Good Friday Sermon

Good Friday

April 14, 2017

Faith Episcopal Church

The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

I don’t know for sure what makes it so hard to hear the Passion read out loud.  Is it the suffering of Jesus? Or is it seeing the incredible cruelty of which humanity is capable?  When we read the Passion, like we did tonight, we can’t help but realize that very few people in this story demonstrate anything positive about themselves. Instead, what we hear is betrayal, cowardice, self-centeredness, fear, power, and manipulation - all the things that make us human. At least all the negative things that make us human.

Everything that’s cruel about humanity is part of this story, even the word crucify.  When the Romans conquered a people they didn’t worry about making them friends. They just wanted to control them. They decided the best way of doing it was fear. So over time they developed different ways to punish people that would elicit fear.  

Crucifixion was the most elegant of them all because crucifixion was designed to maximize the humiliation. Maximize the pain. Maximize the time it would take to die. They were always done in public places so when people were walking down the street, going to work or to go get their groceries, they might see a person or five or a hundred hanging on a wall or tied to a tree up on a hill.  They might be dying, they might be dead, they might have the birds eating their flesh. It was unbelievably cruel. 

It’s hard to imagine how a culture could be that cruel.  Yet, when we read this story we hear echoes of ourselves. We have all had times in our lives when we have been afraid and acted out of that fear.  We have all had times when we have denied somebody else, kept quiet when we could have spoken up.  

I sometimes try to imagine who I would have been in the story.  I think I might have been one of the ones who were cheering and waving palms as Jesus entered the city. But once He got arrested, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with it. I would have stayed home, stayed away, not wanted to get involved.

I doubt I would have been there yelling “Crucify Him.”  That’s not my style.  But I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been there protesting.  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been speaking up and saying, “Not him” because I know how many times I see injustice in the world and I stay quiet.  

Each one of you here tonight, where would you be in this story?  I would like to think I’d be standing at the cross. Jesus’ friend who stood by his mother. I doubt it.  I doubt it.  I know myself too well.  Nobody comes out very good in this story except his mother and John.  Even Joseph of Arimathea, who offers his grave, had been silent because he was afraid.  He was a secret follower of Jesus.  

I once heard of an ancient tradition of theological reflection where people wondered what it was Jesus did in that part of the Apostles Creed where it says, “He descended into hell.”  What was he doing during that time in hell?  One of the theories is that he was looking for Judas.  He was looking for the one who betrayed him to get an opportunity to forgive him.  

In the Matthew version of the Passion, Judas, when he saw that Jesus was going to be killed, realized what he had done.  He repented of it, but he was so disturbed, he went and killed himself. It also says that Jesus didn’t lose any one of them. I can imagine Jesus looking for his friend Judas to tell him he was forgiven.  Just like Jesus comes looking for us who have all let him down in one way or another in our lives.  He comes looking for each one of us, each one of his friends, so he can tell us that we’re forgiven, that we’re loved, that it’s all going to be okay.  

In fact, it’s going to be more than okay.  Out of the sadness of our lives, out of the tragedy of our lives, out of the things we do wrong in our lives, Jesus can bring hope. He can take each part of us that is dead and he can transform it, forgive it, love it, and resurrect it.  

This was a very bad Friday in many ways for the people in this story we read today, but we know that this is not the end. It is not the final chapter.  

And that’s why we call it Good Friday.