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| On Good Friday everywhere I look I see the Cross |
© 2024 The Rev. Seth Olson
This sermon was preached at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover on Good Friday (March 29, 2024). A video of the sermon may be found here.
Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.
Today, as we heard the story of Jesus’ Passion according to John, I could not help but think about the failure of human beings, just like me, just like us. Mistake after mistake after mistake led to Jesus’ death:
Judas betrayed Jesus.
Peter denied Jesus.
The disciples deserted Jesus.
The chief priests condemned Jesus.
The crowd jeered Jesus.
Pilate wrongly convicted Jesus.
Soldiers taunted Jesus.
Collectively, they killed Jesus.
Hearing these failings, a painful pondering pokes at me, like a thorn lodged beneath my skin. Why? Why did these humans miss that Jesus was the Son of God? In John’s language, how could they not comprehend the Eternal Word made flesh? How did they miss that God had come to dwell among them? My question presupposes that my own vision is unobscured—that I can and do see God’s presence in my neighbor. Of course, this is not true. Like those of long ago, I fail and fail and fail again too.
Perhaps I’m wondering this because I want to reach back in time and stop this gruesome moment from happening. I foolishly cry out, I would never fail you, Lord. And yet, as those words leave my lips, I hear Peter’s cry echoing through the generations. I want to skip over this day—not because of those failures in the ancient past, but because of how I fail Christ today.
We in the Church often say that we are Easter people. We are ones who are about new life, reconciliation, and resurrection. While I fully believe we mean this, we do not wear miniature empty tombs around our necks, nor do we put that symbol on a pole to follow as we make our way through life together. On this day when we have hidden the sign of the Cross, its deadly outline still casts a shadow seen in the painful state of our world.
We may live in a comfortable part of the planet for Christians, but martyrdom for one’s Faith is not extinct. Since the year 2000, approximately 62,000 Nigerian Christians have died at the hands of Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group. A seminary friend immigrated from Pakistan to Mississippi because church bombings were becoming all too common in his homeland.
Lest we think this painful reality only applies to Christians, we would be wise to remember that Christ was raised up to draw in the whole world, and others suffer for their Faith too. One news analysis of data claims that “4 million Muslims have died in conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere since 1980.” Our siblings in the Jewish Faith have continually fought against antisemitic persecution and genocide for millennia. This even includes contemporary Christians’ misuse of today’s Gospel text to justify hate crimes.
The Cross’ deadly shadow casts from Calvary all the way to here and now, and it does not only pertain to death because of one’s Faith. 18,450 people were murdered in the United States in 2023. That’s a 12.8% decline compared to 2022, but that’s far too many people dead.[1] 27 states, including Alabama, still implement the death penalty, and far too often those killed are later proven innocent.[2] Prophets of our age warn us of the harm we inflict on the earth through poor Creation Care, yet we apathetically continue our lives of convenience. Guns, electric chairs, and smoke stakes are the cross in our own day. We who identify as Easter people may want to skip ahead like fast-forwarding through the painful scene of a beloved film.
One such agonizing, yet beautiful film is Shawshank Redemption. In it the protagonist, a man named Andy Dufresne, finds himself wrongly imprisoned at Shawshank Penitentiary. He says to his friend in a moment of desperate clarity, “Get busy living or get busy dying.” I think when we call ourselves only Easter people we tend to twist this phrase around, as we say to Jesus, “Get busy dying, so that we can get busy living.” Today though we cannot hurry everything along. It’s not a day for us to get through. It’s not a time to rush Jesus onward so that we can don our spiffy outfits, hide eggs, and eat ham. We are called by Christ Jesus to be here.
Why is this so important? Because anywhere there is betrayal, denial, desertion, condemnation, jeering, wrongful conviction, taunting, or murder, anywhere there is this level of painfulness in the world, Christ Jesus is there with us. So, knowing this, can we be here with him in his agony?
Maybe to make sense of the crucifixion, some speak of Jesus’ atonement on this day. His standing in for us. I think this misses the mark. Jesus did not take our place to face the wrath of an angry God. That does not compute if we believe in a loving God. Maybe atonement is more like what Richard Rohr wrote in a Holy Week meditation years ago—Jesus is with us in the hurting, God is at one with us. Not atonement then, but at-one-ment.[3] Therefore, we as Christ’s people, as the Body of Christ, as the hands, feet, and heart of Christ, we are not only called to be with others when everything is peachy keen, fine-and-dandy, or hunky-doory.
We then are not strictly Easter people, nor is the Cross simply about human failure, nor is today merely a day to make it through. We have a God who became incarnate to live with us. What's our reply? Being with Christ Jesus, even in his most painful hour. Implicit in being with the Almighty One who became all-vulnerable, even unto death, is that we will pick up our heads and see the suffering around us. We may not be able to reach back in time to stop Jesus from being crucified, but who are we crucifying now? Whom can we help? Whom can we serve?
Last night on Maundy Thursday, Peter did not want Jesus to serve him. The disciple could not understand what was happening. He protested his teacher’s lesson of servanthood saying, “You will never wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Yet, this message did not just pertain to the moment when Jesus knelt at his disciple’s feet. We are now at the feet of Jesus who hangs upon the Cross, and we must receive another washing, another offering of service from Jesus, but this one is not peaceful nor placid.
Jesus did not endure the shame of the Cross simply to point out the failures of us as a species. This moment when we see the worst in humanity simultaneously serves as the instant when we see how profoundly God loves us. If we are not willing to gaze upon the Cross, if we cannot see the pain that the human family still endures today, if we do not see past our own failure to embody the self-emptying love of Christ, then we are not actually Easter people at all, for there is no Day of Resurrection without today.
On this day Jesus shows us the overabundant extravagance of love. When asked by Pilate, “What is truth?” Christ Jesus responded as the Word of God not with words, but with the fullest act of self-sacrificing love. What is truth? The Truth is Christ’s witness of self-giving, never-ending, all-encompassing love. And the Truth is if we want to be Easter people, then we have to receive the love of Jesus now at the foot of the Cross.
Jesus willingly drank the cup given to him, he willingly took the load of our failings on his back, and he willingly laid down his life on the Cross. If we receive this love of Jesus, then we too are called and empowered to love Jesus as he loved us, not just when things are good, not just on shiny, happy mornings, but when everywhere we look, we see the Cross. We are Easter people, but first we must be Good Friday people.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.[4]
[1] Jacob Knutson, “Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year” from Axios
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/28/us-murder-violent-crime-rates-drop.
[2] Capital Punishment in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States#:~:text=Although%20it%20is%20a%20legal,to%20different%20types%20of%20moratoriums.&text=Capital%20punishment%20is%20a%20legal%20penalty.
[3] Richard Rohr, “At-one-ment Not Atonement,” https://cac.org/daily-meditations/at-one-ment-not-atonement-2023-09-05/.
[4] Prayer for Mission, The Book of Common Prayer, 101.
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