Good Friday: April 10, 2020

Year A, Good Friday                                     

Psalm 22                                                                               

            I have often lamented the fact that in the Episcopal Church (and a lot of churches) we tend to overlook Good Friday. We cram everything into Palm Sunday because people are too busy to come to Holy Week Services.  I have come to believe that to fully appreciate Easter, you have to first experience the betrayal, denial and abandonment of Maundy Thursday and the utter desolation of Good Friday.  The church adorned with lilies and azaleas is that much more stunning after you have experienced it completely stripped of adornment on Maundy Thursday and then bare on Good Friday.  But….this year is different.  This year, I feel as though we have spent far too long in Lent-- and Easter can’t come fast enough.  We have been waiting and waiting, anticipating the worst and hoping that it won’t be as bad as they say it will be. 

That feeling of dread and anxiety has given me a better appreciation of what Jesus must have felt.  Since he was all knowing, he knew exactly what was going to happen. He knew that he would die a horrible death and not only did he have to bear that horrible weight, but he had to continually explain to his disciples what was going to happen.  It’s like those experts today who are constantly warning us of the impending deaths in our nation and warning us about what not to do.  Can you imagine having to explain that horrible truth over and over again? Jesus had been anticipating this moment his whole life.  I am sure he handled that better than we are handling our current fears, but maybe, just maybe we now have an inkling of what that might have felt like, what Lent is really about. 

Much is made of Jesus’ final words in the Gospel of Matthew and Mark.  They echo the first line in our Psalm for today, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”  Some people conclude that despite the fact that Jesus was God incarnate and all knowing, he felt forsaken for that moment.  We can never really know.  I think he was in agony and expressing something that many around him were experiencing. I don’t think he ever lost his faith.

In the Gospel of John, the Gospel that is typically read on Good Friday, Jesus never asks, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  His last words were, “It is finished.”  Now, here is something kind of interesting.  The first line of Psalm 22 is: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  The last line is: “They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn the saving deeds that he has done.”  You see, the psalm doesn’t end with a desperate cry, but with a reminder that God will finish what he started.  God will save.  So when Jesus proclaimed, “It is finished.”—it wasn’t a cry of defeat it was a testament to God’s work.  God finished what God started. 

We are in a dark and scary place in our nation and our world.  Here in Virginia, we are still anticipating a peak that could happen in late April or May.  We’re really not sure.  Either way, I am waking up with chest pains in the middle of the night because of the anxiety around it all.  But here’s the thing, the Psalm doesn’t end in defeat and neither does Jesus’ life.  The last word for God is always salvation.  Yes, the anticipation is a bit of hell on earth, but it will end and in the end, God will save.  God will finish what he started.

By Bob Harper

*I found a great deal of information and inspiration in many commentaries, but particularly: Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship: Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Pentecost

What is your sacrifice?: April 19, 2019

Good Friday

            On April 12th, 1963, while Martin Luther King was in the Birmingham jail because of the demonstrations against segregation, eight prominent Alabama clergymen (including the Episcopal Bishop of Alabama) published a letter in the local newspaper.  The letter urged people to cease their support of Martin Luther King as he was inciting violence, despite the peaceful intent of the protests.  Four days later, on Good Friday, Martin Luther King wrote a lengthy response to these clergy men.  The letter is referred to as “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” It would be impossible for me to summarize it as the letter as it is approximately 7,000 words, and they are all important words. 

            The letter was critical of what King referred to as the “White Moderate”—those who supported desegration but wanted to wait until a more appropriate time.  King was also critical of the white churches.  He wrote: “But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.”

            It is not a coincidence that he wrote these words on Good Friday, a day when the church talks the most about Jesus’ sacrifice, a day when we are reminded of the betrayal of not only Judas, but Peter and the other disciples who abandoned Jesus when he needed them the most.  At my last church we always did a drama for Palm Sunday. As the assistant, it was my task to cast the drama.  There were of course a few people who I called on several times.  At one point one man said to me, “How come I always have to be the bad guy?”  I responded, “The only good guy in this story is Jesus and no one wants to play him either.”  It’s true.  If you look at all the people in the story that we hear every Palm Sunday and every God Friday (which includes Peter, the chief priests, Pilate, the soldiers, the crowd), no one ever comes out looking good.  Only Jesus, and he gets crucified. 

