What really struck me was how the very incompleteness of the crucifix adds to its power. Somehow seeing only a bit here and a bit there challenges our imagination and our senses. In our minds we fill in the blanks. It reminds me of visiting ancient ruins in Italy or Greece or the Holy Land. The pleasure of ruins is precisely that they provoke us to imagine what they must have been like in former times.

Thinking of the Crucifix itself and the poster on display which only shows a part of the whole image we see a portion of the face of Christ; one eye only; part of the mouth; the outline of the head. It is tantalizing yet powerful. One can sense the deep suffering of the Christ figure. Although we only see in part we can imagine more. It is this very incompleteness which I find helpful in dealing with the whole challenge of human suffering. We confront suffering daily whether it be television footage in the streets of Bagdad or Gaza City; in the camps of Darfur; the village of L'Aquila in Italy or in Binghampton, New York as well as in our own lives with the illness, infirmity and death of loved ones.

Suffering always challenges our sense of what it means to be human; it affronts our sense of life; it can unsettle our faith in the goodness and loving purposes of God; it can leave us feeling numb and confused. Sometimes you like me feel we are overloaded with or maybe overwhelmed by the world's suffering or particular instances which deeply affect us. Only this week there was an article about the extraordinary suffering experienced by openly gay men and women in Iraq where family and religion can be an equal threat to life let alone liberty. In the past year alone some 21 gay men have been murdered. Such facts and statistics can cause sensory shutdown. We simply cannot take in the enormity of it all.

But we do know on another level that suffering is not the whole story. At the same time we are also aware how suffering and its consequences can bring out the best in people; how sometimes it almost ennobles people (I think of Nelson Mandela for instance). I was reflecting on this back in February in Australia in the aftermath of the terrible bushfires just north of Melbourne where I was staying. You may remember that not only was there great loss of property and bush land but that over 200 people perished in the fires. It did not affect me or my family directly but soon after I heard of friends or acquaintances who had lost family or friends. The suffering in the aftermath of those fires was very real and distressing. But out of that suffering there came a great outpouring of generosity and help to the survivors of the fires from the local and wider community. We see the same phenomenum at work in central Italy at present. It is often said that tragedy can bring out the best in people. Of course one way we deal with suffering of any sort is to contextualize it; to find reasons for it. That can help us with some instances. One of the Australian fires in which 21 people died was deliberately lit by a disaffected fire fighter. That knowledge does not take away the suffering but it does help us to rationalize the situation at least on an intellectual level.

But that is easier when the particular suffering is at a distance and does not directly impact your daily life. It is much more difficult when it is you who suffer through illness, grief or loss. Sometimes the pain and anguish is such that it is hard to see beyond it. In my reading about the Holocaust I often wonder how on earth I would have coped with the sheer horror of the senseless cruelty and murder. I think it was Victor Frankl who said the concentration camps made people either saints or swine. I hate to think of how it would have affected me.

But here today we stand with the Crucified Jesus. How does his death on the cross help us in our suffering and in dealing with the suffering of others. Here I turn to the Cimabue crucifix again in its incomplete form. That very incompleteness reminds me of St Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13: “Now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face.” And of those words in 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul speaks of our “mortal bodies putting on immortality and our perishable bodies putting on imperishability.” Much suffering is beyond our comprehension. We trust that someday we may understand a little more.

But the Cimabue crucifix has another element which links us even more to this day. After all this is Good Friday: the day when we commemorate the death of Jesus. The crucifix is the focus for our liturgy today: in a few moments we will venerate the cross. But look at the poster of the Cimabue and note the golden aura of the face and the surround. The artist was not simply painting the dead Jesus on the cross in some realistic way. No he was painting from a stand point of faith and as an inheritor of the iconographical tradition of the Christian East; that this death was paradoxically saving death; that by his Passion, his suffering and his death God's Christ was achieving the otherwise unachievable; that by his death he was opening a way to life, life in all its fullness, life with God. The gold aura is to do with the glory of God which is central to St John's Gospel: that in the face of Jesus Christ and him crucified we see God’s Glory. So the artist gave the crucified one this glow of glory; God's glory.

Now having said all that does not immediately alleviate our suffering, present or past. But what it does is give us a context of faith and a psychological framework with which to interpret ours and the worlds suffering. So we can speak of Jesus who bears our sins and our sorrows; who carries the suffering of the world to the cross and that through his death and his resurrection begins a process of redemption or restoration.

Some find this understanding hard work to deal with on an intellectual level. Both human suffering and the religious answers to suffering can be difficult to comprehend. But that is precisely why our liturgical forms can be an important antidote as in the same way poetry and art can assist us in articulating difficult theological or spiritual insights. So today we come to venerate the cross of Christ in a very physical way: by approaching it and either touching, kissing, or simply gazing upon the it; and in that act identifying your own personal suffering or your experience of the world's suffering with that of the Suffering Christ; and in that action entering into the Paschal Mystery: that this Cross is the sign of our Salvation. That is how we sing “When I survey the wondrous Cross” and “Faithful cross above all other one and only noble tree.” further on in this service. That is what makes this day Good.