Emptiness

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD

March 29, 2024

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Psalm 22

Hebrews 10:16-25

John 18:1-19:42

Emptiness

We can only call today Good Friday because we know what awaits Jesus and his friends and us.

Without that knowledge, we certainly wouldn’t be here today. 

And Jesus of Nazareth would be just a footnote in history, if that.

We also know that through much of our history Good Friday has been a very bad day for our Jewish brothers and sisters.

So, it’s important to understand that when we remember the events in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, we are not recalling a long-ago battle between Jews and Christians.

There were no Christians, yet.

And, with the exception of Pontius Pilate and his fellow Romans, everyone in this sad story, very much including Jesus himself, was Jewish.

And although the religious authorities seemed to feel threatened by Jesus and feared that he, or the people who hailed him as king, would bring on a disaster, it was Pilate and the Romans who executed Jesus.

Jesus, like so many others throughout history and still today, was a victim of state-sponsored violence.

But, over the years, the Church forgot – or chose to forget – this.

And, worst of all, Christians held the Jews of later generations responsible for what happened long ago, unleashing horrific violence, cruelty, and suffering.

Tragedy upon tragedy.

In response to this horrible history, today we used a slightly different but perfectly acceptable translation of the Passion, in most cases replacing “Jews” with “Judeans.”

Especially these days with anti-Semitism on the rise, hopefully this language will help us to recognize that the Jews of today have nothing to do with the events that we remember today. 

And, not only that, but hopefully we will remember that God’s covenant with the Jewish people is eternal. 

The Jews are forever our elder siblings in faith.

After Jesus was baptized and then tempted in the wilderness, he spent his time – three years is the traditional count – he spent his time pouring out his life in loving service to God the Father and to us.

Jesus poured out his life, teaching and healing.

Jesus poured out his life, calling us to lives of loving service, instructing us that true greatness comes through loving service - washing feet – giving away ourselves for God and for one another.

Not an easy teaching, for sure, but pretty simple, really.

And yet, people had a hard time figuring him out.

How did an uneducated craftsman from the sticks become such a compelling teacher, such a powerful healer?

Even Jesus’ closest friends usually didn’t really get it.

Instead, they jockeyed for the best seats in heaven.

They resisted the foot washing  - and one even betrayed Jesus, maybe because he wanted to provoke Jesus into being the kind of king that people recognized and expected – the kind of king they thought they wanted.

Just a few days ago we remembered – and, in a small way, even reenacted -Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

The crowd sure was excited, shouting “Hosanna!” and placing their cloaks and palms along the way.

But even in this moment, which kind of looked like earthly glory, there were signs that maybe this palm parade wasn’t so triumphant, or not triumphant in the ways that everyone expected.

There was no military escort and no dignitaries gathered to greet the King.

And, instead of an imposing horse, this King rode a donkey.

Well, the mood quickly shifted – and maybe it was some of the same Hosanna-shouting, palm-waving people, who soon enough were shouting, “Crucify him!”

Let’s be done with this loser, this disappointment, this sad excuse for a king.

And Jesus, rejected and abandoned by just about everyone, poured out his life on the cross.

Emptiness.

Or so it seemed.

Speaking of emptiness, as I’ve been reflecting on this story from Jerusalem of two thousand years ago, I’ve been struck by the emptiness of most of the characters.

The religious authorities should have trusted in God but instead they were so afraid, afraid of the Romans, afraid of their own people, afraid of losing their positions of power and privilege.

In the gospels, Pontius Pilate is depicted as kind of wishy-washy but another ancient source indicates that he was ruthless, cruel even by the brutal standards of Rome.

And what did that cruelty get him? Worldly power for a while, yes, but forever remembered for executing the Son of God.

And the people, they seem to just follow whichever way the wind is blowing, welcoming Jesus and then quickly turning against him when they realize he’s not the king that they expected – not the kind of king they thought they wanted and needed.

And most of the disciples reveal their emptiness, too, faithless and disloyal, running away, abandoning, even denying, their friend and Lord in his time of need and suffering.

And, perhaps, if we were there two thousand years ago, we would have revealed our own emptiness, too.

On the cross, Jesus offers us his final teaching.

Jesus pours out his life – giving away all of it - in loving service to God the Father and to us.

Emptiness.

Or so it seemed.

Like those people in Jerusalem long ago, we’ve been through a lot.

We’ve been through a lot even in just the last few days.

