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March 21, 2008

Loreen Kleinschmidt

Good Friday

RCL
To read the lessons for the day click here:

http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearABC_RCL/HolyWk/GoodFri_RCL.html

Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 10:16-25; John 18:1-19:42; Psalm 22

Pray for me, that the words I speak may be those God wants us to hear.

Jesus said, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Today we hear the great story of how Jesus laid down his life in order to testify to the truth.

Six weeks ago, back at the beginning of Lent, we heard the story of Jesus temptation in the wilderness. While fasting in the wilderness, Jesus decided what kind of messiah he would be—the messiah who does not live by bread alone, but from every word that comes from the mouth of God… who does not put God to the test… who worships and serves only God.

And so over the weeks we have watched and listened as the story of Jesus among us unfolded…Jesus, who offered the woman at the well “living water”…who taught Nicodemus that you must be born of the spirit to see the kingdom of God…who gave sight to a man born blind…who raised Lazarus from the dead…who rode into Jerusalem to shouts of Hosanna…who washed his disciple’s feet, to teach them how to serve each other.

Jesus showed that the work of God was more important than observing rules, social conventions, or threats to his personal safety. He healed on the Sabbath. He taught mercy to those who wanted to condemn and throw stones. He ate with sinners, and with those hated agents for Rome, the tax collectors. He gave amazing, insightful answers to questions that were intended to trap him. He overturned the booths of the moneychangers in the temple, challenging the lucrative practices of those in authority while the city was filling with the 100,000 pilgrims who came to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. Then he taught in the temple.

He repeatedly told the disciples that he would be killed, but they didn’t believe him. They must have thought that God would protect him from such a fate…or at least that they would be his defenders if it came to that—why else would Peter have brought a sword to the garden, drawing it to cut off Malchus’ ear?

Jesus was born to testify to the truth. He chose to live his life focused on his relationship with God, and to be true to that relationship. That meant embodying the truth about God’s love and about God’s kingdom, proclaiming that love and inclusion by word and deed. It also meant challenging the religious practices and power structures that placed barriers around God, and made laws more important than the health and reconciliation of God’s beloved children.

So when they came for him in the night, with swords and clubs, he allowed himself to be arrested. He even walked forward to greet his accusers. Then, He stood still and allowed the evil powers to do their worst to him.

He allowed them to try and prove that sin and hate are more powerful than love.

They thought that they would quickly do away with this inconvenient upstart from Galilee. They thought they could silence the truth that shone through his teachings and his actions by getting the Romans to publicly crucify him. Every Jew would see this hideous and shameful death, and think that Jesus was surely a terrible sinner—otherwise, surely God would have protected him from such a dishonorable end. In the process of silencing the truth about God they shouted the shameful truth about themselves—“we have no king but the emperor”— forsaking their integrity in an attempt to maintain the status quo.

But the truth is that the world belongs to God. Evil does not get the final word.

Even at the darkness of the cross, we see love at work. Most of Jesus disciples are nowhere to be seen, but a small core of those who love him are at the foot of the cross, unable to stay away. They are there with him in his agony, even helping him with those last details that are on his mind…mother, behold your son…son, behold your mother…

And after it is all over, the secret disciples immerge to claim and care for his tortured body…Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus gently wrap Jesus’ body with linens and myrrh and aloes, and lay it in a tomb.

There is so much in the passion of our Lord to help us in our times of desperate need.

When we suffer unjustly, we can remember that Jesus, too, suffered unjustly. When we see evil all around, we can remember that Jesus also endured destruction at the whim of evil, rather than turn aside from his relationship with God and his task of testifying to the truth. If we are in pain, Jesus has also been there. Death—yes, Jesus has even been there.

On the night before he died, Jesus told his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.”

Jesus trusted the Father, knowing the truth: that this is God’s world, and God will triumph. God who loves us has promised to be here with us, and he who has promised is faithful.

We learn much too, in the loving actions we see in this Gospel reading. We see Peter loyally trying to defend Jesus—but Peter, like us, often misses the point Jesus is trying to make. We see those gathered at the foot of the cross. They look powerless—there doesn’t seem to be anything they can do. But there is. They are there because of love, and their show of love is an important example to us.

For those we love also go through suffering, pain, death. We ask ourselves, “What can we do?” We feel powerless in the face of these things we can’t fix. We shrug our shoulders and realize the only thing we can do is pray.

My friends, I want to tell you, the BEST thing we can do is pray. We are not powerless, for our hope and trust and strength is God. And God’s love can conquer anything.

That is the truth.