March 21, 2008
Good Friday (Year A, B, C)
Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25 or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9;
John 18:1-19:42
In this observance of the Three Days, or Triduum, as it is called in Latin, we hear an echo of Sunday's Passion reading and have the opportunity to look more closely at each day's events that formed the end of Jesus' life on earth.
Yesterday was Maundy Thursday in which we heard Jesus' new commandment that his followers would love one another and show that love in acts of service. He then shared the Passover meal, breaking open the tradition, and making known the breaking of his body and the spilling of his blood that was to come, to be remembered in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
Tonight we focus on the events of the trial and crucifixion of our Lord. And our worship concludes tomorrow night with the great Easter Vigil and the celebration of Christ's Resurrection from the dead. And while it is tempting to want to focus on the good news of Easter, we know that without the cross of Christ, there can be no resurrection.
In tonight's reading of the passion of Jesus, we are drawn into the story more deeply as the author of John's Gospel attempts to fill in or highlight different aspects of the picture than we heard on Sunday.
In hearing the Passion of Christ, we might wonder, why would God come to us in this way? Why would Jesus be willing to give up life in the divine realm to come and live among us in this place that is anything but perfection? The answer may be that Jesus believed in God and the Kingdom of Heaven with such passion that he was willing to give up everything to share God's vision for the way life could and should be with His people.
It's a vision that we as human beings cannot even begin to wrap our feeble little minds around. I recognize that our minds are capable of great discoveries and profound works, but feeble when compared to the wisdom of God. The vision that Jesus came to teach and proclaim is so radical, that we cannot imagine it. The love of God, which is the basis of that Kingdom, defies description. God's love is that HUGE and that radical!
Jesus so loved God and was so in tune with God, and believed so fervently in the Kingdom of God that he lived it to the fullest, and he never wavered in his commitment to living out that Kingdom and calls for his followers to do the same. But Jesus also knows, that just like the disciples who couldn't stay awake one hour with him to pray in the Garden, Jesus knows the weakness of the human heart and its inability to always choose that which is good and right to do. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to live according to the ways of God and seek to further the Kingdom of God on earth.
The problem is that God's Kingdom doesn't allow for power brokers to control others. The Kingdom of God doesn't allow for an inequality that produces have’s and have not’s. It doesn't allow for divisions according to race or ethnicity or national status. It's a Kingdom that requires economic justice for all, not just those born into wealth and privilege. It requires nonviolent responses to disagreements. It's a Kingdom that takes absolutely everything we believe to be true about the structure and ways of our society, and turns it completely on its head.
What does this mean for us as followers of Christ today?
What does it mean to you, to be a follower of the One who so loved God and all that God created including the human race, that he gave himself in the most astounding selfless act of love, not as some random act of kindness, but as chosen course of action - laid out centuries before he came? You might be tempted to think, “Well, he was God; so he had really had no choice.” But the scene described in Luke's Gospel of Jesus' time of prayer with the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane on that last night, was one of such anguish as he prayed “not my will, but your will be done” that “his sweat became like drops of blood falling down on the ground.” This was no easy decision, but involved surrendering himself to a path of great suffering.
The religious authorities with their councils and secret trials thought that they were planning Jesus' death, but the reality is that they were not in charge. Even the conversation between the Governor Pontius Pilate and Jesus during his examination is filled with irony as he confronted Jesus saying he had the power to let him live or die. But even Jesus knew that any power Pilate had had been given to him by God, and it was his choice to use that power for good or for evil. Unfortunately, the allure of power proves too tempting for most human beings and instead of using that power to serve the greater good, they succumb to serving themselves and their own interests, which is exactly what was at stake in this first century situation, and is no different for those who hold power today.
While indeed, the plots and plans of the religious leaders and the Roman soldiers ultimately put Jesus to death, Jesus had already surrendered himself to die before they arrived to arrest him.
In a way, his life ended as it had begun, pursued by those who felt threatened by Him; those who sensed a loss of power and a challenge to their own authority. But the message that Jesus brought to us all was that all people are God's children. Jesus came to show that there is another way to live with God that doesn't include violent and oppressive regimes.
Jesus came to show the world who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel. Jesus came to show us how to care for the poor and forgotten of our society and part of Jesus' mission on earth was to reveal the love of God to those who felt they were not worthy to receive it. And so he went to the lowliest people -- the peasants among whom he lived and was raised, the blind, the lame, the sick, the orphaned and widowed, those scarred and maimed by life because of their disabilities and disfigurements. And he assured each of them that there was a place for them in God's eternal home.
These same peasants wanted to believe in him and for a time they did believe that he would deliver them from the hardships of their life. But as the events of the week we call “holy” unfolded, and Jesus refused to fight back against the same religious leaders who told them how to live and worship, they didn't understand. They thought that God's Messiah would defeat the brutal Roman regime under which they lived. And so it was out of fear of the authorities who seemed to hold all the power that their chants turned from praises to cries for Jesus' death.
Nevertheless, the message of God's love still holds true. And that same message is true for all of us today. However, there is a catch. God's love is there for everyone and that is undeniable. The catch though has to do with the way that we perceive that love; in order to gain a sense of God's unfailing love, we need to be willing to see ourselves among the lowly, to see ourselves as broken and needy.
When we see ourselves as having all we need, we have no room for anyone else, and least of all for God. And so, we need to hear the stories of Scripture, as a way to remind us to see ourselves in the characters of those stories who God in Christ encounters in order to recognize our own blindness, our own deafness, and our own unwillingness to follow the way of God. In these stories and the rituals of worship, we also hear and know the forgiveness of God. And that is the crux of the Passion of Christ; that despite our brokenness and our sinful ways, God loves us more than we can know or appreciate, and offers to us the gift of forgiveness and a return to the community of God with all the gifts and benefits that that provides, so that we might then treat one another with the same love and forgiveness and grace.
The season of Lent culminates in these Three Days, in which we hear the Passion of Christ again and again, not just to hear the same old story, but to see with clearer vision and receive with hearts renewed, not blaming this or that group for Jesus' death, but humbling ourselves to recognize our human failings, and then return to the God who so loves us that he would go to such lengths to show and share that love; That by his life, death, resurrection, and ascension God in Christ would inaugurate a new order of society in which all are loved and coexist in peace.
The story of the Passion of Christ therefore has not ended, for it continues in the hearts and minds of you and me and all God's people, who must go from here and live out the Kingdom of God so that life will be on earth as it is in heaven. And we do this not by our own power or strength, but by the love of God poured out for us on this most holy and Good Friday.
Amen.
The Rev. Melissa C. Buono