Journeying Home – A journey inward, a journey home – A Reflection for Good Friday
A Good Friday Reflection
“Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.”
— 1 Kings 19:7
A note for the reader
This reflection belongs to the flow of the Triduum. It does not stand alone. Last evening, today, and tomorrow belong together. And what flows through these days is love.
We come into this day prayerfully.
We bow our heads and give thanks to God. We prepare ourselves for this act of worship and devotion, and we ask that God be here with us. We set our intention that we will spend this time with God, that we will not allow ourselves to be distracted by the cares or circumstances of our lives, but that we may remain with our Saviour in this journey on the cross. May this time be of true benefit for us all.
Pause for a few moments.
Be still.
Allow yourself to be prepared for this time.
Some of you may have had the opportunity last evening to share in the Last Supper, and today is the second part of a three-part journey that we take every year at this time. Our theme today is Journeying Home.
This journey began last evening with the commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. It is out of that context that we now journey today. So if you were not present anywhere for worship last evening, let me simply remind you of the setting. Everything that is taking place is taking place out of love.
We cannot separate last evening from today, nor today from tomorrow. There is a flow. And what flows through these three days is love. It is the full outpouring of Divine Love, the kind of love the world had not yet understood.
This is the culmination of a work. The culmination of an outpouring of the One who is Creator. And the One who is Creator is love. Hence, the only thing that can come forth from the Creator is love. So in this whole incarnation, the message has been, and continues to be, the message of love.
And so we want to apply that to ourselves and to sit with that reality of God’s love—God’s complete, unconditional love. This is where we begin today.
We begin, too, with those words of Jesus, spoken after he had washed the disciples’ feet:
Do you know what I, your Lord and Teacher, have done to you?
If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, then you also ought to wash one another’s feet. These were among the last words of the Master to the disciples. You are, as it were, duty-bound to wash one another’s feet.
So may that be the foundation on which all that we hear this day is built. And by hear, I do not mean only that you hear me. I desire that you hear yourself as much as, or even more than, you are hearing me. Because we have created a space in which we are inviting the Spirit to be present. And if we are inviting the Spirit to be present, then it is not only my voice that is to be heard, but the voice of the Spirit.
So we listen. You listen. And I listen.
That together we may discern what the Spirit is saying to us, collectively and personally, on this occasion.
The First Word
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Let us allow those words to ruminate within us. And let us be aware that this is our journey. Our Lord Jesus took his journey some two thousand years ago, but you and I are still journeying home. We are in the journey. And today Jesus is showing us, through these words, some of the essentials for the way.
So we hear, at that crisis moment, that moment of transition, that moment when the return home is imminent, Jesus leaves us clues. Just like in the old story where children wandering away from home left signs along the path—except Jesus does not leave crumbs that birds can carry away. Jesus leaves signposts. Things that do not disappear. And here is the first:
The journey home begins with forgiveness.
No one can begin this journey to God without first forgiving. So we see Jesus laying this down for us. They are not aware of themselves. They are not conscious.
Jesus looks through eyes that enable him to see the unconscious state of his brothers and sisters. He is able to see that, underneath it all, there is still brother and sister, but they are asleep. They are acting in ignorance.
In our own journeys, we often fail to see this. And because we do not see it, we cannot rightly interpret what is happening before us. We cannot appreciate that the one who has injured us is asleep, unconscious, even when the action or the words come across as forceful, deliberate, and intentional. Even then, they are still asleep. Still in ignorance.
And so the one who is travelling home must learn to see this. Because if I can see it, then the experience, rather than delaying my journey home, may actually advance it.
If I am not able to see that the other is asleep and acting in ignorance, then I retaliate. I resist. And the divine grace, that food given for the journey—like the food given to Elijah when he was told, Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you—is then wasted in fruitless activity. We spend it fighting ignorance. We spend it resisting those who are asleep. We are not called to fight.
