Good Friday

Jesus went across the Kidron Valley, that valley through which David fled when his son Absalom rose up against him.

Jesus, though, was searching for solace; for calm.

He walked to a garden.

This probably wasn’t a garden like you and I are familiar with, a bed of roses or some zucchinis planted in the spring.

This garden would be more like a public park with lush greenery and fountains watering the plants and the people.

It would be a space to escape the dusty towns and marketplaces; a place to retire to – separate from the hubbub of the crowds.

Jesus and his disciples entered the garden.

The garden was familiar to them.

To all twelve of them.

To Jesus.

To Judas.

Judas entered the garden too, only with a detachment of soldiers, a detachment being 600 armed personnel.

He entered also with the authorities who were there to arrest Jesus.

Jesus and the disciples were surrounded.

In exchange for his capture, Jesus ensured his disciples would remain free.

Peter though, Peter did not want freedom.

He wanted to fight.

He wanted to be done with corrupt officials and Romans who were oppressing his people.

He wanted revolution, overthrow.

He drew his sword.

He struck.

He cut off the ear of the High Priest’s slave.

Jesus rebuked Peter.

And then was taken from the garden, arrested finally by those who were so incensed by his ministry.

Jesus is then brought to trial before Pilate.

Pilate seeing no offense worthy of death at first tried to release Jesus.

But he was then convinced by the authorities that he should have Christ executed.

We are then walked via John’s gospel through the city streets of Jerusalem.

We hear the wailing.

We hear the insults.

We see the blood.

We find ourselves at the foot of the cross.

A poem by Andy Stinson:

At the Cross

I wait,

And time ticks past.

I gaze,

Made silent by the sight.

I gasp,

Still life lingers in His fragile, broken form.

I flinch,

As blow by blow,

Nails bite deep through flesh to find wood.

I watch,

As soldiers meticulously move

Executing each terrible, torturous task.

Following each hammer blow is a scream.

Bang, then scream.

Bang as the nails pierced more deeply into his flesh.

Bang, then scream.

Our Lord, our savior is on the cross, in pain, agony.

And this is how it must be, not because God willed Jesus to be tortured and suffer, but because Christ is fully human, he must suffer as humankind condemned him to such a fate.

It is our sin that has brought him to the cross.

It is our sin from which we would be freed because of the cross.

This night, this is a commemoration of all that occurred 2,000 years ago; a remembrance of the darkness of an afternoon sun extinguished.

The poem concludes:

I stand

As He is lifted high,

Silhouetted ‘gainst the sky which He has made.

I weep

As His cry echoes deep in my hardened, calloused heart.

I wail,

As He screams ‘it is complete,

Finished, final, said and done.’

I fall,

As the sky turns inky black

And the sun and moon and stars forget to shine.

I kneel,

As worlds collide,

And time ticks by;

What once bound, no longer seems to hold.

I bow,

For part of me is gone,

Kept forever on Calvary’s painful peak.

We want this day to end.

We want to find hope in the cross, or even that our hope did not die on that cross.

Yet tonight, we must face the hopelessness that the disciples felt that caused them to run from Jesus, to hideout in Jerusalem.

The hopelessness that Peter felt when, in his eyes, he was abandoned by his master; his master who rebuked him for taking up arms, for striking the High Priest’s slave.

This is the night that everything changed and we need to feel that change, imbibe it, let it wash over us, because for us to understand the Easter story, we must live through the passion.

This is a night of mourning, not hope.

This is a night through which we are to struggle just as Jesus struggles through his harrowing.

And yet, perhaps we mourn this night though our eyes might be dry, or as Christina Rossetti wrote:

Am I a stone and not a sheep

That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy Cross,

To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,

And yet not weep?

Have we gone through this ourselves far too many times to be phased by what is occurring?

Are we jaded because we know in two days the rest of the story is to be told?

Yet this night is not about the resurrection, it is not about the hopefulness that surrounds the cross, instead we must look to what actually has taken place, the march through Jerusalem, the taunts and abuse, the thorns on His head, the torn robes, the lots cast.

We may not weep, but we witness those with Jesus weeping and take them into our hearts.

Rossetti continues,

Not so those women loved who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;

Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;

Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon

Which hid their faces in a starless sky,

A horror of great darkness at broad noon –

I, only I

Rossetti laments that she does not weep as I wonder too, have I looked to the cross to find but salvation and joy in it?

And yet, it is not all joy.

In it too is our own sinfulness, even inevitability.

Christ did not come to us to be crucified, God did not send God’s only son to experience a painful death.

This did not have to happen yet it did and it was inevitable.

Inevitable because of human sinfulness.

Inevitable because Jesus, being fully human, could not overcome death through Godly acts because human beings are not able to do such things.

And so he died humble.

And humbled.

How then do we let that into our hearts?

How do we become moved when we see our savior God die a human death?

And how do we become humbled ourselves when we realize Christ did this all for us?

Rossetti concludes:

Yet give not o’er

But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;

Greater than Moses, turn and look once more

And smite a rock.

Lord, we pray to you broken as you were, we come to you with our own brokenness.

Touch our hearts to know your grief, your pain, so that we can understand the ecstasy of your resurrection.

Lord turn our hearts from stone; tear our callouses away; remove the scales from our eyes.

On this night Lord, we weep, however silently.

For you.

Amen.