the opportunity to actually make contact with the power of Jesus’ cross. We can unleash its power in our lives if we see that he endured all of that in order to set us free from our sinful ways. Christ’s bloodied face looks at you on this day and says, “I did this all for love of you.”
The 3:00pm service in the church brought all of these feelings to another level. It begins in silence. The priests enter the sanctuary and prostrate themselves on the ground. They lay face down in complete abandonment to Christ because 3:00pm is the moment when he died. As they do so, the people kneel in reverence and adoration of the cross.
Catholics are concrete. We depend on the physicality of faith because God became one of us and saved us through physical ways. The humiliation and pain that Jesus endured on Good Friday is, in many ways, unimaginable. This year, on Good Friday, immerse yourself in what it would have been like to actually view Christ’s torture. Make this day different, because it is. This is the day that Christ was killed, but if you look closely and catch a glimpse of his beaten face – you’ll see it is also the day of God’s ultimate victory.
Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and two sons. He has a masters degree in theology and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine.
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