Shadows of the Crucified Christ

For Janelle Peregoy, the shadow of the cross in her church brought home the reality of Jesus' Crucifixion.

My family made a discovery a couple of Good Fridays ago. At noon at our parish, the natural light hits the life-size crucifix in such a way that a shadow of Christ on the cross is cast towards the congregation. 

I sat transfixed by this shadowy Jesus. 

How had I never seen this suspended image before? My logical brain clicked through the reality that we usually attend Mass earlier in the morning or in the evening. I am occasionally around the parish midday but usually at the office or in the hall for a meeting or event.  

Or maybe, Jesus was waiting to reveal Himself to me on that particular Good Friday. 

I suddenly found myself weeping. For in this shadow, I experienced a visceral Jesus.  

I heard Him cry out, the deep rumbling of His groans and gasps. I felt the horror of His few remaining disciples, witnessing His labored breathing until He breathed no more. 

In many churches, we present a sanitized version of Good Friday. We venerate a smooth cross, without so much as a splinter to cause harm. 

We forget the flagrant injustice of Jesus’ capture and condemnation. We forget Pilate’s half-hearted attempt to understand why Jesus is being accused and put to death.  

We forget the dehumanization of being stripped of His clothes and taunted. We forget the pinch and the scratch of the crown of thorns. 

We forget the blood, the sweat and the tears.  

We forget how diminished Jesus’ strength would have been by the weight of carrying His cross. We forget the added burden of struggling up off the ground after His falls. 

 We forget the searing pain of being nailed to that same cross. 

We forget his emotional burdens, of being betrayed and abandoned by many of his closest friends. We forget that it would have agonized him to know that his remaining friends and family would be watching his tortured death. 

We forget his utter exhaustion and depletion. 

We forget his spiritual battle of accepting this destiny from God and the misery of having felt abandoned by Him. 

We forget the brutality of crucifixion. Dehydration, a collapsing heart, failing lungs, and an inability to get oxygen would conspire to slowly suffocate Jesus over many horrendous hours. The early Christians would have been appalled to learn that Christianity had later become symbolized by a cross. For them, it was a violent symbol of Roman oppression.  

How could we associate Jesus with the cross? 

It is easy to forget. It is easy to skip ahead. With two thousand years of hindsight, we know that an empty tomb awaited around the corner. 

My Jewish sister-in-law once asked me to explain why Good Friday is referred to as "good." What good could possibly be found in Jesus’ death? 

Christianity is ever a faith of paradoxes. Without this brutal and senseless death of our Savior, there would be no Resurrection. There would be no new life. 

On this Good Friday, I ask each of us to sit uncomfortably with Jesus’ pain and agony. I ask us to recognize that lengths He went to for us. I ask that we witness His brutal death with clear eyes.  

I ask, as Jesus would have, to stand in solidarity with those who still face persecution, oppression, and senseless violence. I ask for fervent prayers for a peaceful resolution in the ongoing conflict in the Holy Land. 

From the depths of each of our own woundedness and brokenness, I ask us to pray in the shadows of the crucified Christ.  

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Copyright 2024 Janelle Peregoy
Images: Canva