And I must say this plainly: I was deeply disappointed recently to see the words, Let us fight violence. The one who is awake cannot fight violence, because violence itself comes out of ignorance. The cross is violence. And Jesus says from the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Jesus takes the experience before him and rises above it. That is the other way we engage the experiences of our lives. We either turn and fight them, or we use them to go further.
“Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Seven times?” No. Use every opportunity to rise. Use every wound to go higher. Do not waste the grace that has been given to you by fighting evil. Return evil with love. Do not render evil for evil. We do not rise by fighting sleeping people, but by releasing them.
| We do not rise by fighting sleeping people, but by releasing them.
It is important that, as we read the Scriptures and hear them read, we bring them in. Not merely as words to be discussed or admired, but as words to be lived. These words are food. These words are meant for the journey. They are the substance that gives us the ability to move forward, to grow, to become.
So the act of forgiving—the first action from the cross—is a way of telling you and me that on this journey we must not allow ourselves to be distracted. We must not spend what God has given us in ways that do not serve our highest good.
The refusal to forgive does not imprison the other first. It imprisons me. Because I hold that person in my heart. I keep that person in my inner space. There is no room for God, because I am keeping the wound alive. Whenever I see them, the anger rises up, the hurt rises up, the memory rises up, and all of that is grace that could have been used elsewhere. So I do myself no good.
Here is Jesus on the cross, going through this tremendous transformation, and he understands that he needs everything the Father has given him in order to pass through it. So he lets go. He lets go of hate. He lets go of anger.
Those around him, seeing that he was called the Son of God, might well have expected that at any moment he would call down thunderbolts from heaven and destroy his enemies. Because that is how the world thinks. If you have the power, you strike back. If they wound you, you wound them more deeply. If you have the superior force, you use it to destroy the other.
But such is not the way of God.
Though you hate me, though you despise me, yet will I love you. Does the Christian church truly understand the gift it offers the world? Not our beautiful buildings. Not our great numbers. Not our ceremonies and festivities. But our embodiment of love.
If love is our offering, then each one of us must keep checking ourselves to see where we are on that conveyor belt that is taking us home.
Unforgiveness blocks the journey. Forgiveness permits it.
Pause for reflection
The Second Word
“Today you will be with me in paradise.”
Jesus offers us a second signpost. A second pointer along the road. Today you will be with me in paradise.
A few days ago I was chatting with my father. I treasure those conversations. He has his own understanding of church, and there was one question that always troubled him when he was a young man observing Good Friday. He would ask: Could he not have taken at least one of the disciples with him?
Why, of all persons, does it seem that none of the disciples is there in that final intimate way? But perhaps this second word answers that question. Because the one who is promised paradise is not one of the disciples. Not one of the respectable. Not one of the obviously religious. A thief.
And that should stop us. Because Jesus had already said to the religious people of his day that prostitutes and tax collectors could enter the kingdom ahead of them. The one whom the world dismisses may be closer than the one the world approves.
Today you will be with me. The question for us then becomes: Who are our companions on the way? Who are the people that God has placed in our lives to walk with us through this journey home?
They may not be the people who would naturally come to mind. Because we choose companions according to all sorts of external measures—appearance, status, comfort, familiarity, reciprocity. We choose according to who suits us.
But this word from the cross unsettles that way of choosing. It suggests that the ones we are drawing near to ourselves may not always be the ones helping us grow. And some of those whom we resist may in fact be companion souls, placed in our lives for the sake of our becoming.
Perhaps they are there to rub us the wrong way so that something deeper may be called forth. Have you ever thought of that?
People present themselves to us because, at some deep level, our soul has invited them. We are eternal beings. Our soul has a purpose. Our soul knows where it is going. And when we awaken to that, we begin to realise that there are persons in our journey who are there precisely to assist us. Not for us to ignore them. Not for us to dismiss them. Because in dismissing them, we may be dismissing a part of what God has brought to us.
One thief remains asleep. He does not recognise the tremendous opportunity before him. But the second thief, in his last moments, finds himself alongside the Holy One. And in his dying moments he receives from the presence of Love.
But let us not only think of what Jesus is doing for the thief. Let us also think of what the thief is doing for Jesus. Because amidst all the ignorance around him, there is one voice that says, Remember me.
