Sermon for Good Friday 2019

Sermon preached at Farington Moss St Paul

Isaiah 52.13-53.12; Hebrews 10.16-25; John 18.1-19.42

The Church is bare. It looks different. Everything is bare and there is no decoration. It is empty. It is as though all hope and joy is gone for ever.

The readings and liturgies of Holy Week bring the story alive for us. We ponder Mary pouring out her expensive perfume. Why? Because she wanted to give everything. We ponder the request to see Jesus, and examine our motives and the picture of Jesus that we hold. We ponder Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and Jesus’ inclusion of even him in those last words and events of Holy Week.

Last night, you watched as I watched the feet of twelve parishioners. We celebrated the Eucharist, trying to place ourselves in the Upper Room with Christ and his disciples. We then stripped the Church and kept a silent watch until midnight. Not everybody stayed of course but it was interesting to see people come and go during the watch. No words. No interaction apart from maybe a nod or a simple wave. No knowing why each of those people was there, except perhaps the call to be near Jesus. And then the moment when the candles surrounding Jesus were extinguished and we turned our backs and left the Church to go into the night. Deserting Jesus as his disciples deserted him.

Today we take our place with Christ on the Cross. It is not an easy place to stand. It is not comfortable. It is one of the most painful things that we can experience to watch a body, naked and bleeding, flesh ripped away by scourging, hands and feet nailed to a cross and hanging there, struggling to breathe for six hours.

It is horrible and our hearts cry out for justice, for some kind of sense to it all. But there is none. All we can do is stand and watch as Jesus bleeds and as Jesus dies. And yet what is his response to all this? How did he respond?

His words in St John’s Passion reading are words of love and care. ‘Woman, here is your son.’ ‘Here is your mother’. Words of tenderness and love and care. And then those words that speak of the very real and human experience that Christ went through: ‘I am thirsty.’ ‘It is finished.’ The terrible thirst of hanging on a cross in the heat of the midday sun.

In the other Gospels, Jesus goes even further and prays that God would forgive those who cause his very real and physical suffering, because they do not know what they are doing. Such tender love and forgiveness even to those who bring him such pain. Such love and forgiveness shown right up to the last moment.

Why didn’t he speak up? Why didn’t he defend himself? Why didn’t he display his power? Why didn’t he, who was the very word of creation not put a stop to all this suffering and pain?

Today, we have to be the ones who realise that we are the ones who have betrayed Christ. We are the ones who have driven the nails into his hands and feet. We are the ones who have cast lots for his clothing. We are the ones who have turned out backs. We are the ones who cannot help ourselves. And what is Christ’s reaction?

‘Father, forgive them, for they do not  know what they are doing?’ Every little sin that we have committed has hammered the nails into Jesus’ hands and feet. Every little white lie, every moment of gossip, every moment when we have preferred our own comfort to the life that God calls us to. We are the ones. ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing?’

So often we do not know what we are doing and we are in this position. We are all people slowly trying to figure out what it means to be God’s people. We are all trying to adjust our lives in order to live as God calls us to live. We do not know what we are doing, but in our ignorance and weakness Jesus says those same words ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’.

One of the people crucified with him mocked him; the other saw that Jesus was innocent of offence and asked to be remembered in his kingdom. Two people, both guilty, as we all are. What was the difference? The response to Jesus on the Cross. As we come to the Cross, we too ask to be remembered.

Today is the day that the Cross has to become real for us. We have to see Christ on the Cross and we have to allow this sight to touch and move our hearts. Will we mock? Will we tell ourselves that it was all a load of rubbish? Or will we see that Jesus died an innocent man and yet did so willingly to show us, in the fullest way possible, how to love? Will we too ask to be remembered in Jesus’ kingdom?

We watch, in our imaginations, as Jesus dies. We see his lifeless body hanging there and we begin to see the darkness that so often seems to overshadow our world. We see the darkness in our own lives, the darkness of our own sin. We see that death is the punishment for our sin and watch as an innocent man, the Word made flesh, submits to this experience of death. He is taken down and laid in the tomb.

The very source of life, which is the light of the world, that light which the darkness cannot overcome, willingly descends into the darkness of death. Satan trembles as Jesus releases God’s people from the grave. We tremble as we wait in the emptiness and darkness of these next two days. The whole earth trembles as we await the victory of Christ.

This death that we watch, with tears and broken hearts, is simply the beginning W    e know that our Redeemer lives, and that he will bring us to God’s kingdom and raise us up at the last.  We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, for by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.