Good Friday Message

In the beginning, we say, God spoke the world into being.

It’s Friday, and Jesus is still speaking.  The great earthly ministry which began in Cana of Galilee is ending on the hill of Calvary.  But still, he speaks.

“I thirst,” “Father, forgive them,” “here is your mother,” “here is your son,” “my God, my God.”  The different accounts of the crucifixion record different words, but the same message: the teacher still teaches.

What the teacher teaches, exactly, confounds and confuses us.  In the face of a completely avoidable and – by all practical considerations – unnecessary torture and execution, Jesus instead insists on doing the very things that will get him killed.

Jesus’ actions are so….so…foreign, so mind-boggling, that nobody understands them.  The disciples don’t; his mother does not; the ruler of his country does not; certainly, two thousand years after the fact, we don’t. 

We know this, because our words don’t change: “for the love of God, save yourself!” “why are you doing this?” “you’re doing this the hardest way possible” “why are you trying to be a martyr?”

When we see others apparently hell-bent on self-destruction, after a certain point we release our own consciences, choosing instead to stand aloof, part of the “I-told-you-so” crowd.

When Jesus has cried out, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” we take it to mean that God has left him, hurt, bleeding, and dying: punishment for our guilt.  We take it to mean, in fact, that God acts the same way that we would.

After all, that the great stern Father that so many people grew up with: you were so bad, so sinful, that you made God so angry that he had to kill someone to make himself feel better.  Jesus stepped in, and died instead of you.  We know that somebody has to take the blame when something goes wrong.

Feeling powerless to stop a tragedy without involving ourselves, we stand alongside the assembled throng and watch, stunned, as the hope and promise of our own lives is crucified on a barren hill outside Jerusalem.  We are stunned as we realize that only hours ago we stood in the courtyard and called for his death, desperately afraid that at any moment we would be unmasked as his followers.  We are breathless at the scope of our own denial of Christ – the realization that our trust has rested not upon God, but upon the power that sought and aspired to in our world.  We are aghast that we have expected and even demanded to see God act like us.

We are shamed to find that, in fact, our “belief in the bible” is false, and empty.  Jesus acts and speaks to fulfill the Scriptures, and we find that we don’t just fall short; we deny entirely that we even know how to act.  W lack the courage to act as God demands, and would rather blindly ignore the Saviour in our midst, rather than follow: if we truly did ‘believe’ in the bible, our days would be spent in prayer, washing each others’ feet, and sharing in God’s meal – not messing about in politics, finger-pointing, or judgement.

But what if, in fact, it is not God who demands the death of Christ, but us?  What if, for once, we cannot stand safely behind the mask we project that says God is angry and vengeful; and have instead to rend our own hearts and accept that Christ didn’t die because God wanted it; but because we did.

Maybe, when Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane that the cup would pass from him, he did not mean that God would relent in demanding his death; but instead that he would not have to submit to the violence, insults, torture, and death that waited for him at the hands of the people who had before so readily listened to him. 

God does not act like we do.  God used the cross that Friday – not to show that someone had to die – but that that death itself was damned on that Friday.

It is Friday, but Sunday is coming: that scripture, too, will be fulfilled; and we will see of God’s great covenant become our reality.

Jesus continues to teach, even as he hangs on the cross: speaking to us, admonishing, loving us to end; remembering indeed the 22^nd psalm: “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” but ends with “the Lord has acted!”

The Lord has acted: the Lord has hung on the cross, and breathed his last.

Because the Lord has acted, your life is not futile: as the cross has fulfilled its purpose, you will, too.

Because the Lord has acted, your failures are not final: you are loved, and you are forgiven.

Because the Lord has acted, your death is not final: on Friday, God damned death, for you.

The Lord has acted: blessed be the name of the Lord.

Amen.