Sometimes that one voice is enough. Sometimes in the journey, what we most need is the assurance that there is someone there. Someone who sees. Someone who calls. Someone who shares the space.
So we must ask ourselves: Who is with us? Who is walking with us? How are we choosing those who journey with us?
God does place persons in our lives for the sake of the journey. We need discernment when those moments arise. We need to recognise the help another brings to us and the help we are meant to offer in return. There is such power in companionship.
Jesus looks across and says, You will be with me. We will share the same space. We will journey home together.
Pause for reflection
The Third Word
“Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.”
Now the journey becomes more demanding. Jesus is nearing the home stretch, as it were, and he has to shed. He has to let go. He has to go on alone.
He can no longer remain attached in the physical way, because physical attachment keeps us grounded in the physical experience. Attachment keeps drawing us back to those we are leaving behind.
And sometimes, if you have ever stood at the side of one who is dying, you see it clearly. At times a person appears to be holding on, not for their own sake, but for the sake of those who cannot let them go. Those who are undone. Those who feel their own world is ending. And what should be a peaceful transition becomes filled with interruption, fear, and clinging. Not love, but fear.
So Jesus lets go of those attachments in order that he can truly journey. And while we are looking here at the final stage of Jesus’ earthly journey, the same reality stands within our own. There are moments when we too must let go of others. Not because they are evil. Not because they are bad. But because they are keeping us on the ground. They are not allowing us to rise.
Sometimes it shows up in very ordinary ways. We may have grown inwardly. Something in us has shifted. And yet we have a friend, or a set of relationships, that still expects us to remain in the old conversations, the old habits, the old energy. And every part of our being feels the strain because we no longer belong there, but we are afraid to let go. So we suffer. And that suffering keeps dragging us back down.
It is like a hot-air balloon that cannot rise because the weights have not been released. The balloon is not defective. It simply cannot rise while still tied down.
Do we have anyone in our lives like that? Not wicked people. Not necessarily destructive people. But people, expectations, roles, or attachments that weigh us down. And the question is not first, Are they bad? The deeper question is, Can I travel further carrying this in the same way?
Jesus looks at his mother. He feels her presence. He knows her love. But he also knows that he cannot travel on while held there. He must let go.
We must learn to value the journey above all else. Remember the words of Jesus: if you would follow me, you must be prepared to let go of father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife—whatever defines you more deeply than God. Because if you keep saving that life, the life constructed around attachments and identities, you will lose the deeper life. But if you are willing to lose that life for the sake of the journey, you will find life in God.
This is the Christian message to all who would follow the path of Jesus. We must travel unattached. Not detached, but unattached. That is the harder word. And it is the better word.
| The word is not detached, but unattached.
We must be ready to go when the Spirit calls us. We must journey unhindered. We must recognise that those in our lives are there to contribute to the journey, and when that contribution has reached its end, we must let them go with love. And when we ourselves are no longer contributing to another’s journey, we must be willing to release them as well.
If—and only if—we are serious about following Jesus, then this word is for us. We journey without attachment, in order that we may be faithful to what God is seeking to do in us, and faithful to the purpose of the soul.
Pause for reflection
The Fourth Word
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
As one who loves science, I am often reminded of the law that says: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Jesus lets go of that which binds him to this side of things. He releases attachment. He releases earthly holding. And then there is a tremendous backlash.
From deep within comes that agonising cry: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
It is the shock of no longer being held in the old way. It is like the pain of walking away from a relationship even when you know the walking away is necessary. You may know your reasons. You may know that it is right. And still, every fibre in you cries, Go back. Go back. Go back.
This is where Jesus is. And if we do not bring these things into our own experience, we romanticise the words and miss their truth. Jesus feels the reaction to what he has done. There is nothing now holding him to this side of things. He tips into the great interior threshold and cries out.
But notice this: he does not cry out to his mother. He does not cry out to the disciples. He cries out to God. Because even in this moment there remains something deeper than despair. Something that knows he is on the way home. So he does not turn back. But he must now learn what it is to journey without the familiar supports, to stand in aloneness and discover that aloneness is not abandonment.
