CRIES

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Cries!”

Good Friday is a good day to get in touch with our cries– our tears – our fears – the deep pains and hurts – which are rooted in us along with many other roots, buried in the hard earth of our soul, beneath this tree called me. I am bark and branch, lsapling and sap, but especially roots – roots, without which I would fall. (Cf. first reading, Isaiah 53: 2)

Our roots – what we can’t see – the underneath stuff of our life is the important stuff – where we are planted – have been planted as well as uprooted and replanted.

Our roots, our story, our family, our parents, our life experiences, our jobs, our memories of our experiences hold us up. We become what happened to us. As Tennyson says in his poem, Ulysses, “I am part of all that I have met.” We become what we eat. We become what we meet. Better we become how we digest and process what is happening to us every moment of our life – and sometimes we cry tears and sometimes we laugh tears about what has happened to us.

Cries are part of life – stress on the word “part” of life. What are our cries? What have we watered our tree with?

Obviously, cries are just part of our repertoire – just some of our sounds. Life is laughter and tears, comedy and tragedy, death and resurrection, downs and ups. Good Friday isn’t the only date on our calendar. Easter Sunday sends hints of its presence – with each movement of our watch or clock – “Tick. Tick.” Or “Silence. Silence.” And here in the Northern Hemisphere, flowers are popping up on our lawn. Trees are about to bud. We get out our rakes, wheelbarrows, and search for our gardening gloves. We feel Spring in the air and spring in our feet. New life is budding. Resurrection and hope is in the air.

But tonight, in the meanwhile, we stop for a moment. Today is Good Friday and we listen to cries.

Cries.

On Good Friday we stand under the tree of Jesus. We stand on Christ’s roots. We stand under the tree of the cross – knowing there is so much more underneath the story of Christ than what we see.

We face the cross and we face the reality that one of our human sounds is crying.

We cry when we are born. Thank God. We cry at death.

To be human is to cry deep screams – in loud or out loud.

When we picture nails being driven into Jesus’ hands and feet we wince. I picture him screaming. When they raised up the cross – when gravity pulled the weight of his body downwards, we can feel the hurt. Was he numb from the loss of blood from the crown of thorns and the beatings the day before? Or did he scream a stream of loud cries?

“Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”

This crucifix here in this church is somewhat easy to look at – like the crosses on our walls back home or on our rosaries – compared to what the reality must have been. But could we endure facing the bloody reality of Christ on the cross 52 weeks of the year?

TODAY’S SECOND READING

The title of my homily is, “Cries!”

In today’s second reading, we heard, “In the days when Christ was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”

The first meaning of “obey” is to listen. We stand under the cross and we listen to Jesus. We hear his words from the cross – words of forgiveness and thinking of others. We hear his cry to his Father – his feeling that the Father has forsaken him. Then we hear his learning on the cross: his letting go and putting himself into his Father’s hands.

We stand under the cross and we listen. We learn. We notice.

BOO BOO

I’m sitting on a soft sofa in a living room – at a family gathering. It’s many years ago. On the other side of the room, my grandnephew Christopher, aged 3 or so – looks across the room and notices my hand. He sees a band aid on one of my fingers – a flesh colored band aid – and yells a loud cry from the other side of the room pointing at my cut finger, “Boo. Boo!” And everyone in the room becomes silent. And he walks across the room and everyone is watching and he takes my cut finger and says, “Boo Boo.” And then he kisses my cut.

It was one of those moments – one of those simple life moments that make up the moments of our life – our roots.

I didn’t know what to say, other than, “I cut it yesterday. It doesn’t hurt today.”

EXODUS

One of the oldest lines in the Bible is in the Book of Exodus, when it says, “God heard the cry of the Israelites in Egypt.” (Cf. Exodus 3:7,9)

God spotted a hurting people.

Of course, forever afterwards, we cry out to God, “Why don’t You hear the cries of the people in Darfur and Zimbabwe? Why don’t You hear the cries of children abused? Why don’t You hear the cries of those stuck in 1,001 different ways around our world?

Of course, we all know the comeback of preachers who then say, “And God says, ‘Why don’t you hear the cries of the poor and those in Darfur? Why don’t you hear the cries of children and those mumbling and crying in nursing homes?”

And we add, “But You’re God.”

CHRIST: THERE’S DOESN’T SEEM TO BE A CONCLUSION

As Christians we know there is too much mystery in life – too many twisted and turning roots that we can’t see underneath the tree of life. As humans we know there are many more questions than there are answers.

As Christians we know that God heard the human cry of every human being and so he became one of us – human – born a baby of Mary – born in a borrowed stable – was hunted and hounded – and was rejected when he started to really challenge people to notice their brothers and sisters – and to hear their cries – especially when they were hurting and wounded on the roads of life.

As Christians we know we are called to hear the cries of others – to become like little children who somehow know when something is wrong in mommy or daddy or brother or sister or uncle or aunt. We are called to be like children and see that every person in this room here tonight and every room – has a boo boo – a hurt – a cry – a scream – a wound.

Every person here tonight knows Good Friday. Every person here tonight has been on a cross – maybe right now.

And so tonight we come up the aisle like little children and kiss the cross.

And so in life, we cross rooms to help those who are cut and crying.