[AI translation] The final scene of the tragic and yet glorious Good Friday Passion is revealed in the Word read. As we have heard, the dying Jesus speaks three more times in the final moments. All three of these sayings are so weighty, so meaningful, that they would be enough to form the basis of a sermon on their own. But I would like now to bring these three together in a single statement by the Apostle Paul, the Word he once wrote to the church at Ephesus: 'I pray that you may know, with all the saints, the breadth and length, the depth and height of the goodness of God.' (Eph 3,18) I feel that the last words of Jesus, just spoken among us, really show the immeasurable dimensions of the cross of Calvary - its width and length, depth and height.1) Let us first see the width and length of Jesus' cross.
The moment when, looking down from the cross, he sees Mary, his mother, and the disciple whom he "loved", John, and says to his mother, "Woman, behold your son!" And then to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" This does not simply mean that he entrusts one to the other, but much more! It means that there, under the cross, a new kind of community is born. With this saying, Jesus creates, in addition to and instead of the relationship of blood, the kinship of the spirit, the great spiritual family of people who flock around Him, the mystery of the church! This is how we belong together as members of one big family!
And the fact that so many of us, even strangers, belong together in this way: it is not just a wish, not a spiritual thrill. It is not some human sympathy, but the creation of a new relationship through the cross of Jesus! Here, for example, a younger person can really turn to an older person as if he were his father or mother. Or vice versa: as if that young person were his son or daughter, and as if the other were his elder brother. And not only 'would be', but is, in fact. It is a testimony to this experience that often a spiritual brother or sister can be closer to a person than a blood brother or sister. Brothers and sisters in faith often understand each other better than blood family members. In the large family of the church, the bonds are often closer and more enduring than in the small family of parents and children. He who believes in Jesus crucified cannot be alone, he has a family, he has many fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters here in this church, and he has many relatives all over the world. The bond that binds us together is not common blood, but the cross of Calvary. It is a mystical binding force that transcends national, linguistic and racial boundaries, uniting in one great family community all those old and young, men and women, rich and poor, who believe in the redemptive death of Jesus throughout the world. Indeed, a very mysterious community of brothers and sisters - in the strictest sense of the word - because they have become brothers and sisters through spiritual sharing in the body and blood of Jesus, in the body of Jesus broken on Calvary and in the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. Feel that Jesus is now looking at you from the cross, and at me, and saying to you, "Behold, she who sits here beside you is your spiritual mother, or your spiritual son, or daughter, your spiritual brother." Moreover, consider as such an immediate relative even the man who does not consider you as such, because he does not yet know that Jesus died on the cross for him too!
But this belonging is not only a gift, it is also a duty. When Jesus says to John: "Here is your mother", it is also a gift: "You, John, take care of this widow, who is alone and sorrowful, as if she were your mother, in my place." Jesus, when he establishes this new relationship between people through the cross, also commands us to regard every widow, orphan, abandoned, lonely soul, mourner, ward of the Father, as someone whom Jesus has entrusted to us, as if she were our mother, or son, or sister, or brother. Every person in need is a sacred legacy of the dying Jesus to those who believe that Jesus died on the cross for the redemption of this world. Behold, the horizontal dimension of the cross of Calvary has such a wide embrace! The two arms of Jesus stretched out on the cross truly embrace all humanity in one great family community! And how wide?! From the beginning of the world to the end of the world, there is an endless line that includes those who have lived, those who are living, and those who will live on this earth. This is the true width and length of the cross, invisible to the eye.
2) But just as immeasurable is its depth and height. Its depth is only hinted at by this low, anguished sigh, "I thirst!" If we take this word of Jesus only in a physical sense, we can see something of the terrible depth of suffering. Every crucified person is tormented by a maddening thirst, which comes from the devouring fever and the inflammation of the wounds on his hands and feet. Jesus has been hanging on the cross like this for six hours, his blood flowing from his wounds. His body is roasting and drying in the hot sun. Is it any wonder that he is exhausted and literally dying of thirst? It must be a terrible suffering to be wasted. Such a thirst is the burning fire of death in the blood, itself the most painful death. Behold, the dark throat of death is staring at him at close range, as he is about to devour his victim. The horror of all Good Friday culminates in that dying, short word: "I thirst!"
