Today, the eyes of all Christians are raised to the Cross with profound devotion and love for Christ. This is a day of religious observance commemorating the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ on Mount Calvary in the Roman Era. The term Good Friday suggests, to have evolved from the concept of God’s Friday, marking the suffering and death of Jesus Christ as a sacrificial victim for the sins of humanity to save mankind from the eternal damnation, a punishment for man’s disobedience to God’s will.

The Book of Genesis 3:3 says, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”

Good Friday, part of the Holy Week, was formalised in the Christian Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan in 313 AD by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. A day marked as an atonement day focusing on the Passion, Crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ, which includes reading from the Scriptures, Veneration of the Cross, Fasting and Penance, Passion plays, procession, Way of the Cross and even self-flagellation in some regions.

In the Old Testament of the Bible, animals were offered as atonement for the sins of mankind; however, in the New Testament the sufferings, crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ is acknowledged as the central acts of God’s redemptive plan for humanity, the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus’ life on the Cross for the sins of humanity — “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John. 1:29)”. It is a cosmic victory over sin, all that is unbecoming, unworthy of mankind, ultimately eternal damnation.

Jesus’ passion and death is not accidental but the fulfilment of the prophecies in the Old Testament especially in Psalm 22 and Prophet Isaiah Chapter 53. Jesus himself had foretold several times that “the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31; Matthew 16:21; Luke 9:22).

Good Friday, despite ignominious sufferings and death, is total obedience of Jesus to his Father’s will — “And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8) proclaims a powerful message of God’s unconditional love of salvation, manifestation of God’s forgiveness without reserve or measure.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the son into the world, not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him”   (John 3:16-17).

In this Jubilee Year 2025, the celebration of the Holy Week especially the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ comes as a beacon of light, life and glory to the whole mankind as pilgrims of hope.

I wish the celebration of Holy Week inspires all to imbibe the power of forgiveness, compassion and love to bring solace and God’s newness of life to all families.

—Most Rev. Dr. Bernard Moras, Archbishop Emeritus & Apostolic Administrator, Diocese of Mysore