Tag Archives: good friday

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

Good Friday is neither special nor unique

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John 18:1-19:42

Good Friday is neither special nor unique.

What happens on Good Friday is no different than what happens others days. 

One falsely convicted man killed by a merciless and cruel government is barely even news-worthy in our world. 

Jesus was no unarmed black man killed by the cops, causing marches in the streets, social media hashtags and widespread shows of support. Jesus’ followers hid away after his death. 

Jesus was no Ukrainian family shelled in from of new cameras by careless or cruel Russian military. Only a few devoted followers wept for Jesus. The whole world weeps for Ukraine and the atrocities committed there. 

Jesus was no missing and murdered indigenous woman, no victim of residential schools. His beating, his death did not spark an inquiry. His unmarked grave did not spark an apology from the Pope himself.

There were no news reports for the crucifixion. There were no hashtags like #PrayforJesus. There were no flags to put on profile pictures, no pundits or reporters or commentators who talked and talked and talked. 

Good Friday is not special. It is just another day for us. 

Good Friday is everyday in our world. 

Just in the past year we have come up with so many new names for Good Friday, so many new names for the violence and death that we simply cannot end:

Kyiv, Bucha, Kharkiv, Mariupol. Shanghai, Tel Aviv, Sacramento, Kabul. Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan.

Putin, the Kremlin, Zelenskyy, COVID-19, Variants, Omicron. Convoys, protests, truckers. Inflation, housing, poverty. January 6th, Capitol Riot, Insurrection. Residential schools, reconciliation, climate change.

Our list of new Good Friday words is so long we forget what we were listing off in the first place. 

Our list of new Good Friday words is so long that we forget them almost as soon as we create them. 

Our list of new Good Friday words makes us numb. 
Our list makes violence and death feel normal. 

The first Good Friday was not special. One man died on a cross. 

One man who angered those in power, so they go rid of him. 
One man who didn’t give the chanting crowds their King, so they started shouting crucify. 
One man whose own followers betrayed and abandoned him in his worst hour.

Jesus died like the rest of us, 
Jesus suffered violence and cruelty and hate like the rest of us,
Jesus was just another person to suffer an unjust and merciless death, 

The cross of Good Friday was not special.

Except that not being special is what makes Good Friday special.
We didn’t think that God would be on that cross. 
We didn’t think that God would die at our hands. 

The cross of Good Friday was not special, the violence of the death was not special, the ones who condemned were not special. 

The one who died was. 
The one who died changed everything. 
The one who died was God.

Today, God has died. On Good Friday God has died. 

And all those other words for Good Friday, for death and violence in our world. Those words from that list so long we forget. Those words lose their power. All those days of death and violence and suffering that seem to come at us unrelentingly from the news, from around the world, from our backyards.

All those Good Fridays that seem to happen far too often. 

They lose their power. 

Because the God who died, died with us. 
Because the God who died, lived with us. 
Because the God who died, loved with us.

God died on Good Friday.

But death did not destroy God. 
And God is not forgotten.
And God is not finished. 

Good Friday and all our other words for violence and death are not bigger than God is. 
On Good Friday, God who is bigger than death showed us something new. 
On Good Friday God gave us truly new words. Words that change the world.

Words likes:

Mercy
Forgiveness
Compassion 
Grace
Love

New words that God uses to change us. 

On Good Friday God dies with us.

But what is ended,
What is finished,
What is over is,
the power of death.

On Good Friday death is ended. 
On Good Friday death is no more
On Good Friday death will never have the final word.

Today, on Good Friday, God has a new word. 

One word that changes everything.  

Life. 

__________________________________

Artwork –  Golgotha by Edvard Munch, 1900.

Sermon, Theology & Culture

Good Friday, Pandemic and the Cross

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GOSPEL: John 18:1–19:42

The passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John. (read the passion gospel)

Sermon

The shadow of cross is dark and wide today. 

The presence of death feels closer than ever. 

The cross that is so often depicted standing behind mangers and stables at Advent,

stands tall above beds for the dying rather than for infants

and different makeshift shelters today. 

The cross is spoken of with words that we didn’t even know a few weeks or months ago. 

Novel Coronavirus, Covid-19. 

The cross is revealed with words that we really didn’t understand, and still have yet to grasp. 