And today we may be feeling quite empty.

But just wait.

For now, just wait at the foot of the cross.

And on this hard day and on all the hard days, remember:

God is never empty.

God is always full of life and love.

Life and love, shared with and through Jesus.

Life and love, shared with us.

In a Time of Turmoil, Sacrificial Love

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.

The Hope of a Suffering God

The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

April 2, 2021

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Psalm 22:1-11

Hebrews 10:1-25

John 19:1-42

The Hope of a Suffering God

Today we come to what must surely have seemed to be the end of the story of Jesus – the end of all the hope that he inspired among so many people – the end of the new life foreshadowed by the cleansing of lepers, the restoration of sight to the blind, the raising of the dead.

Of course, unlike the first disciples, we know that this was not the end of the story of Jesus – just the beginning, really.

So, without any irony, we can call today Good Friday.

But, it’s essential that we remember that, for most of our history, this day has been anything but good for our Jewish neighbors, our elder brothers and sisters in faith.

Over the centuries, our Christian ancestors forgot – or chose to forget – that just about everyone in the story I just read was Jewish – we forgot or chose to forget that this is a Jewish story – it’s a story of division among Jewish people – it’s a story of some Jewish leaders justifying the death of Jesus as a price to pay for keeping the peace under the brutal rule of the Romans.

Over the centuries, our Christian ancestors forgot – or chose to forget – that Jesus died at the hands of the Roman Empire, a cruel regime represented by Pontius Pilate – who, in the gospel sounds sort of reasonable, even regretful about this unpleasant business, but who was, in fact, more brutal than most.

Even worse than forgetting all of this, over time our Christian ancestors heard this old Jewish story and made the leap to blaming the Jews of their own time, punishing the Jews of their own time, for the death of Jesus centuries earlier.

Yes, for most of our history Good Friday has been a very bad day for the Jews.

I begin my Good Friday sermon this way every year, and it would be nice to think that we’ve all finally gotten the message, but, unfortunately, current events suggest otherwise.

We live in a time when the old demons of racism and prejudice and violence are on the loose – a time when people seen as “other” – very much including Jews - are in real danger.

So, once again, it must be said, Jesus was a victim of state-sponsored violence - killed by the Romans, who tolerated no threat to their rule.

In Jerusalem of two thousand years ago, crucifixion was a terrible but routine event. 

The city was often punctured with crosses, each holding a decomposing body, each standing as a grim and effective warning to anyone who might think about challenging Roman power.

And yet, despite the suffering of Jesus, and the suffering of so many other people back then and today, we insist that today is Good Friday.

And it seems to me that today is Good Friday most of all because now we know for sure that God knows what it’s like to suffer – to really suffer – to experience rejection, torture, abandonment, and even death itself.

In and through Jesus, God does not stand aloof from us, but instead enters into the mess of life, willing to suffer alongside of us.

Some of you may remember William Sloane Coffin, chaplain at Yale, pastor of the Riverside Church. He was one of the best-known American pastors of a few decades ago.

Back in 1983, Coffin’s son Alex, twenty-four years old, was killed in a car accident. And, just ten days later William Sloane Coffin somehow managed to preach a remarkable, now famous, sermon, in which he said:

“My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.”

“God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.”

And in the same way, the heart of our suffering God was the first to break when Sidney and Alton took their last breaths – the heart of our suffering God was the first to break when each of the millions of people around the world succumbed to Covid – the heart of our suffering God was the first to break when broken men opened fire in Atlanta spas and a Boulder supermarket – the heart of our suffering God was the first to break when 16 year-old Kaheem Taylor was shot and killed in an apartment building lobby on Bergen Avenue, just a mile or two south of here.

And if God – who could have easily avoided all our suffering, standing aloof from us forever – if God is willing to suffer like we suffer, then we can be sure that God walks beside us, giving us the strength we need to endure our suffering – and, even more than that, giving us the grace and wisdom to someday stop hurting each other, to beat our swords into plowshares, to finally, finally, take down our crosses and put away our nails.

These are surely difficult days as we endure a virus that does not care if we’re tired of it – as we face economic uncertainty, political instability, and the resurgence of ugly hate and destructive violence against anyone seen as other, anyone we can blame for our troubles.

Yet, we insist that today is good, because today of all days we know for sure that God is here in the mess of life, suffering alongside of us, and showing us the way to new life.

