Here we are now one whole week into the Great 50 Days of Easter. This year Holy Week and Easter Sunday were as packed full of liturgies as ever, but even though they required a lot of time and attention and care regarding detail, the whole thing flowed with uncanny grace. And when we finished up with the last Eucharist on Easter Sunday the clergy and worship leadership at Emmanuel felt filled and joyful. Now after resting up for a week I am finally posting my preaching from the Triduum and Easter Sunday. I hope that the two sermons below help to give context and meaning for the Great 50 Days.
Good Friday
Good Friday
I
look around and notice that this is not the crowd we will see
on
Sunday morning.
It’s
no wonder.
Who
really wants to spend an hour
focused
on the crucifixion of our Lord?
The
Good Friday liturgy can’t compete with
the
joyous exuberance of the Easter Alleluia celebration.
Yet
here you are, drawn here by your faith, your devotion, your hope,
or
because you get the truth about how today
is
part of a seamless flow of worship began Palm Sunday.
There
is an irony today about how on Good Friday
we
read the longest Gospel lesson:
John
18:1-40 and 19:1-37
But
we don’t have the time or opportunity
to go into an in-depth Bible study
on all the
segments of these 2 chapters.
I
think that this portion of the Gospels, the 4 Passion Accounts,
are
the least read or studied;
they
are the least popular.
If
we could see in John’s Gospel
how
Jesus is the One who is empowered, who is acting,
our
attitude might change,
and we might find ourselves dwelling more and
more
on this
portion of the Gospel,
reading
it with love and devotion,
with
joy and wonder and thanksgiving
for
its powerful message to encourage us
and
fulfill our hopes and give us deep gladness of heart.
In
John’s Passion Account Jesus is the only one in control.
Everyone
else exhibits
that they have no control over what is going
on,
that there is great failure on their part
to achieve
what they want to do.
As
we know from the other Passion accounts,
the disciples have no apparent control over
their drowsiness;
they
fail to stay awake.
And
then they all run away, fleeing for their lives.
Judas
is doomed to play his role as betrayer
despite
whatever his motivation and intentions were.
Those
in the band that comes to arrest Jesus at Gethsemane
are
knocked to the ground by the force of the word
spoken by
Jesus, his simple statement: “I AM.”
Only
when Jesus purposely gives them a second chance
can
they lay hands on him and take him away.
Peter,
in spite of his earlier protestations,
fails
in his ability to keep from denying his Lord.
The
high priests and Sanhedrin
can’t make a credible case against Jesus.
And
they have to revert to political pressure
to get
Pilate to cooperate.
Pilate
tries but fails to set Jesus free.
And
Mary, his mother, must stand by
helplessly watching with the other women as
he dies.
Everyone is
ineffective.
One
of the times I was in the Middle East
I was leading a pilgrimage in the Holy Land,
and
when we were in Jerusalem
we
walked the original Stations of the Cross,
the
Way of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa.
It
was not a nice spiritual exercise
there
in the ancient city of Jerusalem,
in
the heart of one of the most volatile places on earth.
Many
would probably prefer the setting for such a Good Friday meditation
to be in
chapels or cloistered walks
so
as to enhance the meditation.
But
this was on the busy streets of the old city of Jerusalem.
It
was entirely lined with shops and businesses
and
in some places too narrow for a motor vehicle to pass.
So
as we walked along we got close up views of all the commerce
taking
place beside us.
The
last 5 stations are in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
a
church overlaid with the clutter of centuries
and
a definite eastern flavor of spirituality about it
that
can seem quite foreign to our western minds.
And
along the way some of the other 9 stations
have
little chapels you can step into off the street.
But
most of the time it's pushing your way through the crowds.
Carrying
a large cross through the street
helped
give coherence to the group,
identified
us as pilgrims engaged in a religious ritual.
But
that was no protection.
The
way of the Cross is full of evils and pitfalls and temptations.
In
fact, we had not quite begun
when
one of our group became victim to pickpockets.
We
had to be assertive about making a pathway through the street.
We
had to read the liturgy by shouting over the surrounding noise.
In
one place there was construction - jackhammers
and
blowtorches showering sparks around us.