Pandemic. 

The cross looms high and mighty over hospitals and temporary field units. 

The cross’s darkness has forced the world forced to stay home. 

The cross disrupts the work of governments, schools, businesses, public services and more. 

The cross demands the sacrifice of those who serve on front lines to risk health and safety.  

The cross is changing the world with numbers. Number that grow arbitrarily, numbers that terrify, numbers that signify entire lives ending while still in the middle of living, families unable to grieve, communities forced to adapt their care and support from afar.

The cross has arrived in a way that it hasn’t arrived in a long time, in a way that few alive today understand or comprehend. 

And Jesus has been nailed to it, left to struggle for breath, left to suffocate unable to bring air into his lungs out of exhaustion. 

Jesus has been nailed to it, unjustly, cruelly and for the gain of those in power, so that human greed and contempt can keep its grip on Godlike power. 

Jesus has been nailed to it at young age, as someone who shouldn’t receive a death sentence, as someone who simply got mixed up in political games beyond his control. 

Jesus has been nailed to the cross today, and it feels like just one more to add to the list of deaths, the list that we know has only begun being written. 

The shadow of the cross is indeed dark and wide. 

But it is not just pandemic and illness that makes the cross seem taller. 

The cross is still our moment of shame, our moment of attempted power, our moment of trying to put ourselves before God. 

The cross is still our human effort to put God to death, even as God keeps coming to us in life. 

We want power, we want security, we want safety. We want to control our world, especially as it spins out of control beyond us. 

We deny the danger, we forget to care for others, we put ourselves first, we try to use the power of death for our own gain. 

Even still the cross has existed in God’s heart since the beginning of creation.  

Even still Jesus goes to the cross knowing that it is God’s beloved creation putting him there. 

Even still God is willing to die because we demand it, because our sin and pride demand it, because our selfishness demands it. 

Yet today is the cross’s final day of power. 

And yet, the cross will become more than our death symbol looming large. 

And yet, the cross is God’s means to change our course and set creation on a new path. 

What has been there since the beginning, Christ bring to its end. 

Today Christ completes the journey towards creation. 

Today Christ completes the journey towards us.

Today Christ joins creation and creator together in fullness, 

undoing the damage of the fall, 

undoing the separation endured since, 

reconciling what was broken between us. 

What has always been the end, Christ now begins as something new. 

Today, Jesus goes where none of us can go and does what none but God can do.  

Jesus goes to all the places where cross is found. 

Jesus goes the hospitals and field units. 

Jesus goes to empty streets and quiet neighbourhoods. 

Jesus goes to the front lines at testings centres, and grocery stores, and public health offices, and nursing home windows, and emergency rooms and intensive care units.

Jesus goes to lonely quarantined people.

Jesus goes to temporary isolation housing for health workers. 

Jesus goes to stressed out, cooped up families. 

Jesus goes to hungry seniors waiting for food drop offs

Jesus goes to worried and anxious people whose hearts can find little peace.

Jesus goes to the grieving and the separated and the brokenhearted. 

Jesus goes to every place where the cross looms large.

Jesus goes to every corner touched by the shadow of the cross.

Jesus goes to death itself. 

And on the cross Jesus will take on our darkness,

take on our shadows and sin,

take on our suffering and trials and tribulations

take on our our illness and disease.

Jesus will take our death and make it God’s. 

And then Jesus will take us and make us God’s own. 

And Jesus will make the ending the beginning.

And Jesus will shake off our power of sin, our power of death, our power of the cross. 

And Jesus will start a new thing. 

A new thing on the cross, a new thing where we thought there was only death. 

Today in the dark and wide shadow, 

Today as the cross seems to stand above hospital beds and quarantine rooms.

Today when we use new words and forgotten words to describe death. 

Today Christ does a new thing.

Christ hangs on the cross, without breath in his lungs, with pandemic in the air

And prepares the world 

For New Life 

Amen.

Theology & Culture

The Crucified God is God – and we are not

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Gospel: John 18:1—19:42

Seven weeks ago, we gathered on another mountain – the mount of Transfiguration.

On that mountain top, Jesus was flanked by Moses and Elijah, and his disciples gathered at his feet.

From there we descended into the valley of Lent.

Into the wilderness, just as the Israelites were sent into wilderness to be found by God.