            Of course the biggest betrayal comes from those closest to Jesus--his disciples.  We all know about Judas and his outright betrayal.  We know about Peter’s denial.  Yet there were 10 other apostles.  Where did they go? Where were they during the trial?  Where were they at the crucifixion?  The Gospel of John mentions that one of the 12 apostles was at the foot of the cross.  The Gospel does not name the disciple.  It only refers to the “beloved disciple.”  I sometimes wonder if that was done so that we could all see ourselves in that spot.  There were some women (including Jesus’ mother) who were at the foot of the cross, but the other 11 disciples were missing.  

            We can’t be sure why they are missing, but since the Gospel tells us later that they went into hiding because they were afraid, I assume they were trying to save themselves.  They were afraid that if people associated them with Jesus, they would either be arrested or crucified.  I do not blame them. They were terrified and I would have been as well.  They were not ready for this kind of sacrifice.

            I often wonder if I would have been brave enough to support Martin Luther King as a white pastor at that time.  I just heard a pastor talk about the experience of having to flee in the night because his father had the audacity to work with African American pastors in the 1960s.  His life was threatened.  The life of his family was threatened.  His father risked a great deal to stand with African American pastors and he paid a price.  I am not sure I would have been that brave. I would have almost surely been part of the white moderate. 

            In the quote I read at the beginning of this sermon, King said that we need to recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church.  Yet we can see that before the early church was born, the leaders of that early church made a lot of mistakes. They weren’t ready to sacrifice, not until after the resurrection.  They needed to witness not only Jesus’s sacrifice, but his triumphal re-entry. 

            It’s hard to reclaim that sacrificial spirit because we have been comfortable for far too long.  Most people don’t come to Holy Week service.  Sometimes it is because work or family makes that difficult.  But sometimes I think it is because we would really rather just skip over the sacrifice and rejoice in the triumph of the resurrection.  We feel that the sacrifice already happened and now we can just enjoy the benefits of that sacrifice.  Unfortunately, without the sacrifice, as Martin Luther King said, we forfeit our authenticity.  If we cannot stand up for unpopular truths and marginalized groups, then we are no longer the church that the early apostles created and ultimately died for. 

            I am not going to tell you what sacrifice looks like for you.  Only you can know that. But for me, it means that I can no longer let fear determine my actions or reactions.  I cannot constantly worry about what other people will think.  Good Friday asks us all to consider what sacrifice looks like for us.  If you are already the kind of person who likes to “tell it like it is,” then doing that more, isn’t really a sacrifice.  For some of us sacrifice will look like more listening and less talking.  For some of us, it will be about speaking out more.  Only you and God can know what sacrifice looks like for you.  But I can tell you one thing, if the sacrifice feels good and is easy, it’s not sacrifice.  If it makes you a little sick and anxious, it just might be. 

            While sacrifice is not easy, it is not the end.  At the end, we have resurrection.  Martin Luther King never gave up on the church and Jesus never gave up on his disciples.  He forgave them after his resurrection and they were transformed into a new p eople---a people bold enough to proclaim the Gospel in a hostile environment.  The last line of Martin Luther King’s Letter was: “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”  That is what Christian hope looks like.

****I encourage you to read the full letter: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

Good Friday: Mary at the foot of the cross

 ^{Good Friday Reflection                                                                                                                               April 14, 2017}

            They told me not to come.  They said it would only make it harder….as if staying home while my son hung on a cross would be anything less than torture---no matter where I was.  Since he was making this sacrifice for a world of people who had spat on him, betrayed him, abandoned him, mocked him, ignored him, and now slowly killed him… well then it seems to me that I can make this sacrifice for him.  I can sit at the foot of the cross as my son slowly dies.  I can do that at least. 

