There is light even in our present darkness
Jesus’s victory over death tells us that we can have hope even in the face of unimaginable sorrow
One night, in 1499, the young Michelangelo, aged only 23, broke into the Chapel of Santa Petronilla and chiselled into his first masterpiece the words, “Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this”.
The masterpiece is, of course, the Pietà. He made this addition after hearing it said that a rival sculptor, Cristoforo Salari, was widely believed to be its creator, since Michelangelo himself was considered too young to have produced such a remarkable work of art. He later regretted his outburst of pride and never again added a personal signature to any piece of his work.
The Pietà belongs to Good Friday. It depicts, with utter tenderness, the moment when the dead body of Jesus, taken down from the cross of his execution, is laid in the arms of Mary, his mother.
The Pietà is a powerful image for all of us today, as we follow, with mounting dread, the daily roll-call of the number of people who have succumbed to death, attributed to the vicious work of the coronavirus. I cannot remember a time when such gruesome statistics were the headline of every news bulletin.
The Pietà is an image of profound tragedy and sorrow. It speaks to the heartbreak of mothers in every time and place. Yet it does not match the sharpest of sorrow among us today.
Today, mothers, daughters, sons and the closest of friends are not able to embrace or even touch their loved ones in that final journey into death. They cannot care for their bodies. They must stand back from their lost one, and distance themselves even from each other, as the body is brought to its final resting place. What sorrow can compare with this? What scars this will leave, burdens to be carried for years to come.
The eyes of faith struggle to pierce this darkness. If we are to cling to hope in this saddest of times, we need to follow closely in the footsteps of Jesus. He alone breaks through this darkness. He does so only because he is the Son of God, the Creator. If this is not so, then he, too, is helpless before the brutality of death.
As God he conquers. Yet he is also one of us, fully one of our flesh. Without this human nature of Jesus, his victory would remain out of our reach. But, as wholly one of us, his victory is shared with his brothers and sisters, offered to the whole of our human family.
The footsteps of Jesus that we follow today bring us to his death. Yet there are more, unseen footsteps that lead us further on. Only by following them do we come to realise the fullness of the victory he brings.
From its beginnings, the Christian creed has proclaimed that after his death and before his appearances to his disciples, the victorious Jesus “descended into hell”. He entered the realms of every extreme darkness, bearing the cross, the weapon by which he had won victory. By means of his cross he broke open the tomb of death. Now he carries this cross, not to Golgotha, but into the presence of every forgotten soul and broken spirit. By the power of the cross, wielded by him as God, he belittles the death that defeats each of us.
To us, his brothers and sisters, in every time and place, Jesus proclaims, “Arise O sleeper and rise from the dead and Christ will give you light!”
The images of today are powerful: death coming in slow suffocation; an inconsolable mother embracing her dead son; the shattering of a dream and of a company of friends. The onset of total darkness. Such a day hardly deserves the title of Good Friday.
Yet when we follow the invisible footsteps taken by Jesus after that cruel death, then a crack of light begins to open before us.
This death is not the end; this mother will receive her consolation; this cross becomes the weapon of victory, breaking open the tomb and leading all who have died, reaching out for mercy in a triumphal procession. In this divine light, today becomes Good Friday.
May this light uphold us in our dismay and guide us in our every word and deed.