The wilderness was not the place of danger we imagine, but the place of renewal.

Rather the danger was found in the return from wilderness, in the journey towards human chaos.

It was on streets of Jerusalem where Jesus found the centre of chaos and struggle.

It is on our our streets and in our communities where Jesus meets human messiness.

And along the journey from down the mountain through the wilderness and chaos of Lent, Jesus kept coming back to God’s people, kept coming back to us.

He came and answered our big questions about life and suffering.

He showed us the prodigal Father, who sought out his lost sons.

He let himself be anointed with perfume like a body being prepared for burial.

And then Jesus rode up into Jerusalem again.

On a donkey, with a crowd waving palms, chanting Hosanna, save now…

filled with expectation that he was their new king,

come to take away their problems with power and might.

But by the end of the week, the crowds had turned.

As Jesus gathered at the family table with his disciples last night, he knew what was coming.

There would be no more rest, no more sleep, no more calm.

There would be betrayal and denial.

There would be sham trials and wrongful convictions.

There would be police brutality followed by summary execution.

And through night into today, the humanity that was so oblivious to him this whole time,

Who clamoured for him to perform like a side show,

to feed the bored and hungry, to satiate the crowds….

Today this humanity has woken up…

This humanity has become aware of just who Jesus is.

The baby born in a manger to peasant parents,

promised by angels, visited by shepherd, worshipped by Magi…

this baby who is God come in flesh, word incarnate.

This baby is now this man.

This man who is God.

This man who is God, which means we are not.

This man who is God, who threatens our claims to power.

This man who is God, who makes us feel small.

Jesus has come to centre, to the core of humanity. To our messy and chaotic existence and reminded us our limitedness, of our ungodliness, of our fallibility and imperfections.

And that just wont do for us.

And so we go back up the mountain to send the God-Man away.

We march up Golgaltha with murderous rage.

And we haul a cross along with us.

We who are the best humanity has to offer.

Religious leaders, political leaders, the educated and prominent.

We pick up the nails too, and desire to be rid of this One.

This One who is God in flesh and who brings God close.

This One who announces the Kingdom coming near.

This One who talks about grace and mercy at inconvenient times.

This One, the Christ, the anointed of God, sent to save…

We will put to death and be done with him.

And then we can go back to being in control.

Back to being in charge.

Back to being God.

Except this mountain was always where Jesus was going.

From the beginning of creation, from the moment God spoke us into being.

From the dirt and clay that formed the Adam, the first born of creation.

There was also a cross.

The cross was always the place where God’s Word in flesh would meet us.

Always the place where the Christ would confront our most God-like power.

The cross was always the place where the God of creation would meet the God we tried to create of ourselves.

The cross was always the place where God was going to bridge the gap to human chaos and messiness…

Where God would rejoin what was split apart in the fall.

Where God would reconcile creator with created, humanity and divinity.

Where God would remember and remind us that we were created in God’s image, in Christ’s image.

Here on this mountain, the skull, the place of humanity’s power of death,

God declares that we are not God once and for all.

And that sin and death are no longer in control.

God declares a new reality by reminding us of the first reality.

God declares that God is God

And God declares that we are God’s creation.

That we belong to the crucified one.

That our chaos and messiness,

Our human failings and fragility

Our questions and vulnerability

Our discomfort and overwhelming feelings

That all of us, including sin and earth

Belongs now to the one who hangs on the cross.

The one in whom all creation began

And whom creation put to death.

That we belong to this One, this Word, this Christ, this Jesus.

That we belong to this One who loves beyond all love.

That we belong to this Word of Life.

That we belong to this Christ who saves

That we belong to Jesus who makes us one.

Who gathers us into God.

Into God, who even though dead on a cross…

Who is life beyond all life.

Who is freely given love and salvation

Who is mercy and forgiveness for us.

This God, who even though dead on a cross…

Has come again to the mountain top

and finally shown us once and for

That we are now a new creation

That there is now

New Life in the crucified Christ.

Sermon, Theology & Culture

When the Old Thing was Finished

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John 18:1-19:42

The journey to this moment, began with those first stories of Advent. The angels that told Mary and Joseph that they would have a son. We don’t think much about Good Friday while singing Christmas carols.

