“He Did That for Me” - Good Friday – 4.7.23

“He Did That for Me”

By: Fr. David Schmidt

Church of the Assumption (Regina Coeli Parish) - Bellevue, PA

Today, on Good Friday, we come together to remember what Christ did for us on the Cross over 2,000 years ago. I encourage you on this Good Friday to view the Cross of Christ in a deeply personal way. When we look at the Cross, I want each of us, myself included, to say, “He did that for me.”

God’s love is a deeply personal love. He wants to reveal His love to us today in a deeply personal way. How He will do that is by taking each one of us by the hand and leading us through each moment of His Passion as He shows us what He was willing to endure out of love for us.

First, Jesus takes us by the hand and leads us to Gethsemane, to His Agony in the Garden. We witness His great agony. We see in this moment Jesus accepting our punishment by giving His ‘yes’ to the Father, as He accepts the chalice that He has been given to drink. He is in agony, not just for what He is about to endure, but He is in agony over the great pain that sin will cause us in our life. However, in the Agony of the Garden, He experiences consolation when He thinks about our love for Him, and about each of those moments in which we failed, yet, we entrusted ourselves to His infinite mercy that He so greatly desires to pour out upon us.

We leave the Garden and Jesus then brings us to the moment when He was condemned to die. He says to us, “As the crowds were shouting, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ The only voice I heard was your voice. This is because I listen to all the cries of your heart. I listen so attentively to everything you say to me. I hear your proclamations of love for me. And I even hear those cries of anger and rebellion against me. My child if you only knew what was happening in my heart at that moment when I heard you yell ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ I was not angry. But with great love in my heart for you I just kept thinking ‘One day you will see. One day you will know how much I love you. One day you will see how those cries for my death will actually bring about your salvation. And it was thinking of that blessed day that gave me the strength to continue forward in my Passion.”

Then, Jesus takes us by the hand once again, and brings us to the scourging at the pillar where He reveals to us that each time He was whipped, it was for each sin that we will commit. However, with each blow He says, “I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you.”

Jesus then leads us through the various stations of His Passion on the path to Calvary, and in each moment the words from the Stations of the Cross well up in our hearts, “We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You. Because, by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world.”

We are then brought to His crucifixion when Jesus was nailed to the Cross. Jesus says to us, “These nails create the wounds in my hands and my feet that will be a constant reminder for all eternity what I was willing to suffer for you. My wounds will become a constant source of healing for every wound you will experience in this life. Simply press your wounds against my wounds, and I will bring healing and restoration to your heart. When you see the nails in my hands and my feet on the Cross, I want you to know that it was not the nails that held me on the Cross. What held me on the Cross was my love for you.”

Finally, Jesus takes us by the hand and brings us to the foot of the Cross. We kneel in silence for a time before Him. We reflect on our sins that led to Jesus being nailed to the Cross. It brings great sorrow to our heart, and we beg the Lord for His mercy. Then, we hear Jesus speak from the Cross, “I remember the day I formed you in your mother’s womb. I created you and formed you with great plans for your life. I knew every sin that you would ever commit, and I knew what the consequences of those sins would be. I knew in creating you that it would also mean that I would have to die for you. However, I did not hesitate even for a moment in creating you. I did not think for one moment ‘Is he or she worth creating?’

Your life is so precious to me. You are more than worth it. All I could think about in the moment when I created you and the moment when I hung upon the Cross was you being in heaven with me and singing with me the song of victory. The song of the victory of my Cross. I thought about your journey through all the ups and downs in your life in becoming the person that I created you to be. I didn’t think about those times when you sinned against me. I only thought about those moments in which you entrusted yourself to my mercy and professed your love for me. I thought about your ultimate ‘yes’ that would lead you to eternal life. It was the thought of this that filled my heart with overflowing joy even as I hung upon the Cross.”

Today, as we reflect on the Cross of Christ, we know that we can never repay Jesus for what He did for us. The debt was too big for us to pay. But He paid it for us. All He desires from us in return is our heart. He desires our love. He desires for us to entrust ourselves to His mercy, so that He can lead us to eternal life.

On the Cross, we see a God who would rather die than risk spending eternity without us. Each one of us can look upon the Cross this day and say in a deeply personal way, “He did that for me.” May we hear the Lord speaking from the Cross His words of love and mercy into the depths of our heart. May we come before the Lord today with grateful hearts, and simply say, “Thank you. Thank you, Lord, for your love. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for all that you have done for us. Thank you for dying for us. Thank you for saving us from our sins. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.”