Good Friday March 29, 2024 Cycle B

 Good Friday    March 29, 2024

The proclamation of the Passion this evening begins, of all places, in a garden.  We are told in the opening lines: “Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered.”  

And our proclamation of the Passion this evening ends, of all places, in a garden. We are told: “Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried.”   “there was a garden???”   Hmm.   An odd place for an execution.    

Any gardeners with us this evening?    Gardens have special significance.  The garden is not just the place where these events happened to occur.  The garden has, I believe, a deep religious significance. 

Can you think of any other gardens in the Bible?  Well. The Garden of Eden, going back to the very beginning of the human drama, to the time of Adam and Eve, and especially the breaking of the relationship between the Divine and the human, fractured by human disobedience.  …   Remember?

Now that breach of disobedience, of willfully choosing our own Will over the Will of God for us, is rectified, healed, made whole by the obedience of Jesus.  In the Letter to the Hebrews, our second reading this evening, we heard, “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he because the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” 

This “obedience” is not about following the rules and doing what you are told.  Not at all.  Rather this obedience is an act of freedom, an act of will, a decision and a choice to conform your will to the Will of God the Father, out of complete and perfect trust in God’s love for you. 

TWO                    TWO                    TWO          Good Friday 03/29/2024

It is summed up in our responsorial psalm this evening: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Jesus fully, totally, completely gave Himself into the loving hands of His Father, in spite of all the indications to the contrary.   And in doing so, Jesus healed the wound of disobedience from the earliest time of humans. 

In Jesus we are now able to live in the freedom of the children of God, in harmony with God, achieving who we most deeply and truly are: God’s beloved children.  All because of His obedience, in a garden.

AMEN.