But we began to clue in to where Jesus was headed when he went down the mountain of transfiguration into the valley of Lent.

From temptation in the wilderness, to secret meetings with the Pharisee Nicodemus as night, to Jacob’s well and the woman who had had 5 husbands, to the blind man who didn’t know who had healed him, to Mary and Martha’s grief on the road to Bethany… as Jesus uncovered our fears and anxieties in intimate encounters week after week… there were signs, signs that something bigger than just our issues and personal sufferings was being confronted. Jesus was passing by the particularities of our humanity. Jesus passed by because he was headed somewhere else.

Jesus was going to contend with something much bigger, something that was not about us individually… but something that is about us collectively.

And by the time we stood with the crowds waving palm branches, singing “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”…singing “Save us now,  Son of David” there was no doubt that we would find ourselves here.

There was no doubt that the disciples would betray and deny him.
There was no doubt that the mobs would demand crucifixion
There was no doubt political and religious leaders would use the outrage for their own benefit.
There was no doubt that the empire would coldly and ruthlessly order execution.

There was no doubt that the place Jesus was going to was the cross.

We could see that today was where Jesus was going because Good Friday we have seen before.

We have seen the betrayals and denials of friends and family.
We watch the angry mobs crying out for vengeance on cable news.
We witness daily political and religious and business leaders use our outrage to turn a profit or gain a political win or entrench the power of religious institutions.
We see an empire that treats people coldly and ruthlessly even as we live and thrive because of that same empire.

We have no doubt that Jesus could end up on cross, because people like Jesus always do.

The ones who speak out.
The ones who risk themselves for others.
The ones who fight for goodness over self-benefit, justice over victory, compassion over power.
The ones who show warmth amidst coldness, who show love over ruthlessness.

We know today, we know Good Friday well, because in our world, there is also Good Monday, Good Tuesday, Good Wednesday and Thursday, Good Saturday, and Sunday.

Jesus’ journey to Good Friday is a common journey.

And it isn’t.

Because we remember the angels of Advent and Christmas, because we remember the voice of God thundering over the waters of Baptism and on the mountain of Transfiguration.

And then even though we have seen this story often enough, of betray and denial, of outraged mobs, and manipulative leaders, and cold uncaring Empires… beneath the cross we finally see the thing that Jesus has been pulling us towards all along.

The truth that Jesus tried to remind the tempter of.
The questions that Jesus explained to Nicodemus
The living water that Jesus gave to the woman at the well.
The sight that Jesus revealed to the blindman.
The buried  mercy that Jesus opened up for Martha, Mary and Lazarus.

Today Jesus reveals to us not another person doomed to die on a cross.

Today, Jesus reveals God, willing to die on a cross.

For us.

And thus begins the new thing that God is doing.

The new thing in oldest of stories.

In oh so common of human deaths for the sake our failing humanity, our sinfulness exposed in every way imaginable…. in the ultimate hubris, our belief if we just killed God we could be God.

God shows us life by dying.

Jesus shows us the beginning accomplished through the end.

Jesus shows us mercy given by a God who simply won’t be pushed away any longer.

Jesus shows us the love and grace that will be born, and live and pass by and come close and be just like us. How this love and grace ties humanity and all creation together on the cross.

Jesus shows us the completion of the journey where God does the thing that we have refused to do since Adam and Eve left the garden….

God joins the fallen to the divine, joins the sinful to the forgiven, joins the finite to the infinite, permanence of death to constant renewal of life.

Jesus shows us a God that dies just like us.

A God comes to us and finds us in every place we can possibly go, even in death.

So that we will live, and death will not be our end anymore.

No… we don’t think about Good Friday while we sing Christmas carols.

But God does.

The cross was where the incarnation, where God come in flesh, was going from the beginning.

The cross is the place where God was going to redeem creation all along.
The cross is the place and Good Friday is the day when the old thing – the power of sin and death –

When the old thing was finished.

And Jesus made all things new.

Theology & Culture

Why did Jesus have to die? – Why God didn’t kill Jesus on Good Friday

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We are on the doorstep of Holy Week.

Clergy types will soon be setting out to write and preach sermons that somehow make sense of the passion story, from Triumphant Entry, to Last Supper, to Trial and Crucifixion and finally Resurrection.