Poor
lighting and uneven paving stones plagued us.
And
always the shops
shops
which lured our attention away from what we were doing,
with
their materialistic promises.
All
antithetical to our task at hand.
There
were hawkers pushing postcards in our faces.
There
was a professional photographer flashing shots of us
so
that he could come and sell us the photos later.
And
one of his pictures caught four of our pilgrims
following
the cross, but all of them looking sideways
into
a shop that seemed particularly enticing.
So
much for our attempts at trying to make this religious ritual
spiritually
efficacious!
Jesus
had to face taunts, indifference, cruel looks
as
he and his guards pushed their way through the same streets
2
millennia earlier.
Some
people went along with their business of buying and selling
while
the Lamb of God passed by.
How
could they be oblivious to what was happening!
How
could life go on as usual
while
this execution was taking place!
They
have eyes but cannot see,
ears
but cannot hear.
So,
that time in Jerusalem there is no perfect way to carry out this ritual
of
the Stations of the Cross.
It's
always going to be less than perfect.
So
this really is all a picture about us,
our failure,
our helplessness,
our misguided attempts to take matters into
our own hands,
and how the
results are not what we anticipated or wanted.
How
often has this happened to you?
None
of us is able to do what it takes save our own selves,
let
alone the world.
But
it is Jesus who acts, who is in control,
who accomplishes all that needed to be done,
right down
to the last detail described in the ancient texts
about the
Servant, the Lamb of God.
It
is he who chooses when his last moment is, when he dies.
He
completes all,
and breathes out his breath
and gives up
his spirit.
Usually
in each sermon there is an exhortation
-
that which we are urged to do in response to the Word of God.
But
on Good Friday, today, I give none.
Today
we sit and do nothing, no action.
We
can’t.
It
is impossible.
Nor
need we do anything…
…despite
our question carried down through 2,000 years of history:
“What
may we do that we may work the works of God?”
the
question asked of Jesus in the 6th chapter of John.
The
answer is believe, trust, surrender.
Surrender
to Jesus; trust into him.
Today
it is Jesus alone who acts, who by dying accomplishes all.
It
would be a denial of faith, of our basic trust in Jesus,
to seek to add our own action to what he has
done for us.
Even
the faith we do have in him is a gift that he has given to us,
breathing
his breath/his Spirit into the disciples
and
into us,
breathing
out his last breath
to
release that breath in us for life.
This
death,
which
we have such a hard time being with and paying attention to,
is
for the healing of the world,
is
for all those who suffer and struggle
and
fail or who want to think they succeed.
We
are not alone in having a hard time staying present to this death.
In the Garden of Gethsemane the disciples ran
away.
Later,
however, after the Resurrection and Pentecost
something
very significant changed for them all,
and
the rest of their lives they were engaged full out in ministry.
How
interesting - the disciples,
though
they all ran away that night of the betrayal,
later
they all stayed the course.
Tradition
has it that each of them, except John,
died
a martyr's death, and often in horrible torture.
John
suffered exile and imprisonment on a desolate island,
a
prolonged torture.
What
made the difference for them,
that
turned them from deserters to martyrs?
After
Christ's death and resurrection,
they
got it.
They
got the message Jesus had been telling them all along.
One
death does it all.
One
death buys life for all.
One
death brings healing and sanity and hope and new life,
and
everything worth giving up your own life for.
I
pray that each of us will be able to really get it
about
this death, about this day.
It
can be life changing
if
you let it.
Easter Sunday
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is
Risen Indeed! Alleluia!
I
want to welcome all guests and family members and visitors.
Welcome
to the most joyful of all of our feast days to celebrate in church.
We’re
glad you are here to join with us in offering our worship
and
thanksgiving and praise to God.
We
hope you all will join us at this altar for communion,
for
sharing the Bread and the Cup,
the
sacrament of union with Christ,
the
sacrament which strengthens us for daily following Jesus
in
a life of love and service in his Name.
This is the place to be for Easter as the
celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus.
Welcome…
The
Gospel of John’s account of the Resurrection, just heard,
is
full of subtle details
that
describe very human responses to this event of Resurrection
and
that can be very encouraging for each of us
as
we connect with the words of the Gospel
and
take in for ourselves the Mystery of the Resurrection.
