“GOOD FRIDAY MEDITATION"

St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church

Rev. Gary Paterson

April 2, 2010

Good Friday is a hard day. Do I like it?,…no, not really. Do I think it’s important… yeah, I really do. Some years you feel like going to Good Friday worship; but other years?... not so sure. I was talking to a friend a short while back… “I don’t usually come to Good Friday service… I’m not sure I get it. But I thought I’d try again, next week; I thought I’d attend.” It was a helpful conversation, and got me thinking again about why Good Friday is important.

I hauled out some old sermons… notes, really, to see what I’d said in past years. There were some well-crafted efforts there, if I say so myself – meditations on the seven last words or rather, sentences, that Jesus spoke from the cross; another that worked with various symbols… the crown of thorns, the nails, bowl of water; yet another that concentrated on the characters of the story, and their moments of choice… Judas, Peter, Pontius Pilate. It’s a powerful story, and if you give yourself over to it, even for an hour or two, it will take you on a disturbing journey.

But I kept thinking of my friend, who’s here today, and I thought, keep it simple… though only “sort of.” Maybe begin with the obvious… Good Friday worship is important simply because it happened. Jesus was executed. It’s not what his followers had expected because Jesus was a “good news” story; his vision of compassion and grace, of God’s Kingdom, coupled with an invitation to be a participant in that Kingdom, and a promise of help in doing so…. well, it was compelling, and exciting; it brought hope, and healing, and an invitation to repent and change. And it seemed that God was showing up all over this story, was right in the middle of it.

So what to make of the crucifixion? How do you understand an event that for all the world looks like a… well, a dead end? Where now, the vision, the hope? Where now, in fact, is God? These are pretty important questions if you’re taking Jesus seriously -- which is why early Christians spent so much effort trying to figure it out. The Passion Story was the first part of the Gospels to be written down and then a whole mixture of interpretations were suggested, and all sorts of metaphors were tried on:-- war, battle, cosmic struggle, good/evil, light/dark, defeat/victory, sacrifice, blood, forgiveness, scapegoat, lamb, example .. and the list continues.

Maybe you come to Good Friday worship because of the honesty of the thing. Oh, not necessarily the preacher, but the Scripture reading, the story itself. Crucifixion happens; even to the good guys. So you listen to the story again, maybe trying to read yourself in maybe looking for some understanding. And then what you discover, is yourself, and it’s not a pretty picture.

And this Good Friday story, because nobody in the Passion story comes out looking good. It’s a perfect storm of betrayal, denial, fear, indifference, manipulation, blood lust, path of least resistance… and you think, is this the best we humans can do? Are these the people who have been hanging out with Jesus for a couple of years, who are supposed to be his supporters, his disciples, his friends? And this is what they end up doing? It’s that where I’m to be found? Is this a story about seeing ourselves with real honesty…

Then, of course, it’s also a political statement, because you discover that things get worse when we watch how we organize ourselves, our social arrangements and structures. If you ask for change in the status quo, in the name of justice, inclusion, equality, because of the vision, in partnership with God, well the ones who are benefiting from the way things are set up now, they don’t want things to change, and they’ll do their gentle or ruthless best to make sure nothing really is transformed. The Empire, Roman or otherwise, always strikes back. Spin the globe; pick a continent, pick any country; political Good Fridays are happening all the time. Noted in the paper the other day that our two modern empires, the U.S. and China, are right up there in the top five, when it comes to countries with greatest number of citizens executed, keeping company with Arabia and Iran. Crucifixions keep on happening.

Good Friday is also an existential story, that goes right to the heart of our fears of suffering and abandonment, of desolation and death. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That’s who we are… as Mary Oliver says,

To survive in this world

you must be able to do three things:

to love what is mortal

to hold it against your bones,

knowing your life depends on it.

And then, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

Last summer, when I was in Berlin, I discovered a nation that has spent much time looking at itself in the light of Good Friday truth-speaking. Many memorials to the Holocaust; war museums; public exhibits. One action, though, particularly grabbed my attention: the Stolpersteine, the stumbling blocks. About twenty years ago, an artist came up with the idea of having special bricks made, each with a brass plaque on top that gave the name, birth date and death date of a Jew who had died in the concentration camps. Each brick is actually placed right in the sidewalk, beside the last known residence of the person named and remembered by that brick. There are now something like twenty thousand stolpersteine throughout Germany… you’re just walking along, doing whatever, and suddenly your foot hits roughness; you stop; you read the name; you look around; you remember. Stumbling blocks. I wonder if Good Friday is our stolperstein… a reminder, an invitation to stop, ponder, look around… and maybe in that honest moment of stumbling and remembering, comes a renewed decision to say, “Never again.” To repent, change, to once again commit to a way of justice and love.

So that’s a big part of Good Friday worship… a look in the mirror; what it says about us. But there’s something else going on here… if you believe that God is a key player in this Jesus story; if Jesus, his ministry and his life, is a revelation of Holiness, then the cross is going to tell you a lot about who God is. It’s not just about us; it’s about the Holy One, the Spirit; it’s about the Mystery that can be called Abba, Father, Papa, Mama.

Surely that’s the central declaration of Incarnation, that God was in Jesus, that people felt connected to the Spirit, to divinity, when they were with him. Which puts God right in the middle of things…. starting with creation, and not emptiness; a God who is involved, not distant; who has offered freedom, not taken control; who has chosen openness and risk, rather than predetermination and certainty. A God, therefore, who ends up on the cross. Which means that this story also tells us a lot about the kind of power that God exercises in this world, in our lives. God doesn’t stop the crucifixions from happening; but God is present in such moments, strange as it may seem. Instead of a “I-won’t-let-bad-things-happen-to-you” power, you get love -- power in a very different way.

I was talking to a friend in a seniors’ home the other day; early eighties, and lots of things are starting to go sideways. Endings are closer, and more believable. Every month, someone in the complex dies, and a replacement moves in. My friend said, “I’m not sure what’s ahead; and I don’t really know if there’s anything after, if I’m going to ever see the people I love; if there’s a heaven. But I do know that God has been with me all the way so far, so I’d best be trusting that God will be with me through whatever comes next.” Or in conversation with another friend… getting ready for serious medical treatment. “It’s good to have friends, family, people who support you, who visit, take care of you. But somewhere along the way you realize that at the last, you really are doing this alone… except for God, that is…. so not really alone….” Or earlier, talking to someone who is struggling with tough history, regrets, commissions and omissions, missed opportunities, guilt. Hard to see yourself through a Good Friday lens… but once again, God in the midst even of this kind of pain. God involved, not to announce judgment, but forgiveness, a new beginning, a coming out of a dark place, a tomb, suddenly free once again… newly alive.

I think this is what Paul was talking about in his letter to the church in Rome, where, when the persecutions began, it seemed like Good Friday moments were never ending and that death was the final word.. That’s when Paul wrote,

For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths – nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans:38-39, (Revised English Bible))