Holy Week Series: Good Friday

 There is an irony about how on Good Friday

            we read the longest Gospel lesson:  John 18 and 19.

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, and even 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.

 

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 else is ineffective.

This 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 6^th chapter of John.

 

The answer is believe, trust, have faith, surrender.

            Surrender to Jesus.

 

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.

 

The last night I talked about one of the times I was in the Middle East,

a time when 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 hotly contended 

                        pieces of real estate.

 

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.

            It 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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

We had to be assertive about making a pathway through the street.

We had to shout over the surrounding noise.

In one place there was construction - jackhammers 

            and blowtorches showering sparks around us.

Poor lighting.

And always shops 

            which lured our attention away from what we were doing,

            with their materialistic promises.

All antithetical to our task at hand.

 

So too Jesus had to face: the taunts, the indifference, the 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, I guess 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.

 

That's very much like making confession,

                        whether the sacrament of reconciliation 

                        or the general confession in the Sunday morning liturgy,

            it's always going to be less than perfect, less than complete.

 

Sometimes we come at the task of confession

            as though we can get everything confessed,

            so that we can be perfect, however momentary that is.

Instead we need to come to confession

            so that we can acknowledge our dependence upon Jesus,

                        our dependence upon his forgiveness, his grace.

 

That's the key thing to get in making confession.

 

For the truth is, the reality we live in is this:

            we are as guilty as sin.

 

But this death, which we have such a hard time paying attention to,

            is for the healing of the world,

            is for the healing of our sin-sickness.

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 for 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.

Holy Week Series: Maundy Thursday

 We are now at Maundy Thursday, 

the first of the three liturgies referred to as the Triduum, the Three Days:

Maundy Thursday,

Good Friday

and the Easter Vigil of Holy Saturday.

I invited you to participate deeply in each of these three liturgies, 

to let your hearts be open to the full scope of meaning 

for the events of the week, 

to follow Jesus as faithful disciples,

as you have responded.

 

The importance of the narration of the events of Holy Week

is reflected in the Gospels very clearly.

It is thought that when the Gospels were written down,

            they started with the Passion narrative

            and worked backward from there.

Two full chapters in all four Gospels 

            are devoted just to Good Friday alone.

            Compare that with mere paragraphs for each other event.

 

So much is crammed into this one liturgy this evening:

There are 3 distinct themes, each so rich and full 

that desire all the attention we can give them.

 

The first is what Jesus did by taking the role of the lowest household slave 

to do the most menial task of service as an example to all of us 

of how we are to serve one another.

Go to the Nativity Facebook page and view the video of the Wicks family.

            They have beautifully and simply played out this part of the liturgy for us.

            They are a living parable speaking to us; watch and learn from them.

 

The second of the three themes 

is what Jesus did with the bread and wine of their table fellowship, 

how he transformed that forever 

and released through those common elements 

the grace of his abiding presence in a very material way.

 

And the third is what happened next, what happened in Gethsemane.

 

I will speak now briefly about the second and the third.  

 

After the washing up before coming to the table, the bread and the wine --

Through sheer familiarity we lose the impact 

of the radical action Jesus took in the midst of the meal.

He took the familiar bread and wine, part of most all their meals, 

bread and wine, which symbolized hospitality, nourishment, 

bread to strengthen 

and wine to gladden the heart.

 

He gave them the bread, and then when they had eaten it, he said, 

“This is my body.”

I can almost see the puzzlement come over their faces.

But then he gave them the cup, and when they had each drunk from it, 

he said, “This is my blood.”

 

Now they would have been aghast.

The Jewish dietary laws were quite clear.

The life of the animal sacrificed and then eaten was in the blood.

The life was sacred, precious, created by God, and the life was in the blood,

and so the blood must be thoroughly drained 

from the slaughtered animal

and given back to the Creator of life,

before the flesh could be prepared and eaten.

 

Jesus shocked their sensibilities most thoroughly 

so that they could profoundly realize 

that they were taking within themselves his very life.

 

From this time forward there would be no mere remembering about Jesus 

            whenever they would get together around the table again in the future.

This was about taking Jesus very literally, both physically and spiritually, 

taking Jesus literally into themselves.

You become what you eat, you know.

 

Then after this last supper that Jesus would have with his disciples 

                                    before his death, 

the scene now shifts to Gethsemane.

Here is where the Passion account in all 4 Gospels begins.

 

Having been in the Middle East and the Holy Land on a number of occasions, 

I cannot enter Holy Week without vivid recollection 

of physically walking the same path.

 

One time when I was there, we took the Palm Sunday walk in Jerusalem

            down the Mt. of Olives    from Bethany        to Gethsemane 

two miles from top of the hill called the Mount of Olives

            down the hill to Kidron Wadi (essentially a gulch)

            and up the other side into Jerusalem proper - Old City

            at the Golden Gate

            which led into the Temple area.

 

Maundy Thursday - after Jesus ate his last meal with his disciples

            they came back to this area.

From where they had the Passover dinner

            it probably would have been about a four mile walk.

At that time of night, after a full meal, 

                        and probably a long day prior to that,

            it's a good guess that they were all tired.

And it was there that Jesus asked his disciples to stay awake one hour.

 

From Gethsemane one could look across the gulch

            and up at the Golden Gate to the Temple Mount.

The irony and significance of this place becomes clear.

            Here Jesus would come to the decisive moment.

In full view of the Temple lit by the full moon of the Passover

                                    Jesus prays.

 

Would he go through with what he had set in motion here Sunday?

            Or… as he prayed … 

"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; 

            yet not what I want but what you want."

