Good Friday Message

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful."  John 14:27

GOOD FRIDAY MESSAGE

Today, Christians across the world come together on one of the most important days of the Christian calendar.  Since the dawn of Christianity this day is solemnly remembered for the ultimate humiliation, torture, and execution of Jesus, the Messiah.  Throughout the world many people commemorate today with crucifixion re-enactments, prayer services, visits to the Holy Land to walk the Via Dolorosa, fasting, and seeking penitence for their sins.  We’ve all attended services whose focus was centered on the brutality of the events almost 2000 years ago. These services are designed with the intent on making us feel the weight of responsibility we, as humankind, played in the roll of this unimaginable brutality and the guilt we must bear.  We still hear in churches that Jesus died for our sins.  To me, there is no good news to be born out of such a commemoration.

I chose to view this day through a different lens.  Jesus’s ministry stressed the importance of love, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and tending to the least among us.  Jesus sought people in the depths of their human inadequacies and lifted them up.  It is through this lens I see the purpose of his death.

Luke tells us in Chapter 23 verse 34, that once he was put upon the cross he said, “‘Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”  After everything he had endured, there he was hanging on the cross asking God to forgive them.  There, on the cross, Jesus was living the example he set forth in the prayer he taught us.  “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” How many times must we forgive?  “I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy times seven!”  Meaning infinitely.  There on the cross he was silently challenging us, “Let him among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”  Who, conducting all the trials that day, was worthy of pronouncing judgment?  As we respond to those who have sinned against us, do we respond with forgiveness or do we cast judgment?  Our human nature would undoubtedly respond in judgment and only after we’ve calmed down, would we forgive.  Here is the lesson to teach us that, even amid our anger or pain, forgiveness, not judgment, must come.

With Jesus were crucified two thieves.  One of the thieves mocked Jesus saying, “‘Are you not the Messiah?^* Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ⁴¹And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’   Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ ⁴³He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’”  There, upon the cross, suffering himself, he offered mercy and hope.  Even in the depths of our own anguish and turmoil, Jesus, upon the cross, set the example that we can still reach out to others.  To be their beacon of hope and to even show them mercy.   Maybe it is this stepping outside of our own issues to help others, that we find clarity and peace in times of trouble.

Among the crowd that had assembled to witness the terrible fate of the two thieves and Jesus were the three Mary’s; his mother, his mother’s sister the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.  In ancient times, a mother would have to rely on her son in the aftermath of her husband’s death. The Gospel of John tells us, “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved [John] standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’”  From then on John took Mary into his home.  From the cross Jesus reached out with compassion and love to ensure his mother is cared for.   This was his Last Will and Testament to her and John.  For her, a secure future.  For him, support, guidance, and the good counsel only Mary could give.

When Jesus calls out, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” we can almost hear Jesus’s anguish.  The divine Jesus has left the human Jesus.  At this very moment we see Jesus, not as divine, but fully human.  Here was the man whose entire ministry centered upon the good news that God has not abandoned us, the Kingdom of God is within all of us, and we are not merely just part of Creation, but wholly radiant with the Glory of God, feeling the weight of truly being alone. There, on the cross, what remained was the fully human Jesus bearing the emotions of what we feel when our faith is lost, when our doubts and fears shake us to our core, and when hope has fled.  It is human nature, at times, to feel abandoned in our faith, in our wrestling with God, and at times to feel utterly alone.  To feel that emotionally raw experience is not a sign of weakness.  In fact, these very feelings prove our humanity, our faith growing pains, and our ability to expand our thoughts and consciousness. 

Both Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus cried out just before his death.  John tells us that Jesus gave up his spirit.  Luke expounds on the final words of Jesus before his death, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”  His final words upon the cross were not ones of pain or sorrow.  His final words were not ones of vengeance, retribution, or even defiance.  His final words were brimming with assured unwavering faith.  Words of trust.  This is at the very core of our faith.  That we, at the moment of our death, entrust our spirit to the loving hands of our God.

We all have choices in how we respond to events.  Jesus chose to use his death to further his teachings of love, mercy, compassion, faith, and hope.  How many times have we thought, “If I had only said this, or If I had only not said that?”  Most of us will never know the hour or method of our deaths.  Personally, I believe that is a blessing.  But, it is only a blessing in the sense that we must be ever vigilant in what we say or how we treat others.

We can choose to see the crucifixion of Jesus as an instrument of our guilt.  We can choose to see his trial, his torture, his ridicule and his death as a conviction of our sin nature.  But, we can also choose to see his death, as horrendous as it was, as an extension of his love for humankind.  We can see in his death his faith and teachings in action.  His death teaches us, even in the depths trouble and danger, it is our faith and actions that determine and define who we are.  I do not view the crucifixion through the lens of sin or guilt, but through the lens of love.