Friday, April 03, 2015 - GOOD FRIDAY - GOD KNOWS, THEREFORE, I KNOW

To read the texts click on the texts: Is 52:13-53:12; Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9; Jn 18:1-19:42

The phrase “God knows” is used most often to indicate lack of knowledge on our part. When something is beyond our comprehension and understanding we use the phrase “God knows”.  And in every sense of the word we are right, because God does indeed know.

However, even as we use the phrase, I am not sure whether we really mean it. This is because sometimes we tend to lose heart, we tend to lose faith and we give in to despair and lose hope. This indicates that we do not really believe that God knows.

I want to focus on three characters mentioned in the Gospel of John and try to apply this phrase “God knows” to all three. The first of these is Jesus. Jesus has washed the feet of his disciples and is aware now that he must go to the Cross, he must go to what God knows is to happen to him. Since Jesus believes in his heart that “God knows”, he goes to his cross courageously and without flinching. This is evident in the Passion of John. Having said that, however, I want to insist, that Jesus is not a sadist. He is not looking for trouble, he is not looking for the Cross, he is not looking to die. However, Jesus does what he has to do and only after he has done that leaves the rest ion God’s hands. If being faithful to his Mission means having to go to the Cross so be it. This is because Jesus knows that God knows. Even as Jesus hangs on the cross there is no miraculous rescue, Elijah will not come to save. There is no seeming intervention and interference by God, but Jesus is confident in the knowledge that “God knows”.  Those of us who might imagine that Jesus was God and therefore could go to the Cross as he did are very much mistaken. Jesus was fully human and it was in his full humanity that he went to his cross and his death and his annihilation. He did not have any foreknowledge of the resurrection, what he had only was his FAITH that “God knows”.

The second character is that of Mary. She is regarded in tradition as a model of faith, and yet she is not a Mary who is only docile and submissive. She is the handmaid of the Lord surely but she is also courageous enough to ask questions of God and expect an answer. Yet, when she receives an answer that goes beyond her comprehension, she does not persist, but accepts like Jesus humbly and courageously. If it is God’s will that she be the mother of a condemned man, if it is God’s will that her son be crucified to a tree, if it is God’s will that she stand at the foot of the Cross of her son, then so be it. God’s will be done because “God knows”.

Two words and one conviction you must take as you leave this evening the ONE CONVICTION that GOD KNOWS.

Aristotle define humans as rational animals, Rene Descartes took it one step further and said “I think, therefore I am” (ego Cogito ergo sum). I want you to take home another revelation today, “God knows, therefore I know”.