St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
April 15, 2022
Good Friday
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 22
Hebrews 10:16-25
John 18:1-19:42
In a Time of Turmoil, Sacrificial Love
Two thousand years ago, Jerusalem was an occupied city in turmoil.
As we remembered on Sunday, the Jewish people were hungry for God to act again, to act as God had acted on the first Passover, breaking the chains of oppression, leading God’s people from slavery to freedom.
The people eagerly awaited the arrival of a messiah – a savior – who would dislodge the brutal Roman occupiers and their local collaborators, and restore Israel’s independence and greatness.
In Jerusalem, two thousand years ago, there were at least some people who had come to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was this long awaited savior – there were some people so full of expectation that they joyfully welcomed him into the capital city with palms and cloaks strewn in the road.
They shouted “Hosanna!” which means, “Please save us!”
But, as we all know, and heard again today, events did not unfold quite the way anyone had expected or hoped.
Instead of a triumphant coronation and a glorious victory, Jesus of Nazareth was betrayed by one of his own, handed over to the authorities, condemned and killed with maximum brutality.
In Jerusalem two thousand years ago, crucifixion was quite common – a form of capital punishment designed by the Romans to instill terror and subservience among the people under their rule.
The city was often spiked with crosses, holding the decaying remains of the crucified, each a stark reminder of what happens to those who dared to challenge Rome.
Horrifying, but no doubt effective.
For nearly two thousand years, we Christians have recalled these heartbreakingly tragic events today, on the day we paradoxically call Good Friday.
And for most of that time we have read and heard this story of sacrifice as told in the Gospel of John.
This gospel – completed around seventy years after the events it records – was written during a time when it was becoming increasingly difficult to be both Jewish and Christian, a time of growing hostility between these two ways of faith.
So, unfortunately, this particular gospel, even more than the others, casts Jesus’ Jewish brothers and sisters in a particularly negative light.
And, over the years, hearing this story, hearing this particular version of this story, the Church forgot – or chose to forget – some most important truths.
Over the years, Christians either willfully or conveniently forgot that Jesus lived and died as a faithful Jew, and that all of his first friends and followers were Jews.
Christians forgot that God has never and will never break the covenant with the Jewish people - that, while we certainly don’t believe all the same things, they are forever our elder brothers and sisters in faith.
The Church forgot all this, and Good Friday became a day that was no good at all for Jews.
But especially now, in our time of turmoil, with anti-Semitism on the rise, we must recall that what we remember today is a Jewish tragedy – Jesus was a victim not of the Jewish people, but, like so many of his countrymen, he was a victim of the Roman Empire that had no patience or mercy for any troublemakers.
As I mentioned on Sunday, one of the unfortunate effects of pointing our fingers at the Jews is that it lets us off the hook.
Today we draw near to the mysterious heart of our faith.
God enters the world in and through Jesus – and, just like people two thousand years ago, we reject him – over and over we reject his invitation – his commandments to love and forgive – over and over, when we choose hate and violence, we nail Jesus to the cross yet again.
There is another most unfortunate side effect of blaming others on Good Friday.
Our misdirected anger at others for rejecting and killing Jesus blinds us to the deepest meaning of Good Friday.
Faced with the rejection and violence of the world, Jesus the Son of God stretched out his arms of love on the cross.
Jesus does not condemn the world, not even of the people who sentenced him to death.
Jesus does not even express disappointment at his friends, the disciples who betrayed, denied, and abandoned him.
Instead, Jesus – Jesus, who washed the feet of his friends - Jesus offers only sacrificial love.
Jesus gives away his life to reveal the bottomless depths of God’s love for us all.
No matter what.
Not unlike the people of Jerusalem two thousand years ago, we live in a time of turmoil.
People close to home and around the world live under the shadows of oppression, fear, and violence.
There are loud and angry voices insisting we should hate and hurt people who are different.
There are loud and angry voices telling so many lies.
And yet, just like in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, in a time of turmoil, Jesus offers only sacrificial love, confident that hatred, cruelty, and death will not have the final word.
But, for now, we wait.
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