John 18.1-19.42 – Good Friday «Passion of the Lord»
There is something in the darkness of Good Friday that surpasses even the darkness of the sky, when, as the Gospel tells us, there is darkness over the whole earth from midday to three in the afternoon. It is the darkness of abandonment. The darkness of friends who leave Jesus alone. It is the solitude of Christ. It is the darkness of physical pain, of humiliation, of the injustice suffered. It is the darkness of a terrible death on the cross.
Everything seems to speak of failure, of loss, of absence. Yet, if you really stare into this darkness, you realize that it is not devoid of light. There are some flashes, discreet but real. It’s true, no one saves Jesus from death. But some don’t abandon it. They remain. John tells us that under the cross there are Mary, the beloved disciple and some women. They cannot change the course of events, but they are there. And then, after death, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus take care of his body. Even there, where everything seems over, there is someone who makes a gesture of love.
This says something important for us too. Sometimes we enter the Good Friday of someone’s life. Not as protagonists, not with the possibility of solving everything. Maybe we can’t save, we can’t take away the pain, we can’t change the circumstances, but we can be there. We can become a small consolation, a point of support, a faithful presence, a glimmer of tenderness just when everything seems to be collapsing.
This is how you cross the Good Friday: thanks to the generosity of someone who remains. You don’t need heroic gestures, but a reliable presence. God often hides precisely in these silent presences, in these faces that seem secondary but are instead essential. It is there that the light continues to shine, even in the deepest darkness.
