Just a few days ago, I was praying in my rectory chapel one morning, and I happened to look up at the Crucifix hanging above my altar. And I don’t know how else to say it, but I saw — as if for the first time — that Jesus’ hands were raised in PRAISE on the Cross.

Hace unos días, estaba orando en la capilla de mi casa, y miré el crucifijo y noté que las manos de Jesús estaban levantadas en alabanza incluso en la Cruz.

This, I believe, is the miracle of Good Friday — 

Este es el milagro del Viernes Santo:

This is the day that we brutally and irrationally killed God — And as we were busy going about killing Him, how did Jesus choose to respond? 

With His hands raised in praise of the Father. 

Matamos a Dios, pero mientras lo matábamos, lo único que Jesus hizo fue alabar.

We nailed those hands up there because of our laziness, our pride, and our hatred — We nailed them up there, even though the only thing those hands had ever done for us was bring healing and compassion into our broken world…

…But as we nailed those Hands up, Jesus only praised His Father more, and more, and more…

Él no respondió con ira, resentimiento o condena.

He did not react with anger… with bitterness or resentment…. Not even the slightest hint of condemnation toward us…

No… He kept His hands lifted high up to the Father in worship — He glorified the Father! He LOVED the Father! 

¡Él alabó y amó al Padre!

As the Psalms put it: “Let my prayer be counted as incense before You, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice!”

At the lowest, most evil, most egregious moment of all human history — the moment we executed and rejected God — Jesus lifted up His hands to the Father as a Sacrifice. The perfect Sacrifice. The purest act of Worship.  Éste es el acto más puro de adoración. He transformed our worst sin into the crystal clear picture of WORSHIP and LOVE…

With even His dying breath, Christ says:

“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Padre, en tus manos encomiendo mi espíritu.

We are confronted with this image tonight — The image of the dying Son of God, raising His hands up in praise — And we ask ourselves:

How have I responded to the Cross in my life?

¿Cómo hemos respondido a las cruces en nuestras vidas?

How have I responded to the suffering that has come my way?

This is not the time to compare our crosses — and it’s also not the time to downplay or dismiss the severity of our own particular cross! 

No! Simply ask yourself:

How have I responded to whatever Cross I’ve been asked to carry?

Speaking for myself…. I have NOT responded like Jesus.

Yo no he respondido a la Cruz en mi vida… ¡con alabanza como Jesus!

I very rarely — if EVER — respond to suffering with my hands lifted high in praise. 

When things don’t go my way… when the Cross is imposed upon me, when I am betrayed or disappointed, when I undergo suffering of any kind… even the slightest, most mundane types of suffering… the LAST thing I wanna do is praise God! All I seem to be able to do is fixate on the nails themselves…and rage against my pain and think how unfair all of this is… and in so doing… I lose sight of my Heavenly Father.

I doubt that I am alone in this struggle.

We are sort of programmed it seems… to resist the Cross! We run away from it! We do everything in our power, usually, to avoid it!

Nos resistimos a la cruz. Queremos evitarla. …¡Pero no deberíamos sorprendernos ni alarmarnos!

We should not be discouraged by this fact — because here’s the deal:

Realizing our weakness — admitting our inability to PRAISE THE FATHER perfectly in the midst of suffering — is an absolutely ESSENTIAL part of our conversion.

Admitir nuestra debilidad y nuestra incapacidad de alabar durante el sufrimiento… ¡es parte de nuestra conversión!

I’m currently in the process of reading a really awesome novel by Michael O’Brien titled “The Father’s Tale” and there is an amazing passage that I wanted to share with you all tonight to try and illustrate what I’m getting at:

“In each heart,” O’Brien writes, “three trees grow. Life cuts them down, trims them, crafts them into crosses. Then, they are lifted high on a hill… a hill like a skull. One is the Cross of Jesus. The second, the cross of the repentant thief, and the third, the cross of the unrepentant thief. We like to think that in times of trial, we will suffer like Jesus… If we are a little bit realistic, we will say to ourselves: “No, I am not much like him. Therefore I will be like the repentant thief and go straight to Paradise!” But so often, when the trial arrives, we find to our dismay that we are in fact the unrepentant thief. We grow angry at our suffering. We resent and complain, and make others pay for our unhappiness. BUT… this is not a cause for sadness! This is a great victory! To see ourselves as we are is the PRECONDITION for repentance! 

When we understand that we ARE the unrepentant thief, then and only then are the wellsprings of conversion OPENED to us. We can turn to Jesus hanging in agony on His Cross and beg forgiveness from Him. And on THAT day, we enter Paradise.”

What a powerful image for us to meditate on! — Despite our best efforts, we each need to ultimately admit that we are most similar to that unrepentant thief hanging next to Jesus…

¡Somos más similares a la ladrona impenitente!

We need to admit that actually — left to ourselves — we CANNOT praise God the way He actually deserves to be praised.

Sin Jesús, NO PODEMOS alabar a Dios de la manera que Él merece ser alabado.

We need Jesus to do it with us, through us, and in us. We need a Savior to be up on that Cross on OUR behalf, PRAISING GOD the ENTIRE TIME…

As Dr. Mary Healy puts it: “Jesus became man so that He could do what we COULDN’T do for ourselves! On that Cross, in unimaginable anguish, Jesus gave God the Father the ABSOLUTE INFINITE LOVE from a human heart that the Father deserved and longed for from us…”

In other words:

Jesus gave perfect PRAISE to the Father… because we simply couldn’t.

So, tonight, we behold Jesus, with His hands lifted high for us. 

Contemplamos a Jesús, con las manos en alto en alabanza en la cruz. ¡Contemplamos el madero de la cruz!

We behold and adore the WOOD of the Cross… on which hung the salvation of the world.