First
and foremost in this Gospel reading is the focus on Mary Magdalene
and
her relationship with Jesus.
Here
is a person who deeply loved Jesus,
who
expressed her discipleship to him,
and
her dependence on him that even death could not break,
because,
you see,
even
after his death Mary still refers to him as her Lord.
At
this point she does not know the Resurrection.
Nevertheless,
even though she thinks him dead,
she
still calls him Lord; “They have taken away my Lord, (she says)
and
I do not know where they have laid him.”
Jesus
is still her whole life.
Mary
Magdalene was the first witness of the Resurrection,
the
one who would then be honored as an Apostle by the Church.
Yet
in her tears of sorrow and devotion,
she
does not recognize her Lord until he calls her by name.
Hearing
and recognizing the voice of the Good Shepherd,
we
see that she is a sheep of his flock,
following
him in loving trust.
But
then when Mary recognizes that it is her Lord
there
before her and speaking to her, and not the gardener,
she
responds with the title for him most familiar to her
and
she wants to embrace and cling to him and not let go
now
that she has him back.
But
that’s the problem.
Mary
can’t have Jesus back the way she used to know him.
Never
again will it be the same relationship
as
before the crucifixion and his death.
That
relationship, as wonderful as it was, must go
and
now there is a whole new way of being in relationship
with
the One who has taken into himself all suffering and death
and who now is
Savior,
more
than Teacher, more than Rabbouni, “my rabbi,”
as
Mary used to call him -- now Savior.
So when Mary goes to embrace him, to grasp
hold of him and cling to him,
Jesus
says to her, “Do not hold on to me, do not hold me.”
If
he had let her embrace and cling to him at this time,
it
would have been as if to say,
“Yes,
all is as it had been,
back
again where we were before this awful death by crucifixion.”
Well,
now things are different.
Now
there is a new relationship,
now
there is more than relationship with another,
now
there is new identity to be realized,
new
identity of a fullness of life,
of
Resurrection Life opened to Mary and to all of us.
For
Mary Magdalene, and for us, from now on
there
will be a new way of being with Jesus,
a
way that goes beyond the physical limits of his body.
Now
we live in him and his Resurrection,
like
branches on the vine.
This
is how we understand baptism:
being
united with Jesus in his death and resurrection
so
that now we live in him, in new life, the life of resurrection.
This is what we will be bringing Molly Renee
Masterson into when we baptize her.
She
will be a new branch on the vine.
Now
we live in him and his Resurrection,
like
branches on the vine.
Now
his Spirit lives in us, the Resurrection Jesus present with us
intimately
and immediately
when
we pause and are silent and can look within the heart.
With
the Resurrection
our
understanding of our relationship with Jesus must change.
We
can know his presence
but
we cannot grasp hold of him.
But
he can grasp hold of us.
Have
you ever seen an Eastern Orthodox icon of the Resurrection?
Typically
in an icon of the Resurrection
Jesus
is depicted as grasping hold of
someone
who has been lying in the grave,
usually
identified as Adam and Eve
representing
all of us.
In
the icon Jesus has a strong hold on top of Adam’s wrist
and
he is pulling him out of the grave,
out
of Hades, out of the abode of the dead.
The
energy in the lines of these icons is apparent.
Jesus
is strong, his grip irresistible, his intention insistent.
He
yanks us out of death into life.
It
is his action entirely.
Adam
is not reaching out to grasp the hand of Jesus.
Adam
is not leaping up,
he
is being pulled up.
It’s
unmistakable. We do not grasp
him. He grasps us.
Follow
Jesus and he will yank you out of the bondage and death
that
limits life for us, that keeps us bound in suffering
and
identified with our suffering.
Follow
Jesus and he will yank you out of the known and familiar
in
its tomb-like confinement
out
into a limitless openness, an expansion of life.
Follow
Jesus and he will yank you into a whole new relationship
of
Resurrection Life.
Follow
Jesus and discover what he offers you in Resurrection.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The
Lord is Risen Indeed. Alleluia.
