The words of the centurion upon Jesus Christ’s solemn departure from life, “Truly this man was the Son of God,” echo the Christian confession which only finds its fullest expression in the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice.1 Jesus lived his entire life in preparation for this moment. Not only did Christ’s earthly life lead up to this point, but rather the entirety of human history was to prepare for this moment, through prophets and providence and divine intervention. It is completely and utterly impossible to even begin to know Jesus without first coming to terms with Good Friday.

Jesus in his humility, in the form of a slave,2 is where I think we see Christ for who he in his essence. His glory is not a worldly glory, it’s something greater and lesser in different ways. How many truly humble people do we know? I find in myself a lack of humility, when other aspects of virtue seem more or less easily grasped true humility often feels out of reach. Essential to humility is allowing ourselves to appear as weak as we actually are. For Jesus, in the words of Pope St. John Paul II, “It is thus, at the moment of his greatest weakness, that the Son of God is revealed for who he is: on the Cross his glory is made manifest.”3 Jesus must increase within me, but I must decrease outside of myself.4

Revelation, that is truth revealed by God, is essential to Christianity. Good Friday is an indispensable example of Divine Revelation, revealing deep realities about Christ, “By the Cross the mystery of Jesus Christ was revealed,” says Pope Benedict XVI.5 There is no revelation without Christ, who himself can be identified as the Word of God itself. There is no Old Covenant, and there certainly is no New Covenant, without the Divine Wisdom of Christ. Good Friday shows us what God wanted us to be shown, Easter follows to offer the interpretation.

I will close with my favorite passage of the New Testament, the words of St. Paul, which exemplifies the importance of the Cross of Jesus Christ: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”6

  1. CCC 444 ↩︎

  2. “Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8). ↩︎

  3. John Paul II. Evangelium Vitae. Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1995. ↩︎

  4. “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). ↩︎

  5. “The Gospel according to St Mark, which we may consider a reflection of St Peter’s preaching, focuses closely on the moment when the Roman centurion, who, in the light of Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross, said: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (15:39). By the Cross the mystery of Jesus Christ was revealed. Beneath the Cross the Church of the peoples was born: the centurion of the Roman platoon in charge of his execution recognized Christ as the Son of God” (Benedict XVI. Homilies of His Holiness Benedict XVI (English). Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013). ↩︎

  6. 1 Corinthians 1:22–24 ↩︎