Thoughts on the Passion in the Gospel of John
Everything about this text is sober. Not a word about feelings. Simple description: he carried his Cross. They crucified him. A sign up on the Cross. They throw dice to see who will get his coat. At the Cross, three women, among them his own mother. Here, at last, we expect a word of sympathy: his own mother! She had to watch it all! Her own son in these agonies! To have to stand by and watch helplessly: Can there be anything worse for a mother? It is exactly this completely sober type of report that gives the words such power. The place of execution was close to the city. The drama was repeated frequently. The many passers-by were accustomed to watching the terrible death agonies of the crucified, as we are accustomed to the daily deaths on our streets: Another person is dying there again! But this one man, who was crucified between two nameless men on the day before the Jewish Passover feast, is different. His name is not forgotten. Because the one who died there was God's Son. And his death was not an accident; rather, he voluntarily took this path, for us, not for himself. Beneath the cool, calm words of the report, the fire of this "for us" burns. He looks after his mother and his favorite disciple, John, and with that entrusts everyone to the protection of his mother. "I thirst": not just the agony of the death throes, but the thirst for our faith, that we will trust him in life and in death. He will never leave us. He truly lives forever now for us.
Reprinted from: My Jesus: Encountering Christ in the Gospel
By Christoph Cardinal Schönborn
Archbishop of Vienna, Austria
Ignatius Press, 2005
www.ignatius.com