 

Today there is a church there to mark the place of this prayer.

            a beautiful church, dimly lit by light filtering 

                                    through blue and violet stained glass.

It is built to speak to the pilgrim:

            "Come kneel here and keep watch with Jesus,

            stay awake and pray with him his own prayer, if you dare,

            'not my will, but thine be done.'"

This time of prayer is actually the climax point in the Passion;

everything from here on follows as a consequence of this moment.

 

We are invited to watch with Jesus during these liturgies of Holy Week,

            watching for just an hour at a time,

                        the usual length of a Sunday service.

Or we can draw even nearer to Jesus

            as we follow the events,

and offer our worship, our profound sense of awe and wonder,

                        the gratitude of our hearts.

Leave here in silence tonight to watch with Jesus in your own homes.

 

Remember this:  the events of this week

            are the whole reason for Christ's coming.

THE one major purpose of Jesus' life

            was to lay it down, to die.

All the events prior to Holy Week -

            - all the miracles, all the parables, all the Sermon on the Mount

- all were only preliminaries, setting the stage for what was to occur now.

 

Each of us is faced with Jesus' death in a very personal way.

            - what that means to me.

The audacity of one human being 

            intentionally dying as a way to bring me into life.

 

This week is a love song from God to us, 

a hard love song, but the ultimate love song of deepest, fullest love.

How can we turn our backs on such love?

How can we also express our love in return?

Holy Week Series: Palm Sunday

 Here we are once again gathering within these walls 

            and we do so at the beginning of Holy Week, 

                        the most sacred time of the year for us, 

who call ourselves by the Name of Christ.

I invite you to participate deeply in the liturgies of this week, 

to let your hearts be open to the full scope of meaning 

for the events of this week, 

to follow Jesus as faithful disciples.

 

I make this invitation,

and then I realize that I have asked you to open your hearts 

to the Passion Account of our Lord’s death, 

a story full of intense suffering.

 

We may not feel at all up for exposure to such suffering.

We may have had about all we can handle this last year,

            the deaths,

            the funerals put on hold,

            the unknowns,

            the fear and anxiety 

                        that when suppressed gets expressed in anger and grief.

 

To listen to the Passion according to Mark 

brings all this suffering before us again.

And if that were not enough,

            each of us here has most probably known times 

of intense personal suffering.

For many people being consciously present with suffering,

                        unresolved from the past, is most difficult.

 

Yet I will still make this invitation to be present with an open heart 

to this Gospel and to all the liturgies of Holy Week.

 

The reason is not to exacerbate 

the suffering you may encounter or be experiencing, 

but to discover in the midst of it all the most profound love,

love that moves us through the narrow constraints and pressures of pain 

and out into an expansive space that is all freedom and joy.

 

Unless we go through the narrows of facing the suffering

            we will forever be stuck there, just sort of holding 

our grief or woundedness or sorrow or hopelessness at bay,

            never fully free to experience the expansiveness

                        of healing and transformation which brings us true joy.

 

But by being willing to look at the hard words of the Passion Account 

full in the face, 

and as much as lies within us to be conscious of what we see,

then what our eyes will see is love, great love, all love, profoundest love.

 

Brothers and sisters, this story of Jesus’ death is not a tragic account 

of suffering beyond all measure.

Jesus knew what he was doing;

he knew that what he was doing was essential,

                        all in service for you, for me, for every living being,

            the way for all to come into Resurrection Life,

                        to finally get what he had been talking about all along,

                                    what all his ministry had been about.

 

I guarantee to you that if you come and take part 

in all these liturgies of Holy Week, 

or as many of them as you can, 

            with a willingness and trust to bring all your own suffering with you,

that Love of God, which is God, will be at work in you,

            transforming the wounds, 

bringing healing, 

revealing to you such beauty.

 

Holy Week – the most sacred time of the whole year,

            focused in our deepest emotions and most profound pain,

            the time when we can be together 

in holding all our suffering 

and all the suffering of the world

            in the context of the Love of Jesus played out to its full extent.

 

Is that not what draws your hearts in deepest devotion, 

wonder, love and awe?

 

Let your participation this week

be nothing less than responding in faith,

            trusting wholly in what Jesus did for us,

            surrendering to the completeness of what he did

                        that does not need any additional action on our part

                        other than to receive.

 

In our devotional response to Jesus

            there is no self aggrandizement,

            no need to prove a point or make a statement,

            no status attained for having participated in all the worship of the week,

just humble acceptance and the expression of our hearts.

 

What better use of our time this week

            for those who are Christians, who are followers of Jesus,

than to show our devotion to the One who not only died for us

            but continues to take care of us, nurture us, feed us with himself,

to show our devotion through our worship

            especially at each of the liturgies of the Triduum,

                        Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil Saturday night,

            the three most holy days of the whole Church Year.

 

And this is what we can best do 

in response to what the liturgies of this week represent:

            to offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,

                        as we say each Sunday in the Eucharistic Prayer, 

            to offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

 

The Mystery of the Cross and Resurrection 

            is all done for love of us,

                        each of us and all of us.

 

From Jesus’ wounded side flows 

            compassion, mercy, love, forgiveness and grace.

 

No love has ever been greater,

            this love sufficient to embrace and heal and save

                        all fears that would paralyze us,

                        all suffering 

            and especially suffering inflicted on peoples in the name of religion,

                        all griefs, all sin.

No greater love than this.

 

 

Almighty God, 

whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, 

and entered not into glory before he was crucified: 

Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, 

may find it none other than the way of life and peace; 

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.