The hope of a suffering God.

Amen.

The Lesson of the Cross

The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

April 10, 2020

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Psalm 22:11

Hebrews 10:1-25

John 19:1-42

The Lesson of the Cross

            For a very long time Christians learned exactly the wrong lesson from Good Friday, took away exactly the wrong lesson from the Cross.

            For a very long time, Christians forgot – or chose to forget – that Jesus was a victim of the Roman authorities who ruled the land of Israel and of the Jewish authorities who did their best to limit any sign of rebellion, all in an attempt to keep the peace and to maintain their own power.

            For a very long time, Christians heard the sad story that I just read and they heard a story of Jews against Jesus, forgetting that just about everyone in this story was Jewish, very much including Jesus of Nazareth, who lived and died a faithful Jew.

            And because for so long Christians heard this story as a story of Jews against Jesus they also heard it as a story of Jews against Christians, forgetting that there were no Christians yet when Jesus died in agony on the cross.

            And since for so long Christians heard this story as a story of Jews against Christians, Good Friday has been very bad news for our Jewish brothers and sisters, right up to the present day.

            I always begin my Good Friday homily by talking about this ugly history, but it’s especially important for us to face this legacy these days when anti-Semitism is on the rise once again, with predictably horrific results, including right here in Jersey City, just a few months ago.

            The lesson of the cross is not that Jews killed Jesus and it’s certainly not that Jews today are somehow responsible for what happened two thousand years ago.

            No, the cross has nothing to do blaming anyone, past or present.

            Instead of blame, the cross offers us Jesus’ greatest and clearest lesson of love.

            This year we have been forced to sacrifice a whole lot but one of the things I am missing most is our Good Friday Stations of the Cross Procession.

            As many of you know, for the past six years on Good Friday morning we have gathered with our bishop and fellow parishioners and Christians of all stripes, from Pentecostals to Catholics, and we have walked the Way of the Cross through the broken and glass-strewn sidewalks of Jersey City, remembering the suffering endured by Jesus, stopping and praying at places of violence in our own time, sprinkling Holy Water on these stained places, reminding us that no matter how hard we try to profane it and call it bad, this is all God’s land and it is all good.

            For me and I think a lot of us, the Stations of the Cross procession is our most meaningful service of the year, somehow stripping away all of the religious niceties and pieties that have accumulated on to Good Friday, reminding us that at its heart this is the story of one man brutalized by violence - in this case, state-sanctioned violence.

            By connecting the violence on the streets of Jersey City today to the violence endured by Jesus two thousand years ago, we’re reminded that we’re talking about the real suffering of a man who preached nothing but peace, a real man who was abandoned by nearly everybody, even, it seemed for a time, abandoned by his God.

            But, in our blood-soaked world, this particular suffering and death would hardly be worth remembering or mentioning – just another sad story in a world filled with them.

            This story would hardly be worth talking about, except that the victim is the Son of God.

            And so on the hard wood of the Cross, Jesus teaches us his final, his most shocking, and his most important lesson of love, stretching out his arms to reveal the wideness of God’s love for us all – love wide enough to embrace the worst suffering, even the loss of economic security, even senseless and terrifying violence on the streets of Jersey City, even last breaths in the Intensive Care Unit.

On the Cross, Jesus offers love strong enough to endure death itself.

There is still one more lesson of love yet to be taught and for us to learn, but that will have to wait until Sunday morning.

For now, we sit at the foot of the Cross.

And tomorrow morning we’ll sit outside the sealed tomb.

But through it all, during these holiest days, let’s learn – let’s remember - let’s marvel at - just how much we are loved.

           

Overshadowed

The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

April 19, 2019

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Psalm 22

Hebrews 10:16-25

John 18:1-19:42

Overshadowed

            Ever since human beings turned away from God – ever since we somehow thought that we could do it our way – that we could somehow hide from God – our lives have been overshadowed.

            Human life has been overshadowed by hatred and greed and cruelty – the shadows that lead to death – the shadows that led to the violent deaths of 14 Jersey City residents since last Good Friday – the 14 brothers and sisters represented by the shirts we carried through the streets this morning and that are now hanging outside our church tonight.

            Over human history, at different times and in different places, these shadows have lengthened and shortened.

            And, the truth is, that although there have been plenty of shadows, here in the Western world during the decades since World War II, it seemed like maybe at least some of the old shadows would be finally permanently brightened – permanently brightened by tolerance – tolerance for people who looked and believed and loved differently than us.

