Yesterday, we received a bold command from Jesus to love one another, with Christ-like love. Today we come face to face with the fact that we can’t. That we fall so short, even when we try our best. Today we come face to face with our brokenness, our sinfulness. “We have failed you God. We have denied you, we have run away, just as your disciples did long ago. We have hurt those you called us to love. We’ve even hurt our own selves, our bodies that you gave us as your temple, we have hurt your planet upon which you have invited us to live.” Today we come face to face with the cross. The cross can remind us of a crossing, an intersection of God’s divine will for us and our wanting to go our own way.
Yesterday we received a bold command from Jesus to love one another; today we come face to face with fact that we can’t. And so that leaves us totally dependent on grace, love that flows from the cross. Totally lost without the crucified Christ before us. Today is good, because in the cross and death of Jesus, we have hope. We have a Christ who hangs…on our brokenness. Who lifts our sin and death onto himself. We have a God who looks down from that holy cross of brokenness and sin…and declares—exactly what no one would ever expect – a triumph: “It is finished.” Those are the words of a victor that we have to proclaim today. God has “finished” the sin and the brokenness of this world, even death itself. God has finished, washed away, your shortcomings and denials and wrongful words and hurtful actions. God has finished your running away. According to the Gospel of John, this is Jesus’ finest hour, the hour of his glorification, the hour of his being lifted. “It is finished!” In this cross is triumph. In this tree, this ugly tree of death, is—exactly what no one would ever expect—LIFE!
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| Tree of Life by Kristen Gilje |
I don’t know about you, but I grew up imagining this day, Good Friday, as a funeral for Jesus, as if he had died all over again. I often heard and repeated the saying, “We are Easter people in a Good Friday world.” But I’ve learned that that kind of treatment of Good Friday only developed in the mid-late 20th century. Thanks be to God for some recent discoveries of how the earliest Christians saw and honored this day: It’s not a funeral! This is a day to adore the cross, albeit a serious and contemplative time. We can only sit in somber joy, and pray, and adore the cross, as though the cross is Christ himself.
Be with the cross here this evening. [pause] Bask, linger, ponder, glory in the cross sisters and brothers in Christ! Come to its foot. Kiss the cross, bow down before the cross of Christ, ponder the final 3 words of Christ in the Gospel of John: IT IS FINISHED. Sin is finished, death is finished, all the powers that draw us from God are finished. AMEN?
We are Easter people, yes. But that means we’re Good Friday people too. I wouldn’t say we’re Easter people in a Good Friday world anymore. I would say, “We are Good Friday people in a Bad Friday world.” [pause] (Which mean’s ultimately then that we’re Easter people!) Good Friday is good…because on this day Christ takes the whole sin of the world onto himself, lifting it from us, so that we might stand up straight and live anew. Christ speaks to his mother and the beloved disciple, establishing a new relationship of love that crosses familial boundaries. Even from the cross, Christ establishes a new law of love, where there are no boundaries to that love, no limits, even death itself cannot hold back this love divine.
On this day, on this cross, is the hope of this world, the salvation of our lives, and a love that has no end. May we glory in the cross of Christ forever. Thanks be to God. AMEN.
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