Consummatum est

Meditation for Good Friday, 2026

So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross; it read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. The chief priests of the Jews then said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took his garments and made four parts, one for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was without seam, woven from top to bottom; so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfil the scripture,

“They parted my garments among them,

and for my clothing they cast lots.”

So the soldiers did this. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), “I thirst.” A bowl full of vinegar stood there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished”; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

To say enough about Good Friday, would, I suppose, require more books than have been written in the history of the world.

And yet, there is also nothing to say. Nothing, that is, which can add to what is given to us by the Gospel authors. Simply to read their words, or to participate in a Good Friday liturgy, and to enter into the image of the passion and death of Jesus is worth more and is more powerful than all the words, speculations, discussions, arguments, and philosophical meanderings that all the world’s books can offer.

But this is a blog, and words we must have, so let us have some.

Let us start with the cross, which Jesus carries, to which He is nailed, and with Golgotha, the Place of the Skull.

The cross was once understood to have been made from the wood of the Tree of Life itself. The Place of the Skull, meanwhile, was not the place of any random skull or even a place of many such skulls. It was the place at which the skull of Adam had been buried.

Adam and Eve— Do you remember them?— were told that, eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would not die but would become like gods. This is what the serpent told them, and we know that the serpent is a liar. But is he a liar only?

Yahweh, encountering our first parents in their fig-leaf costumes, informs them that they should have eaten from the fruit of the Tree of Life, and then they would not have to die. And we must believe that God speaks truly.

Jesus is called the Second Adam. This is usually taken metaphorically: Jesus is the son of God, and he was “like” another Adam, sent to undo the damage done by the first.

I think the truth hidden in these ideas is more interesting than that.

Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge at the temptation of the serpent. The serpent is the symbol of life lived within the realm of matter, time, and generation: It crawls in the dust, in its shedding of its skin it seems to die and to be born again.

We have seen that the material world is understood as the place in which good and evil are mixed together, so that there is no good without evil, no evil without good. So we read in Plato’s Theaetetus and in the Gospel of Philip, both of which are, again, concerned with knowledge.

Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, and given the “skins of animals” to wear. That is, they descended from Paradise, in which there is Good only, into the realm of matter, where there is good and evil mixed, and here they-- we-- must wear the skins of animals. And for what reason? But to gain knowledge, and, in finally gaining it, to become divine, and immortal.

Now the second Adam, who is Adam truly, the completed Adam, returns to the Place of the Skull, and ascends upon the Tree of Life. And thereafter, his body becomes the fruit of the Tree of Life, which all may eat and share in His immortality.

At the last, he beholds his mother, the Second Eve. Note that he is born of her womb as the first Eve was born of Adam’s rib: This is the process of descent and reversion. As, at the beginning, the female was born of the male, now the male is born of the female. John, representing the entire community of the Faithful, is told, “Behold thy mother.” At this moment, finally, with Mary, the Gate of Salvation, established as the mother of all Christians, does he utter those words: “It is finished.”

The temple veil is rent; the Sun darkens.

The Sun is Christ, who now departs this world and descends into Hades.

The Sun is the visible image of Christ, the Eternal Light; the natural light darkens as the Eternal Light is revealed.

The Sun is the presiding God of the visible world; he hides his face, unwilling to render visible the suffering of his maker.

In the myth of the Golden Age recorded by Plato in the Statesman, the day will come when the Sun stands still and reverses his course in the Heavens. Then the Dead will rise from their graves, the Earth will give up her produce freely, and the Golden Age will come round again. The Sun darkens. Does the Sun stand still? Does the Old Sun die, and is a new Sun born? When the Sun shines again, does he not shine upon a renewed world?

We must imagine that to the followers of Jesus, gathered round the cross, it seems the journey has come to an end.

We, however, know that it does not. It is finished: But there is one more thing yet to do before Easter Sunday.