            I am so close I can smell his sweat.  That smell brings me a strange comfort.  It is as familiar to me as my own sweat.  I smelled it after he came inside after running around with his friends and lay down with me at the hottest part of the day, when all you could do was rest.  I smelled it as he worked with his father on various projects.  I know that smell as well as I knew his voice and his face. 

            As soon as he started this crazy journey…trying to help people understand and know God, understand and know him---as soon as he started that, I have been spending more time with him.  Sometimes I have stood at a distance as he has taught. Sometimes I just watched him sleep.  I don’t ever want to forget his face.  When I watched him sleep, I would remember who he was as a child, that sweet baby I held in my arms so many years ago.  It feels as though  thousands of years have passed since he was born. But now that sweat is mixed with a different smell.  Blood. 

            That combination of blood and sweat reminded me of another time years ago when I lay on the floor in a room of hay with animals walking in and out. Joseph pacing by my side, trying to be helpful. Blood. Sweat. I was there at his birth and I will be there when he dies. I will stay. 

            I look up and I can see him looking at the soldiers as they divide his clothing.  It makes me angry.  He just looks sad.  Sad and tired.  Then he turns to me and his eyes meet mine.  A fresh pain courses through my body.  I did not think the pain could get worse, but it does.  I am reminded of that time when he was just 8 days old. Joseph and I were so happy. We had been through so much but now we had this beautiful boy.  We went to the temple with our small sacrifice of 2 pigeons.  We offered this sacrifice to the Lord.  As we prepared to leave an old man approached us. While he was old and walked with difficulty, his face emanated joy. 

            He came and took Jesus out of my arms.  At first I was afraid he was going to take him from me, but then he spoke and I knew there was something special about this man.  He said something about seeing salvation and how Jesus, our baby, would be a light for all people.   He then blessed us all and said something I will never forget. “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

            It did not make sense to me then.  How could he be a light to all nations, but also be hated and opposed?  Why would my soul be pierced? I had listened to God.  I had said yes when he made that crazy request of giving birth to a baby who was to be the Son of God.  I said yes.  Why would my soul be pierced?  But I understand now.  I understand what it is to have your soul pierced.  I felt it long before this moment.  I felt it when the people tried to stone him because he said things that were contrary to what everyone believed, when he disagreed with the great religious leaders and even the Romans.  I begged him to stop, stop causing a stir.  There had to be a better way.  He did not listen. He just gave me that look.  I felt my soul pierced again when he was arrested, then again when the crowd shouted, “Crucify him.” I felt it over and over again.  Now, it was complete.  My soul was in pieces.  There was nothing left to pierce. 

            There is that look again.  He looks into my eyes.  I expect to see pain, maybe even anger.  But as I search his eyes, I see something else.  I see love. Though it must be so painful to speak he says, “Woman, here is your son.”  Then he looks at John, the only one who is here with me and says, “Here is your mother.”  Even at this horrible moment, he is still trying to take care of us.  Now is says that he is thirsty and I want to bring him something, but they will not let me. He looks at me one last time and then looks at the sky as if searching for something.  We all look up as well.  I don’t see a thing.  I hear a gasp and I get up so I can be just a little closer.  He says, “It is finished.” And it is.

            I fall into the arms of John and we weep together.  We stay until they take his body from the cross. They let me hold him one last time.  While my grief feels overwhelming, more memories started to flood in while I hold him.  I remember the people who followed him.  I remember the people he cured and how they looked at him. He turned water into wine. He opened the eyes of the blind. He even brought a man back to death. 

            Then I hear his voice so clearly I think he must still be alive, but he remains limp in my arms.  I hear him say, “‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’?  You will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.”  He was always saying things like that…things that no one really understood.  But those words come to me now with renewed clarity.  Maybe my pain will turn into joy. My pain will turn to joy.  I say that over and over as I watch them carry my boy away.