John 19.31–42
Good Friday brings us to a
strange kind of silence in the Gospel story.
Once the climactic moment of
crucifixion is completed,
the shouting crowds fade.
The soldiers have done their
work.
The long agony of the cross comes
to its end.
And then we are left with what
happens after death.
Bodies must be taken down.
Burial must be arranged.
There are practical matters that cannot be ignored.
These days we call it the ‘Sadmin’
– the administration that follows a death.
The Jewish authorities want the
bodies of the crucified criminals removed quickly,
because the Sabbath is
approaching.
So soldiers check the condemned men.
The legs of the two others are
broken to hasten their deaths.
But when they come to Jesus, they see that he is already dead.
Instead, one soldier pierces
his side with a spear,
and John tells us that
immediately blood and water flow out.
Then two unexpected figures
appear in the story.
Joseph of Arimathea and
Nicodemus.
Joseph is described as a
disciple of Jesus,
though secretly, because he
feared the authorities.
Nicodemus we met earlier in the Gospel,
coming to Jesus under the
cover of night, searching for understanding.
These are not the bold public followers.
These are cautious men, people
who have kept their distance.
And yet here they are now.
Joseph asks Pilate for the body
of Jesus.
Nicodemus brings a large
quantity of spices.
Together they take Jesus’ body,
wrap it carefully in linen
cloths with the spices,
according to the Jewish burial customs,
and place him in a nearby tomb
in a garden.
It is a scene filled with quiet
tenderness.
After the violence of the
crucifixion,
there is now an act of care.
The body that has been humiliated and wounded is treated with dignity.
People step forward to do what
love requires.
Good Friday asks us to sit with
this moment.
Because death is never
abstract.
It is physical.
It is embodied.
It is the reality of bodies
that must be carried, wrapped, buried, mourned.
And the Gospel does not rush
past this.
John wants us to notice every
detail.
But John also wants us to see
something more.
He tells us carefully when all
of this is happening.
It is the day of Preparation,
the day before the Passover
festival begins.
In Jerusalem, the Temple will
be full of activity.
Lambs are being slaughtered
for the Passover meal.
Families are preparing to remember the ancient story of liberation,
the night when the blood of
the lamb marked the homes of Israel
and death passed over them.
And John wants us to see
that at precisely this moment,
Jesus dies.
And this is not accidental.
From the very beginning of
John’s Gospel,
Jesus has been described in
Passover language.
When John the Baptist first sees him, he declares,
“Here is the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world.”
And now, at the end of the
story, that image comes fully into view.
Just as the Passover lamb once
marked the beginning
of Israel’s
liberation from slavery,
so now Jesus’ death becomes
the sign of God’s liberation for the world.
Even the small details in the
story echo that connection.
The soldiers do not break Jesus’ bones,
recalling the instruction that
the bones of the Passover lamb must not be broken.
Earlier in the crucifixion
scene a hyssop branch appears,
the very plant used in the
Passover ritual to mark the doorposts with blood.
John is weaving the story
together very deliberately.
The cross is not simply a
tragic execution.
It is a moment of profound theological meaning.
It is the place where God
confronts the forces that enslave human life.
Violence, domination, fear, and the machinery of empire that crushes human
dignity.
All of these powers gather
around the cross.
And yet John tells us that
something else is happening there too.
One of the most mysterious
details in the story
comes when the
soldier pierces Jesus’ side.
John says that immediately
blood and water flow out.
At first glance it is an odd
detail to include.
But John rarely includes
details without purpose.
Throughout this Gospel, water and blood have carried deep symbolic meaning.
Water is the sign of life.
Jesus speaks to the Samaritan
woman about living water
that becomes a
spring within a person.
He tells Nicodemus that people
must be born of water and Spirit.
Blood, too, becomes a sign of
life.
Earlier in the Gospel, Jesus
speaks in shocking language
about giving his flesh and
blood for the life of the world.
And now here, at the cross,
these two images appear together.
From the pierced body of
Jesus, blood and water flow.
From the place of death, life emerges.
Early Christians would later
see echoes here of baptism and communion,
the water of new birth and the
cup of the covenant.
But even before we move in that direction,
the point John is making is
clear.
The cross, the place of
violence and death,
becomes strangely the place
where life begins to flow.
And this brings us to something
that Good Friday confronts us with very directly.
The incarnation goes all the
way down.
Christians say that the Word
became flesh.
That God entered human life
fully,
not as an
appearance or an illusion,
but in real,
vulnerable human flesh.
And Good Friday shows us what
that means.
Flesh that can be beaten.
Flesh that can be
pierced.
Flesh that must be wrapped in
linen cloths and placed in a tomb.
There is no distance here
between God and the realities of human suffering.
God does not remain safely
above the worst that the world can do.
God enters it: completely and fully,
without holding back.
And this is why Good Friday
is such a strange and powerful
day in the Christian story.
Because what we see here is not simply the cruelty of human violence.
We also see the depth of
divine love.
Earlier in John’s Gospel we are
told
that Jesus loved his own who
were in the world,
and that he loved them “to the
end.”
That phrase carries several
meanings.
It can mean to the very last
moment.
It can mean completely, fully,
without limit.
Love to the end.
And that is what we see on the
cross.
Not love that withdraws when
things become dangerous.
Not love that protects itself
from suffering.
Not love that calculates the
cost.
But love that continues even
when it leads into the darkness.
Love that remains present even
in death.
Love to the end.
And perhaps that is where Good
Friday speaks most directly to us.
Because if this is what the
love of God looks like,
then it also reveals the shape
of the life we are called to live.
A love that refuses to abandon
the wounded.
A love that stands alongside
those who suffer.
A love that does not give up
when the world becomes hard or frightening.
Good Friday does not offer easy
comfort.
The tomb is still closed at
the end of this story.
The silence of death remains.
But the Gospel leaves us with
this quiet, stubborn truth.
That in the strange mystery of
the cross,
in the pierced
body of Jesus,
in the love that goes all the
way to the end,
something
life-giving has already begun to flow.
And that love, once released
into the world,
will not be stopped.
