April 7, 2023 + Good Friday + Introduction to the Passion
Where are you from, we ask people.
Colorado is my proud answer.
Where are you from? Jesus is asked by Pilate.
Where are you from? Jesus is asked by two disciples early in John’s gospel.
People travel to the Holy Land to visit Bethlehem and Nazareth,
where Jesus was born, where he was from.
Yet in John’s gospel, so different from the others,
Jesus is the Word, God himself,
the One come down from heaven to bring life and salvation.
Jesus is from the Father and to the Father he will return.
Keep this in mind as you hear the passion from John.
Jesus dies willingly.
In his death, he is glorified.
On the cross, he is the crucified king.
Pilate doesn’t get the truth of this.
And maybe we don’t as well.
It is paradox:
the mystery of death and resurrection.
In John, Jesus’ final cry us one of triumph:
“It is finished.”
All of Jesus’ life leads to this moment.
At the foot of the cross he will establish a new community.
The blood and water that flow from his side call to mind
eucharist and baptism.
As Jesus gives up his spirit,
that same spirit will be poured on the disciples on Easter night,
and poured out on us in our baptism.
The font is where we are from,
where we are born.
Maybe you have experienced sad and mournful Good Friday services.
When growing up, I used to shut up all the curtains to make the house dark.
At my church there was a Good Friday “Service of Darkness.”
Yet this somber mood tonight reflects more the passion of Matthew we heard on Sunday, rather than John.
So tonight, we lift high the cross
even as Jesus was lifted up from the earth to draw us—
to draw the whole world that God loves—
to himself.
And then we pray for the whole world this night.
And then we stream to the cross, which for us is the tree of life.
When we look back on the most painful, difficult, or sorrowful time in our lives, there are often no words.
We would have never chosen that suffering,
yet deep in our very being, we know that God was there.
In our flesh.
In our anguish.
In our tears.
In our loss.
And often, in the healing that followed.
So tonight, come to the cross.
Take your time.
Pause or bow.
Kneel or sit for a few moments.
We can’t quite put into words why this act of worship means so much to us. We use our bodies.
There are no words.
Yes, it’s about Jesus and his death.
But it’s also about our deepest losses and trauma.
And the vast suffering in our world.
Someone told me that the first time he saw people come forward to offer reverence to the cross on Good Friday he wept.
Why?
He couldn’t put it into words.
We are so bold to celebrate this day called “good.”
To hold the mystery of Good Friday and Easter together.
And to conclude with a hymn beloved to Holy Trinity:
Holy God, holy and beautiful,
you are despised, rejected,
scorned, you hold us fast,
and we behold your beauty.
Holy God, holy and living one,
you show your love by dying for your friends,
and we behold you living.
May the cross be for us:
healing and resurrection.