Reverend Ref +

GOOD FRIDAY SERMON

For the past several weeks, I have been walking my congregations through an instructed Eucharist. That is, we examine every part of the liturgy and explain and discuss why we do what we do when we do it. One of the things I told them was that liturgy isn't something that just happens, but it's the work of the people. Every person is a participant in some capacity or another during the service. Nowhere is that more evident than this week.

The Sunday of the Passion, Palm Sunday, is the first day of Holy Week. I don't know what other congregations did, be we participated in the Liturgy of the Palms, shouted "Hosanna!" processed into the church from the parish hall or undercroft and then participated in the reading of the Passion Gospel.

As we move into and through the Triduum, those sacred three days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, we participate more fully. Palm Sunday gave us a taste of what is to come, and now we experience it with all of our senses.

Yesterday was Maundy Thursday, and last night up in VC we shared a sparse meal reflective of the agape meals of the early church. We participated with our senses of smell and taste during the dinner.

After our shared meal, we followed Jesus' example and washed each other's feet in an act of servitude. We were keenly aware of our sense of touch.

Then we moved upstairs and participated in the last communion before Easter and the stripping of the altar. The primary senses here were hearing and sight. We heard the sounds of the sanctuary being stripped of all items. We watched as that area became bare, as each item was removed one by one, signifying both the abandomnment of Jesus and his stripping. And we sat in darkness as, finally, the sanctuary candle was extinguished and we realized that we have abandoned Jesus and left him alone to die.

Today we experience the result of that abandonment. Some of you came to the church at all hours of the night to keep watch; to spend an hour in prayer before Jesus is taken away.

Many of you took part in The Way of the Cross, processing around town as we remembered the path walked by Jesus on his way to be crucified. We heard different meditations and prayers and reflected on what it might be like to have been part of that crowd watching Jesus as he struggled under the weight of it all.

They say hindsight is 20/20. With what we know now about Jesus and close to 2000 years of church teaching, it's tempting to say, "I would've been different." Would we though?

Would we be willing to stand up against the powerful Roman government and protest the illegal trial and murder of an innocent man? Would we, or are we, willing to stand up against our own government's blatant abuses of power that we know to be wrong? Or are we more like the disciples and turn a blind eye and let events simply run their course without our involvement?

Or maybe we'd be like the women, who didn't desert Jesus but stayed with him to the end. Would we be willing to follow him on his path and be there when he died? Would we be willing to watch him suffer?

It's easy to think we would be different; and I would like to think that I would be. But before we get too self-assured, let's not forget that not more than five minutes ago we all cried out, "Crucify him!" We all had a hand in his death.

Last night we betrayed and deserted Jesus, and we removed him from our lives. Some of us kept watch during the night for an hour or so. Today we condemned him to death. Many of us walked the Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross, this morning as we processed inexorably toward his death.

Today we condemned Jesus to death. Today we watched as he hung on the cross for our sins and for the sins of the whole world. Today we watched him die.

The only thing left for us to do is to pray; because today, we got what we asked for.