            That’s what many of us were taught and came to believe, right?

            But, it turns out that tolerance just isn’t strong enough to cast out shadows – only love can do that.

            And, so in our own time and place, many of the old shadows have returned with a vengeance: greed and fear and violence and hatred are once again overshadowing us.

            Out of all of these old shadows, I have to say that the one I find most discouraging is anti-Semitism – hatred and fear of the Jews is on the rise around the world among the Right and the Left – attacks against Jews have risen dramatically even in places with huge Jewish populations like Crown Heights.

            And, today on Good Friday, this is the old shadow we have to face because for so long 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.

            And, after listening to the passage I just read from the Gospel of John, you can understand how that could happen, right?

            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 our elder brothers and sisters in faith.

            For so long we forgot – but now we must recall that what we remember today is a Jewish tragedy – Jesus was a victim not of the Jewish people, but was instead killed by a religious establishment that valued the institution far above the life of some rabbi from Galilee – Jesus was the victim of a Roman Empire that had no patience for any troublemakers.

            Although tonight we focus on one cross, the truth is that two thousand years ago Jerusalem was overshadowed by thousands of crosses, each one a horrifying reminder not to mess with Rome.

            So, the shadows that overtook Jesus are barely worth remembering and mentioning – after all, he was killed just like thousands of his fellow countrymen – after all, his suffering was no worse than the pain endured by millions and millions of people before and since.

No, this tragedy is hardly worth talking about - except, of course, that it’s Jesus.

            What we remember on this day that we ironically call “good” is that God – God who is pure light and love was willing to enter the deepest shadows of human life.

            God was willing to be overshadowed by human sinfulness – God was willing to experience the worst - despair and forsakenness - all to show us the way to new life.

            And, what God did in Jerusalem on that most shadowy day two thousand years ago is the supreme example of what God does all the time.

            God enters our shadows and shines light.

            And that’s what God invites us to do for one another.

            So, that’s why this morning we carried the cross and those 14 shirts to places of violence just a few blocks from here, places overshadowed by a callous disregard of the preciousness of human life – that’s why we walked those streets and stood on those corners – that’s why we visited some places that the world might dismiss as God-forsaken and that even we may have found uncomfortably shadowy.

But, we went there because if God is willing to be overshadowed, then we should be willing to be overshadowed, too.

God enters the shadows of our lives and shines light – shines love - and that is the only force strong enough to finally drive out the shadows.

But, for now, in our own time of deepening shadows, we sit at the foot of the cross, remembering Jesus the Son of God who was overshadowed by hate and fear.

We sit here overshadowed, but also knowing that this is not the end of the story for Jesus – and it’s also not the end of the story for us.

            

Whom Are We Looking For?

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen & The Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

March 25, 2016

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Psalm 22

Hebrews 10:16-25

John 18:1-19:42

Whom Are We Looking For?

            Just like in the beginning, once again we find ourselves in a garden.

            Once again, we’re in a garden and once again human beings mess up in a very big way, seeming to ruin everything, yet again.

            We’re told that Jesus and his disciples are in a garden when suddenly Judas shows up with soldiers and police bearing lanterns and torches and weapons.

            Then Jesus, who, we’re told, knew all that was going to happen to him, asks the authorities, asks them twice, in fact, “Whom are you looking for?”

            “Whom are you looking for?”

            Whom are we looking for?

            Especially today, that’s a very good question, isn’t it?

            Whom are we looking for?

            From very early days, on Good Friday, the Church has read and heard the account of our Lord’s Passion according to the Gospel of John.

            It’s a powerful and rich telling of this old, sad, tragic story.

            But, it also presents us with some problems, some baggage, that we need to address right at the start.

            Over the centuries, as the Church retold and reheard this story, it just about forgot something very important: what we are hearing is a Jewish story.

            It’s a story of bitter disagreement and conflict among and between first century Jews, a story of some Jewish leaders rejecting Jesus of Nazareth as the messiah.

            Jesus lived and died as a Jew as did all of his first followers.

            Over time, the Church, either by accident or on purpose, or probably a bit of both, just about forgot that and so this old, sad, tragic story became even more tragic because Christians began to hear it as a story of conflict between Jews and Christians.

            And, as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you but I’m going to say anyway, this story fueled horrific anti-Semitism which I wish I could say has been finally extinguished, but in this season of renewed hatred, ugliness, and violence, we all know better than that.

            “Whom are you looking for?”

            The soldiers and the police answer that they’re looking for Jesus of Nazareth.

            They’re looking for Jesus because they’ve received their orders to arrest him – orders given because some of the religious leaders saw this charismatic rabbi from Galilee as a threat – this rabbi who healed the sick, expelled demons, raised the dead and announced that the Kingdom of God was at hand, this rabbi who had been welcomed into the capital city with waving palms and shouts of “Hosanna!”

            And, you know, the leaders were right to feel threatened, though Jesus wasn’t interested in being chief priest or the kind of king who wears a golden crown and lives in a palace.

            The soldiers and the police come looking for Jesus in the garden and what do they find?

            They find Jesus with a few of his disciples.

            They find Jesus who doesn’t resist.

            They find Jesus who tells Peter to put his sword away.

            They find Jesus who offers a different way.

            They find Jesus who shows us the Way, who is the Way.

            Whom are you looking for?

            Whom are we looking for?

            If we’ve come here this evening looking for Jesus who is far off, hidden, and completely unknowable to us, then we’ve come to the wrong place.

            If we’ve come here this evening looking for Jesus who, how about that, shares all of our opinions and prejudices, likes the people we like and isn’t too crazy about the people we’re not too crazy about, then we’ve come to the wrong place.

            If we’ve come here this evening looking for Jesus who is going to make us rich and successful in the eyes of the world, if only we pray hard enough and follow all the rules and pay our pledge, then we’ve come to the wrong place.

            If we’ve come here this evening looking for Jesus who is going to save us from suffering, who us going to wave a divine magic wand and make our troubles go away while other poor souls continue to languish in pain and despair, then we’ve come to the wrong place.

            So, whom are we looking for?

            Well, if we’ve come here looking for Jesus who makes himself known to us, makes himself known through his teaching, makes himself known to us through his love and sacrifice, makes himself known to us when we wash away the filth that clings to our suffering and broken world, makes himself known to us in the breaking of the bread, then we’ve come to the right place.

            If we’ve come here looking for Jesus who loves everybody, very much including the people we’re not too crazy about, loves us even we’re not too crazy about ourselves, loves, yes, loves Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, loves the soldiers and the police, loves Judas and the chief priests and scribes, if we’ve come here looking for that Jesus, then we’ve come to the right place.

            If we’ve come her looking for Jesus who in the eyes of the world was a complete failure, weak and ineffective, a loser, managing only to attract a small band of less than faithful, less than stellar, followers including one who betrayed him, followers who almost all abandon him at the end, Jesus who hangs on the cross humiliated and quite dead, if we’ve come here looking for that Jesus, then we’ve come to the right place.

            If we’ve come here looking for Jesus who knows all about suffering, Jesus, who still walks with the suffering on the streets of Jersey City, who still makes his home among the people drunk on the corner or shooting up in some dark and dirty room, who still makes his home with those imprisoned in all the ways we imprison ourselves and others, the Jesus who still makes his home with people grieving their losses and fearing what is yet to come, if we’ve come here looking for that Jesus, then we’ve come to the right place.

            We’ve come back to the garden, back to the place of tragedy, the place of betrayal, abandonment, and death.

            But unlike at the beginning, this time, despite appearances to the contrary, things are not ruined.

            This time we’re welcome to stay in the garden for a while, welcome to grieve, welcome to pray…and welcome to wait for resurrection and new life.

            Amen.

           

           

           

            

The Cross and Failure

The Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

April 3, 2015

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Psalm 22

Hebrews 10:16-25

John 18:1-19:42

The Cross and Failure

            It’s Good Friday – a somber and sad day, for sure, but you and I know – we are anticipating - that Easter is on the horizon.

            It’s Good Friday but we all live in the time after Easter.

            That’s true for us and it was true for the people who wrote the gospels – who all wrote decades after the earthly life of Jesus.

            When they wrote the story of Jesus they knew what was going to happen – what had happened on Easter Day.

            Actually, if they hadn’t known about – hadn’t experienced - the Resurrection there would have been not much point in remembering Jesus. If they hadn’t known about the Resurrection Jesus might be just a footnote – another would-be messiah – a failure among countless failures throughout history.

