“We are there!”
The Sermons At Calvary
By The Reverend Rhonda Lee
Good Friday
2006
John 19:1-37; Psalm 22
Today we remember the death of
Jesus of Nazareth. Our Good Friday
liturgy is not a funeral, exactly, but it’s like a funeral in some ways. Our service is a blend of mourning and of
hope. Today we proclaim Christ
crucified, we remember what the world does to God’s beloved, and we reflect
upon our own involvement in those murderous ways. The Good Friday hymn asks, “Were you there when they crucified my
Lord?” Today we are there, we’re standing at the foot of the cross, and we’re
trembling there. Like the enslaved
African-Americans who composed that hymn, like our sisters and brothers who
have sung it since, we tremble in fear and horror at what sin can do, at the
spectacle of the innocent victim publicly stripped, flogged, hung on a tree,
stabbed, and left to die. We want to
cover our ears when we hear the desperate cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?”
On Good Friday we tremble for
another reason, too. Again, like the
people who first sang, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?,” we
tremble in awe at God's love for us: love that holds back absolutely nothing,
love that gives itself completely. We
see that love on the cross, and we know that we will see that love and God’s
mighty power on Easter morning in Jesus Christ’s resurrection. On Easter, life conquers death, freedom
conquers slavery, love conquers hate.
God’s final victory, the day when all crucifixions will end, is still on
its way – it hasn’t come yet – but because of that first Easter, we have a
glimpse of what it will look like, and we believe it will get here, one
day.
We live our lives in the tension
between Good Friday and Easter, between life and death, between the torture of
crucifixion and the glory of resurrection, and we act out that tension in our
liturgy. Every single year on this day
we read the same Gospel passage: John’s account of the crucifixion. Why John?
Because in that Gospel, Jesus’ crucifixion is his glorification, and it’s important to remember, even on Good Friday,
that Easter is on its way. The Jesus we
meet in John’s Gospel seems to understand from the beginning of his ministry
that he must be crucified, and that God will raise him from the dead. On the last night of his life, right before
he’s arrested, Jesus reassures his friends that tomorrow really will be Good Friday. He tells them – he tells us – “In a little while the world will
no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live”
(John 14:19). Later, his dying words
are simply, “It is finished.”
John doesn’t give us the Jesus of
the Garden of Gethsemane, the one who appears in all three of the other
Gospels: the frightened human being who prays, “Abba, Father...remove this cup
from me” before gathering himself to add, “yet not what I want, but what you
want” (Mark 14:36). The Jesus of our
Good Friday Gospel is as calm as the singer of the 23rd Psalm, the
one who says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want...Though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you are
with me...” Even in the presence of his
enemies, Jesus is still God’s anointed one, and he knows that after the third
day he will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Although the 23rd Psalm
is probably read at more funerals than any other passage from the Bible, it’s
not one of the options provided by the Book of Common Prayer for Good
Friday. Instead, we often read the 22nd Psalm: “My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?” The words
Jesus cries out from the cross in Matthew and Mark’s accounts of the
crucifixion. The first half of the 22nd
Psalm paints a picture of utter desolation.
The person praying this psalm feels completely abandoned by God: “...why
have you forsaken me? and are so far
from my cry and from the words of my distress?
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; by night as well,
but I find no rest.” John’s account of
the crucifixion speaks the truth that Jesus’ death opens the door for everyone
to find eternal life and freedom in God.
Matthew and Mark’s versions use the words of Psalm 22 to speak the equal
truth that our life and freedom came at a very high price.
Good Friday and Easter Sunday are separated
by a few hours, one or two nights’ sleep.
The 22nd and 23rd Psalms sit side by side in the
Bible. Agonized desolation in a place
without water is followed by quiet confidence in a desert oasis. In time, we move from “My mouth is dried out
like a pot-sherd; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; and you have laid
me in the dust of the grave” to “You spread a table before me in the presence
of those who trouble me; you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is
running over.” To the one who is so
agonizingly thirsty, who can’t sleep for crying, who feels so deeply alone,
blessing, healing, and mercy come in the form of a cool drink of clear water
and the anointing touch of oil on the forehead. On Good Friday we cry out with Jesus, with those who feel
abandoned by God and their fellow human beings, with ourselves in our loneliest
moments: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And we worship and pray and work together as we watch for the
dawn of Easter day: the day when, even though we all walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil.