The Friendship of Christ / by Robert Hugh Benson
The evening light begins to glimmer again upon Calvary, the three crosses, and the little group that waits for the end; and as it falls upon the Face of Christ, the look of agony is gone. He has cried alike to God and man to have pity, upon tortured Soul and parched Body, and each has answered. Now in that Face, bleached by the darkness of the soul, and the Eyes, sunken with sorrow, a new look begins, that rises, as those who stand by watch Him, until the whole Face is radiant once again. The breaths come fuller and fuller, the Body nailed by its extremities begins to lift itself higher and higher till strength is regained sufficient for Him not to speak only, but to utter a cry so loud and triumphant as to startle and amaze the officer who has watched many men die, but never as This Man dies. The cry peals out, like the shout of a king in the moment of victory; and, in an instant, failure and labour and bitterness are behind Him for ever. Consummatum est. . . . "It is finished!"{1}
I. Christ came into the world to accomplish the greatest work of all -- greater than that sheer act of the Divine Will by which all things came into being out of nothing, greater than that steady output of Divine Energy by which all things are held in being, the stars in their courses, atoms in cohesion, and the worlds of flesh and spirit in their mutual relations. For it is a greater act to restore than to create, to bring the disobedient will back to obedience than to will it into existence, to reconcile enemies than to create worshippers, to redeem than to make. That God should make man is an act of power; but to redeem him is an act of Love. . . .
The whole of history up to Calvary is, looked at from one side, one ceaseless effort of preparation for Redemption. Not one lamb has shed his blood in vain, not one prophet has spoken, not one king has reigned, except as a link in that chain of which the Lamb of God, the Servant of the Lord, and the King of Kings, is the end and the climax that justifies the whole. Abraham saw His day, and was glad; David sang of the day of His birth and of His wounded hands and feet: Isaias spoke of His grave with the wicked and his resting-place in the rich man's garden. God has brought all up to this point that crowns and fulfils them all. And now, Consummatum est.
Again, as we look back to Calvary through two thousand years, we see that all that God has done since, takes its rise from there; that every impulse of grace, every sacrifice and prayer offered, every movement of the Spirit of God, every response from the spirits of men, every sin forgiven, every new life begun, every death of a righteous man, every birth of a new soul into innocence -- all these gain their full strength and indeed their very existence from the torrent of love that burst up into being at the foot of Christ's Cross.
Therefore at this moment, as the last drop of the Precious Blood is passing from His broken Heart, with a power beyond that of a dying man, Jesus cries in triumph, "It is finished."
Friendship between God and man is now made possible again, in the Body of Christ. That old irreconcilable enmity between the sin of the creature and the Justice of the Creator, between the defilement of the spirit and the Holiness of the Father of Spirits, is done away. We can be "accepted in the Beloved."
First, then: salvation is open to the sinner. No sin henceforth is unforgivable. Charity, it has been said, is the pardoning of the unpardonable and the loving of the unlovable: and in this Precious Blood, as the prophet sang, "there shall be a fountain open for the washing of the sinner and of the unclean";{2} and as the apostle wrote, it is this Blood which "cleanseth us from all sin."{3} The Friendship of God, therefore, is flung wide open to every soul that desires it.
But, more than this. Not only is mere friendship made possible by the death of Christ, but degrees of friendship to which even the angels cannot aspire. It is not only that a soul, through the Precious Blood, can pass from death to life, but that she can pass up through stages and heights and strata of that life, up to the perfection of sanctity itself. David could thirst for God; David could look on and up to that "awakening in the likeness of God" which is the soul's supreme satisfaction; but not until Christ had died could a soul reach that final object of the Divine desire and of her own which now lies open to every soul that is content to make the sacrifices necessary to gaining it. Not only, in the power of the Precious Blood, and the grace of the sacraments liberated by Its shedding, can every action, word and thought be brought into obedience to Christ, but the soul can, by that same grace, reach a point of union with Him so vital and so complete that she can truly cry "with Christ I am nailed to the Cross. And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me."{4}
II. Christ's work, then, is "finished" on the Cross -- finished, that is, not as closed and concluded, but, as it were, liberated from the agonizing process which has brought it into being -- finished, as bread is finished from the mills and the fire, that it may be eaten; as wine is finished after the stress and trampling of the winepress -- finished, as a man's body is finished in the womb of his mother and brought forth with travail.
It is finished, that is, for a new and glorious Beginning, that the stream which has flowed from His Wounds may begin to flood the souls of men, and the Flesh that has been broken, feed them indeed. For now the Passion of Christ begins to be wrought out in His Mystical Body, and she to "fill up those things that are wanting of the Sufferings of Christ."{5} Now the enormous Process that has crushed and mangled Him in His assumed Nature begins effectively to carry on that same work of Redemption in the Human Nature of His Church, which, mystically, is the Body in which He dwells always -- One Sun sets in order that another sun, which is yet the same, may begin to run his course. "The evening and the morning are one day."
And yet, we His friends -- we, who in virtue of His Friendship are enabled to live, to die and to rise in union with him -- live for the most part as if He had never died. Compare the life of a cultivated fastidious pagan with the life of a cultivated fastidious Christian. Draw the two from corresponding classes and set them side by side. Is there so enormous a difference? There are a few differences in the religious emblems of the two. The one has an Apolio; the other a Crucifix. The one has the Egyptian goddess with her son in her arms; the other has the Immaculate Mother of Jesus with her Holy Child. Their talk is different, their dresses, their houses -- all those external matters that are wholly indifferent to the soul's life. But are their virtues so different, their outlook on eternity, their sorrow beside open graves, their hopes beside new cradles?. . . Even before Christ died, children loved their parents and parents their children. Do Christians rise so much higher now -- nearer to that yet more amazing degree of love by which a man "hates his father and mother" in order to be the disciple of His Lord? Even before Christ died, chastity was a virtue. Are we so far advanced now in that purity of heart without which no man can see God? Even a Roman Emperor once preached self-control, and practised it. Are our own houses any better models of the peace of brethren who dwell together in unity?
Did Christ finish His work, merely in order that society might decay no further?. . . God help us! As we look at what is called Christian Society to-day, it seems as if Christ had not even yet begun.
Yet here is this vast river of grace pouring from Calvary, the river that ought to be making glad the City of God. Here is this enormous reservoir of grace, bubbling up in every sacrament, soaking the ground beneath our feet, freshening the air we breathe. And we still in our hateful false humility talk as if Perfection were a dream, and Sanctity the privilege of those who see God in glory.
In Christ's Name, let us begin. For Christ has finished.
{1} John xix: 30.
{2} Zach. xiii: 1.
{3} I John i: 7.
{4} Gal. ii: 20.
{5} Col. i: 24.