But there is a deeper meaning to this lament. Remember, when Jesus once spoke of the gnawing torment of hell, he sensed it in terms of thirst. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, it is said that when the rich man "lifts up his eyes in hell, being in torment, he cries out, "Father, Abraham, have mercy on me and forgive Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame!" (Lk 16,24) Well, this same hellish torment is experienced by Jesus in his own terrifying reality when he "thirsts". It is the cry of a soul thirsting for God's forgiving grace - the grace it will not receive because it must suffer all the torments of damnation for the sins of the world! One word is all! But it would be impossible to express in any torrent of human words what it means to be immersed in the waves of God's judgment, laden with the sins of the world, with your sins and mine. He is now emptying the last drop of that dreadful cup which, there in the garden of Gethsemane, has caught the sight of that blood-sweating horror; the bottom, the lowest, where the most bitter, where the most burning, the most soul- and body-devouring thirst, where hell is most hellish! The anguish of the damned soul trembles through the parched body, and is formed into words in this sigh, "I thirst!" This is the depth of hell! Such is the depth of hell that cross of Golgotha reaches! For us!!!
And it is precisely from this abyss that the source of life rises for us. His unquenchable thirst is for us the relief, the refreshment, the water of eternal life. Just as in the days of the wilderness wanderings of old, refreshing water sprang from the rock struck by Moses to give the weary wanderers new strength, so Christ, wounded and wasting away, is the rock from whom the water of eternal life springs to strengthen the wanderers of God. Here is the fountain of forgiveness of sins, let him drink of it who is convicted by his conscience. Here is the source of strength, draw from it who is weary of life. Here is the fountain of love, let it fill the heart of him from whom a cold world has drained it. Here is the fountain of consolation, draw from it who has had his soul dried up by sorrow. Here is the fountain of spiritual renewal, refresh in it him whose faith has waned! Here is the fountain of healing, keep your soul under whoever is in pain! Here is the fountain of salvation, draw assurance from it, who seeks encouragement against death! I come here again every day, for here is the reality of what Jesus once said, "He who is thirsty, let him come to me and drink." Yes, it is into this depth of redemptive thirst that the cross of Calvary reaches!
3) And finally the height of that cross is expressed by this triumphant exclamation, "It is finished!" It sounds as decisive, as self-conscious, as when one goes before one's master and reports something. This is indeed what happens here, that a divine messenger returns from his mission to his Sender and reports the result. Here Jesus is presenting the whole of his life's work as it were to God, from whom he has received the commission. So we hear him say, "It is finished!" It does not mean: "Well, at last, that's over, that's finished, I'm through with it..." - but as one who has laid his whole life's work ready before God: "It is finished!
How different it is from the last moment of anyone else's life! When we will have reached the end of our earthly journey, but much will remain unfinished! We will feel that we should have done this, that we should have done that, that we will have left unfinished work, unfinished plans, unrealised dreams, like a construction site that has suddenly stopped. Who can surrender his soul to God with the peace and reassurance that all is done? No matter how sick or old one may be, no matter how hard one may have worked, no matter how well one may have made the most of life, in one's last moments one sighs, "I would like to be healed, to do this or that, to live!" There is only one deathbed where a dying person does not sigh in this way: the cross of Calvary on which Jesus was laid out. What no man has ever said at the very end of his life - because he could not say it, because he dared not say it - Jesus says: "It is finished!" Yes, the great work of redemption is finished! That is what Jesus had to do. So that God could forgive man without compromising his own righteousness, so that God could love the sinner without loving his sin, so that he who has sinned would not be damned. Jesus was on a mission to give us redeemed life, life reconciled to God, life purified in the new birth, life freed from Satanic influences, life imbued with the powers of eternity, life more powerful than death - to restore to us eternal life. And now it is all done! As if to say, "Father, all that you have entrusted me with, I have done. I have become a man, I have taken upon myself the sin of the world, I have paid all in place of mine, for mine! I did everything exactly as we agreed in eternity! Behold, it is finished!" Do you feel how much divine dignity, how much exultant triumph there is in that exclamation? The cross of Calvary here reaches so high that it reaches up to heaven, to the throne of God. Behold, if we look at the height of the cross, our gaze is plunged into eternity.
Let us all look in spirit, then, at that cross of Calvary, and if we too, with all the saints, have now understood the true breadth and length, the immeasurable depth and height of God's goodness, let us glorify Him who, by His redeeming death, has thus united us to one another and to the eternal God!
Amen
Date: afternoon of 27 March 1970. Good Friday