St. James Episcopal Church
Greeneville, TN
Year A - Good Friday - April 10, 2020
I have been Contemplating all week what to say on Good Friday.
I reminded folks last night that it was important to share the story… Share the story… Share the story of the mighty acts of love displayed by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we enter the story after the events of the previous night… after the last meal with Jesus disciples, he was arrested in the garden and brought before the authorities.
We just read the passion narrative according to John… and now we get to sit at the foot of the cross... sit at the foot of the cross and wonder… Wonder why Jesus had to die… Wonder why, when things seemed to just be getting fired up and the mission just beginning, he was taken away.
Wonder why, even though he didn’t do anything wrong, was treated like a criminal… and accursed – and hung on a tree. Wonder why I or we deserve such love, such grace, such favor.
There is a tendency in modern Christian culture to race toward Easter, where we get to revel in the joy… where we get to be filled with the excitement of the glorious resurrection. But in order to get to the other side of the grave, we need to get to the grave…
It’s interesting that this day is filled with all the emotions, joy, sorrow, guilt, fear, and the greatest love that we could ever imagine. The passion of Jesus (his suffering and death) has been a point of contemplation and reflection since the event itself.
The English mystic, known as Dame Julian of Norwich, reflects on the passion of Jesus on the cross in her illness (on her deathbed). In her "showings" or "revelations of divine love", she wrote: “For we are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it. No created being can ever know how much and how sweetly and tenderly God loves them. It is only with the help of his grace that we are able to persevere in spiritual contemplation with endless wonder at his high, surpassing, immeasurable love which our Lord in his goodness has for us.”
“But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is necessary for me answered and said: It was necessary that there should be sin, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
People through the centuries have asked the question of why… over and over again. Over and over again… WE wrestle with the question so we can make sense of this tragic display of horror.
Crucifixion has been a bit romanticized over the centuries. We get the image from art… with the body of Jesus hanging on a cross… and a small trickle of blood, maybe coming out of the head, hands, feet, and side that were pierced. all of it very squelched and sterilized.
I feel that it was done this way in order to make the horror palatable. But, crucifixion was a public display of blood and gore, it was more of the thing that horror movies are made of... done by the Romans to inflict fear in the people… Fear of rising up and challenging the power… Fear of calling out the authoritarian structure.
Jesus, with his teaching of love and relationship and connection to God, and he was considered a political threat to the powers that be. The people with the power were fearful of his message, and people being liberated from their oppression and being freed from tyranny.
So, he was publicly executed after a mockery of a trial and a people calling for Barabbas, a person that had been arrested for a violent display against the Roman government... A person who they thought would lead them in an insurrection.
But that’s not how it worked out… So we’re left with an innocent man hanging on a Roman Cross. But we know the end of the story… we know the end of the story, but we're not there yet. We know that in the end all shall be made well.
But we are called today to linger a bit at the foot of the cross and contemplate the mighty act of Love that Jesus displayed for us and for the world.
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