We all pass through this in some form. The loss of a loved one. The breaking of a relationship. Retirement. A change in identity. A stripping away of roles.
And when that happens, we often feel lost because we have lived so long through others, through expectations, through attachments, through the shadow of other lives. So when those things fall away, we do not know who we are without them. And our society often encourages that confusion. It teaches us how to remain in despair. It tells us how grief should look, how loss should be worn, how sadness must be performed.
Yet beneath all that is a deeper invitation. To recognise that there comes a stage in the journey where it is you and God alone. Not because you are loveless. Not because you no longer need others. But because there is a depth of the journey that no one else can walk for you.
So this signpost from the cross becomes a question for us: How at ease am I in my aloneness? Do I make room for those moments in which I come away to be with myself and God? Do I practise aloneness, not as isolation, but as interior groundedness? Do I know what it is to walk alone and yet not be alone?
God is. And because God is, I am. The Divine I Am is always present. I must know this. I must live from this. Because it is from that place that I can truly give myself to others. Anything else is performance. Anything else is false. And what others need from me is not what I think they want, but the truth of who I am in God.
Jesus knew this. I and the Father are one. The things you see me doing are not of my own power, but of the One who sent me. And even in Gethsemane we see it. Jesus goes off into aloneness to be with the Father. He leaves the disciples nearby, but when he returns he finds them asleep. They represent the world that is present only so long as it serves its own purposes. But the journey still requires that deeper solitude.
| We do not rise by fighting sleeping people, but by releasing them.
There comes a stage where it is you and you alone before God. Do you know that space? Are you practising that space? Do you know what it is to be alone?
Pause for reflection
The Fifth Word
“I thirst.”
Coming out of that aloneness, Jesus recognises thirst. Now, is he thirsty in the ordinary sense? Yes, perhaps. But there is something more going on here.
When something is being taken away from us, there is often a surge from the smaller self. A cry for comfort. A cry for relief. A cry to stop the journey and come back outward. So Jesus says, I thirst. And in that cry we hear the flesh speaking from within a deeply spiritual moment.
This is that moment in the journey when the little self realises it is no longer at the centre. Modern psychology might say that the goal is not to destroy the ego but to place it in its proper place. The smaller self is not meant to rule. It is meant to serve.
What is so striking here is that the detractors are no longer on the outside. Not the soldiers. Not the religious leaders. Not the crowd. Not even the mocking thief. The challenge is now within. A new frontier. A new site of struggle.
Most of the time we do not even notice this self because we identify with it. We imagine that it is who we are. But the spiritual journey requires that we become able to witness it. To observe its cravings, its dramas, its plans for happiness, its clever attempts to drag us off the path.
And notice how reasonable it can sound. You have been hanging here for hours. The sun is hot. Surely you need water. It sounds fair. It sounds legitimate. And yet it can still be a distraction. It is like telling a child to sit still and suddenly every place itches. That is how the smaller self behaves when we become serious about the inward journey.
Church exists for this journey. That is what church is. A community gathered around the spiritual path. Not gathered simply for appearance or familiarity, but for awakening. We may be at different stages of it, yes, but the point is that we must know what we are about. We must know who we are. If we are taking baby steps, that is fine. But we must know that the path is leading home.
And along that path the cry of thirst will arise again and again. It will arise whenever you choose the fast rather than the old indulgence. Whenever you choose transformation rather than habit. Whenever you choose faithfulness rather than comfort. Whenever you begin to change your life in serious ways, something in you will protest. The old life will cry out.
Do not be fooled. Do not be misled. Having chosen the path, stay focused on the path. The thirst will arise. Walk through it. The pangs of hunger will arise. Walk through them. The old lifestyle will call to you. Set your eyes on Christ. Trust that all that you need, God provides.
The old people used to say, Don’t let anybody steal your joy. That is exactly what this is about. For the joy of the believer is God. The joy is not outside us. The joy is in us as us, because God is in us as us. And when we discover that joy, we must guard it and not be distracted.