            The truth is that on that first Good Friday in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, pretty much everybody who knew about Jesus must have thought that the cross was indeed the end of the story of this teacher and healer – this would-be messiah – this supposed king of the Jews - from Galilee.

            Pretty much everybody must have thought that the life of Jesus of Nazareth had ended in a disappointing, humiliating, bloody, and all too final, failure.

            Certainly the religious officials and Pontius Pilate who had condemned him to death must have thought Jesus was a failure and whatever kind of movement he was trying to start with all that kingdom of God talk – well, obviously that was all a big failure, too.

            What must Jesus’ family have thought in Jerusalem or back in Nazareth that day? All along, they had been kind of embarrassed by Jesus anyway, thinking he must have had a demon, urging him to come home, to be a small-town artisan like his father, Joseph.

            And, now, they must have thought, look what had happened? Failure.

            Judas Iscariot must have felt a crushing sense of failure. Whatever he was trying to achieve by betraying Jesus – perhaps provoke him into being the kind of messiah he and other wanted – a king riding a mighty horse instead of a humble colt – well, whatever Judas had wanted, that had ended in failure as well.

            And, Jesus’ other followers – what must have been running through their minds that day in Jerusalem?

            Yes, sure, there were all the amazing, sometimes confusing, head-scratch-causing teachings of Jesus.

            Yes, sure, there were the miracles and signs – demons expelled, sight restored, loaves and fish multiplied, even the dead raised.

            But, clearly they had followed the wrong rabbi. I mean, look at him up there, hanging on the cross like a common criminal, a failure.

            And then of course the disciples themselves had failed most spectacularly.

            They had all – or nearly all – abandoned him during his greatest moment of need – had left him to his excruciating and shameful death.

            And no one failed more spectacularly than Peter.

            The “rock” proved to be not so solid after all – denying his Lord to save his own skin and then overcome with guilt and remorse when he realized what he had done and remembered that Jesus had known that he would fail the test.

            And then there’s Jesus himself.

            Perhaps our brother Jesus also sensed failure as he seemed to be forsaken by everybody, seemingly forsaken even by God.

            Failure seemed to be all around in Jerusalem on that first Good Friday.

            Well, we don’t have to read the Bible to learn about failure, do we?

            All of us carry around a sense of failure.

            Sometimes we really have failed – we’ve failed to achieve our goals – we’ve failed to be as “successful” as we had hoped – we’ve failed to be as “successful” as our brother or sister, as our neighbor across the street - we’ve failed to live up to our highest ideals – we’ve failed to be the people that we say are – we’ve failed to be the people that everybody thinks we are.

            Sometimes we just have a general feeling of failure – that somehow we’re just not good enough, not smart enough, not talented enough – that we have failed to make the most out of our lives.

            And then there’s the human failure all around us.

            We saw that so clearly this morning on our Stations of the Cross procession – the failure of senseless violence – the failure of us to look out for each other – the failure to be outraged that so many of our people have to put bars on the windows of their houses – the failure to be outraged that so many of our young men are living behind bars.

            We all know a whole lot about failure, don’t we?

            During Lent some of us over at St. Paul’s read a book called Looking Through the Cross. It’s very good and I recommend it.

            In the book there’s a chapter called “The Cross and Failure” – and I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

            First off the author points out that the only reason we know about Peter’s colossal failure is because Peter must have told and retold the story of his denying Jesus to save his own skin.

            Why would he do that?

            Like all of us, wouldn’t he have preferred to keep this horribly humiliating failure as quiet as possible.

            The author suggests that Peter must have told the story because he knew from his own experience that God took his failure – can take our failures – and creates new life and new possibilities.

            Peter the denier became truly the Rock who gave away his life for Christ.

            God does God’s best work with failures – or what seem to be failures.

            As the author writes, “The story of the cross introduces us to a God who loves failures: in fact he can do more with failures than he can with those who have never experienced their own frailty and weakness.”

            And so this morning we – with all of our personal and collective failures – we carried the cross into the midst of failure – into places of violence and despair – and I trust that God used us this morning and will continue to use us to transform our community, turning failure into hope, transforming death into life.

            And I know this – we know this – because, like the writers of the gospel, we live in the time after Easter – the time when God took what everybody thought was failure – when God took Jesus, who everybody thought was a failure – God took the seeming failure of a crucified Jesus dead in the tomb and raised him to new life – doing most spectacularly what God always does – turning failure into hope, transforming death into life.

            Amen.