Along the way, it will be important to say something about how the death of a wandering preacher, teacher and healer on a cross is the means of our salvation… and what exactly we are being saved from.

This is a tricky endeavour because the story of the passion doesn’t explain the reasons. Instead we are left to fill in the gaps, and Christians have been trying to make sense of Christ’s death since St. Paul was writing letters.

And so often on Good Friday, a strange and convoluted theory of the reasons for Christ’s death is presented… one that makes God seem merciless, if not plain incoherent.

Often, God is presented as the ultimate source of Christ’s condemnation, the one who kills Jesus on Good Friday.

And this is absurd.

It is my contention that Good Friday is the day of the most important facet of the Good News and it is not because God killed Jesus.

Satisfaction Atonement

One of the most common ways that Christians tend to explain the atonement is with Bishop Anselm’s satisfaction atonement theory. The cole’s notes version is that the punishment for human sin is our death. And the satisfaction, the making things right is Christ’s death (since he was without sin).

What is rarely stated is that Anselm used medieval legal practice to formulate his theory. In medieval law, a fine was the punishment for most crimes. Anselm saw then that death was the fine for sin. But that wasn’t the end of the matter. In order to compensate the victim, satisfaction was paid. An additional amount that would make things right.

Anselm figured that since death was the most human beings could pay, an additional payment to make satisfaction with God was needed. Christ’s death becomes the satisfaction for our sin.

Now, beyond the fact that his medieval legal system is flawed and very human like any other system, there are a number of problems with Anselm’s theory:

God requires blood in order to show mercy… which is not mercy.

God is bound by human laws… which means God isn’t free.

And finally God and Jesus split apart by the cross… which is trinitarian heresy.

Anselm’s atonement theory is certainly not the only one out there (Christus Victor/ Ransom theory, Moral influence theory, scapegoat theory etc…). But it shows a common problem that most explanations of what was going on on the cross seem to have – they undo the trinity.

The Cross and Trinity

For some reason preachers tend to get uncomfortable with God being too close to the cross of Good Friday. When I was a neophyte theology student, still two years from starting seminary I was asked to give a short reflection on Good Friday on one of the 7 last words of the cross. My words were “I thirst.” And I pontificated eloquently on how Jesus experienced the human condition fully on the cross. Sounds lovely. And I then expounded on how Jesus was fully separated from God, just like we were. Almost sounds legitimate… except for that whole trinity thing.

The doctrine of the trinity reminds us that the persons of the trinity are never separate because they are one God. They are distinct, but one. So the experiences of one are shared by all. The Father and the Son could not be separated, even on the cross.

And this the heart of the problem. We don’t like the idea of God suffering, the Father suffering. We would rather make God the killer than the sufferer.

But the Trinity necessitates that God the Father experienced the cross just as much the Son did. God was crucified and died on that cross.

So who killed God?

We did.

Humanity. Our religion. Our government. Our authorities. Our mobs.

Yes, I do think that God knew the cross was in store of Jesus even before that angel visited Mary to tell her she was pregnant.

But it was not because God was perversely and cruelly looking to punish someone for our sin. It is not because God needed blood to be merciful.

God knew the the cross was in store because God knew us. God knew that humanity couldn’t let God come close in the incarnation. God’s coming close threatened our godship. We cannot be god if God is God. We could not be god if Jesus is God.

And here is where the Good News of Good Friday meets us.

Even though God knew the consequence of incarnation – of coming close to creation, of coming in flesh – God followed through to the end. God was born, God lived, God died. God did all the human things. Good Friday was the completion. God declared that God is going to a part of all of created life. There is no part of human existence that would be apart from God.

So why did Jesus have to die? Because we said so.

And why do we get to live? Because God said so.

So this Holy Week, whether you are preaching or hearing the preaching, listen… listen for the good news of Good Friday.

Listen and know that it is not that God killed God’s son in order to show us mercy. The good news is never a demand for blood. That is sin.

The good news is that God chooses life. God chose to live. Chose to live all of created life, including death.

And because God lived it all, that whole resurrection thing that happens on Sunday becomes part of our story. Because God chose to live and die with us, we get to die and live with God.

What good news do you hear on Good Friday? Share in the comments, or on the Facebook Page: The Millennial Pastor or on Twitter: @ParkerErik