So when thirst rises, the deeper question is this: Where do I go for water? Do I always go outward for relief, or do I remain within long enough to discover the deeper spring? For there is a living water that develops in us for eternal life. The way to that water is by doing what Jesus has done on the cross—letting go and journeying inward. And in that inward journey we discover the fountain of grace that has been there all along.
Pause for reflection
The Sixth Word
“It is finished.”
When that inner fountain becomes real to us, then we are able to speak this word: It is finished.
This is not the testimony of defeat. This is not a weary collapse. This is not, “Thank God it is finally over.” No. This is fulfilment. This is accomplishment. This is praise.
The work has been accomplished in me. That is the deeper sense of the word. God has accomplished in me what God set out to do. That is why this is a celebratory statement. A triumphant statement. A word of ripening. A word of arrival.
And that turns the question toward us. What is the nature of our journey? Are we growing, or are we merely circling? Because there is a great danger in church life that we go around and around and call it spirituality. We revisit the seasons. We repeat the rituals. We observe the holy days. But if nothing in us is maturing, then we are simply revolving on the ground.
The journey is not meant to be a flat circle. It is meant to be more like a spiral staircase. Every turn should take us higher. Every return should deepen us. We should not be in the same place this Good Friday that we were last Good Friday. If the word accomplished is in the air, then we must be willing to grow up into it.
Paul puts it beautifully: forgetting what lies behind, I press forward to the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. That is the energy of this word. Not dragging ourselves to the finish line in regret and disappointment, but straining forward with life, like an athlete who pulls from the deepest reserve in order to cross the line.
Even when we watch an athlete come in last, injured, struggling, the crowd often applauds with greater tenderness, because something about completion matters. Something about finishing matters. And that outward sign is a reminder of what is taking place inwardly. This whole journey is about allowing God to bring to completion what God began from eternity.
So Paul says: Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. Have this mind of Christ. And we can have this mind because the Christ dwells within us. The Christ is not outside us, waiting only to be admired. The Christ dwells within us as us. And our task is to consent. Only to consent.
We say this in so many ways. All to Jesus I surrender. Not as though we are merely handing things over to a distant figure, but as a yielding of the reins: Guide me. Lead me. Take me where I need to go. Let your life live in me.
It is our choice. God does not force awakening. God waits. God loves. God remains present. God will wait for eternity if necessary in the hope that we may awaken. But the choice remains ours.
So if we are to utter this word truthfully—It is finished—then something in us must consent to grow up. We must stop defining ourselves by the standards of the world. Not by money, position, popularity, invitations, appearances, status, or lack. Because the moment we define ourselves by these things, we diminish ourselves. And when we live from a diminished self, we cannot hear the good news that God is doing a great work in us.
Jesus reminds us to look at the sparrows. Are you not of more value than many sparrows? Yet we keep living by stories that make us small. And the good news must break through those stories in order to reach us. It must get through the values by which we measure ourselves. It must expose the assumptions by which we have been living.
So the call here is simple and searching: Grow up. Not merely show up. Grow up. No other sphere of life expects us to remain children forever. Why should the spiritual life be any different?
As we grow, we let go of what no longer serves us. The things that once worked for us in childhood cannot govern us in maturity. And so the seasons of faith are not meant to trap us in repetition but to carry us higher. Not another Good Friday in the same place. Not another year circling the same ground. We must grow up into Christ.
| Not another Good Friday in the same place.
Then, and only then, can the word accomplished begin to sound true in us. Then we may hear, Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord.
Pause for reflection
The Seventh Word
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Jesus comes now to the final word. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.
Everything has been accomplished. And what remains now is surrender. Not defeat. Not collapse. Surrender. The deep and final trust of one who has completed the work and now yields back to the Source from which he came.
To understand the depth of this word, we must go back to the beginning. In the beginning, God. God, in God’s infinite wisdom, pours God’s self out. And what God pours God’s self into becomes creation. Creation is of God, yet distinct from God. Creation becomes the other, and because God is love, love must have an other in order to manifest.
So there is God, and there is creation. There are, as one tradition says, the ten thousand things. And all of these things have the opportunity to be other for each other and thus to manifest love. That is why we are here. To be as God for the other. To manifest God to one another. To love. That is the purpose.
We just happen to be in one carriage on an immense train. Countless carriages have gone before us. We are far behind the lead carriage, too far even to imagine where it is, but we are on the same train and heading in the same direction. Jesus is arriving home. And as Jesus arrives home, there is a kind of undoing, a returning, a gathering back into the Source.
When I was a child in the chemistry lab, I remember mercury spilled on a surface, forming little beads that would scatter, and then, one by one, they would find their way back to the main body. It is a poor image, perhaps, but it helps. All these little separations, and then the return. Back into the whole. Back into the source.
That is what Jesus is showing us. At the end of the journey home, all that remains is for us to return from whence we came. There is nowhere else to go. We may delay the return. We may resist it. But we cannot prevent it, because it is there that we belong.
This always reminds me of the story of the prodigal son. Such a beautiful story, and one that speaks so clearly to the human journey. Life around us creates false values and endless distractions. We take what God gives us each day, and we pour it into things that promise life but drain us instead. We spend ourselves on what does not satisfy. And there comes a time when there is nothing left. And then there is only one real choice: Go home.
We see it in addiction as well. People often say that until a person hits rock bottom, there is little anyone else can do. Why? Because until everything has been spent, until all false supports are exhausted, there may not yet be the willingness to turn. And so it is with us. God pours grace on us daily, but if every drop is used to keep our illusions alive, there is nothing left for the upward journey.
The prodigal says, I will arise and go to my father. He goes home empty. He goes home broken. He goes home detached from all that drained him. And the Father runs to meet him. He does not ask, “Why did you take so long?” in condemnation, but in wonder. He welcomes him home as though he had never left.
That is the image we need. We are journeying home. I am the only one who stands in my own way. And you are the only one who stands in yours. The Father is waiting to embrace us fully. And when we return, it will be as though we had never truly left.
So let us stop denying ourselves that homecoming. Let us stop pretending that we are moving toward God while keeping our minds and habits elsewhere. Not another Good Friday in the same place. Not another Good Friday among the pigs, wishing we could eat what they eat. Not another Good Friday with Christians speaking only the language of stress and depletion. That cannot be our language. That must not be our witness.
And yes, it comes down even to the body. My Father’s house is a house of prayer. This is the Lord’s temple. This body is not outside the journey. It belongs to the journey. So not another Good Friday in forgetfulness. Not another Good Friday in stagnation. We must grow. We must become what we are. We must live as sons and daughters of the one true and living God who waits to say, Well done. Welcome home.
A Closing Prayer
Thank you for the cross, Lord. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the precious blood. Thank you for the thorn-pierced head. Thank you for the pierced hands. Thank you for the pierced feet. Thank you for the spear-pierced side. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for all it signifies.
May I never deplete it of its meaning. May it always stand before me as a standard for this journey. Thank you for the cross.
Thank you for the thief at his side. A strange companion only if we see in the flesh, but perhaps an angel sent by God to be with His Son. Thank you for the thief on the cross. Thank you for that one person who makes the experience bearable. Father, may we give thanks too for the thief at our side, the one you have sent to help us through.
Thank you for the love brought to us by those who are near and dear. Thank you for every gift of theirs that helps us on the journey. But may we never become so enmeshed that we are unable to let them go for your sake.
Thank you for the moments alone in our lives. Thank you for the moments that remind us of who we are in you, and that we can never truly be alone because we are part of something greater.
Thank you for the little self that you have given us to serve the journey. May we remember that this little self is ours to use, and that we are not under its command.
Thank you, Father, that you have sent us into this world to do your will. Thank you for the trust you have placed in each one of us. Thank you for your confidence. Thank you for your assurance. Thank you for knowing that we will not fail.
May we embrace that confidence. May we journey on.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Amen.