Good Friday – Holy Adventures

Meditation for Good Friday II

I was there

I had to be there

He was my son. My firstborn, my Lord.

I watched them

I saw them hurt him, thrust a crown of thorns upon his head, hoist up a sign mocking him as ‘The king of Jews’ and dividing his cloak up amongst them.

But didn’t they see, that is who he is; the king, Lord, messiah, Son of the living God.

When he was conceived the angel told me, ‘He will be great and will be called the Son of the most high. The lord God will give him the throne of his Father David and he will reign over Jacobs’ descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.’

Never end. Is this really the end?

I wanted to go to him, help him, hold him, care for him just like I did when he was a child. Memories of his life came flooding back.

Like the time he went missing. Scared the life out of me he did! 3days it was. 3 whole days. We’d gone up to Jerusalem and were travelling back home. As Jesus was twelve at the time he was at the age where he could travel with the men, and so I thought he was with Joseph. But, Joseph still saw him as a child and thought that he would be safe travelling with the women and children, so neither of us knew we had left him behind. When we realised we searched and searched, frantically trying to find him. When we finally did, there he was, sat down in the temple, as if nothing was wrong. Learning, listening, questioning he was, talking to the Rabbi. A learned man of God right from the very beginning.

I was there at his first miracle. He turned the water into wine, at a wedding of a friend of ours. I knew he could help. I told them,

‘Do as he says’. Even then, demonstrating kindness, grace and goodness.

Those precious memories stopped me in my tracks.

Then he looked up and saw me, quietly weeping, as my tears mixed with his pain, like an ugly smudged painting. It was as if he knew my thoughts. ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to His close friend John, he said, ‘Here is your mother’. Even in his hour of greatest pain and suffering, he thought of me. My son.

My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour….

God’s mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

I always knew he was special. God showed me before he was even conceived . There I was, treasuring these things in my heart. I was there at the very beginning of his life, as he took his first breathe, a tiny baby placed in a feeding trough fit only for animals. Now here I am at the end. Willing him to take his last, to be free from all of that suffering and pain. Watching him Hanging there on a cruel cross, nails piercing his hands and feet.

But he is the messiah. The Son of God.

His Father God, where are you now? Why have you abandoned him?

And then he let out his last breath. The sky turned black, like nature was mourning alongside us. As if God himself had removed all of the colour from this place. And it was over.

Our job here on earth was complete.

I stood still, taking it all in, loving him, listening to the cries of the crowd, watching the soldiers pierce his side just to make sure he was definitely gone.

But….

It didn’t feel like the end.

My spirit filled with hope like a peace descended on me at that moment. It wasn’t just relief that he was free from pain, it was more than that. The only way I can describe it, is it’s like God wasn’t finished just yet.

Meditation for Good Friday

I woke up early, in that half-light, struggling to orientate myself, trying to figure out where I was, for a moment not feeling the fear and anxiety and then it hit me again in another almighty wave. This cold stone cell, these chains, and that hollow empty feeling, like hunger, but filling my whole soul, seeping into my bones. Will today be the day I die?

Tensions have been rising around the jail. A new convict was brought in through the night. What a stir.

Dead man walking.

People jeering, soldiers mocking, high priest questioning. And as the cock crowed the sentence was passed – criminal charged, crucify him.

I do not know the man, but some were shouting King.

Some shouted King, but the louder cry was crucify.

His fate, the same as mine.

But is today the Passover? Someone is released at Passover – maybe today is my day after all. Maybe today will be a Good Friday. Maybe today I will live?

Convicts are assembled, dragged together into line, paraded before the crowd, baying for blood. How should I stand, what will best appeal to those who hold my fate right there in their mouths? Should I look them in the eye, or look down in regret? Can I show an apology? Am I sorry? And what is that current running through my bloodstream? Hope?

Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews??

Not this man.

Not this new convict, this silent, whipped, beaten and bruised criminal.

I don’t get a look in – nobody is considering me for parole.

Release Barabbas!

Barabbas?! He’s a terrorist – a violent murderer.

I’m not like that guy. I’m a rebel, not a killer. And they are releasing him?! He gets his freedom?? They didn’t even see me standing there, condemned.

So our fate is sealed. We will die, today. And I will be alongside this one they mock as king.

I chance a look at him. He is just staring, but there is something in that broken face, something behind those swollen eyes. No, I can’t place it. Peace? Surely not. Must be pain, acceptance, maybe he’s able to dissociate. Maybe he’s not here at all.

But then the whip is cracked and we are present. The crowd screams in unison and we are forced into line.

Bones exposed, skin raw, muscles wasted, hunger won, battle lost and we are presented with a cross. A crude, splintered, heavy wooden cross. Our weapon of torture. Our place of death. This king’s throne.

‘Carry it’ they shout, and we stumble under the weight.

Walk, trip, fall, whip, snap, weep, walk – all the way to the place of the skull.

The walk is interminable but arriving feels worse.

It feels like it will take forever to get there, but unfortunately it wont. We’ll be there soon enough. We will be gone soon enough.

With every step I think of those I love and those I have hurt. One list long, one pitifully short. I deserve to be here. These steps, this cross, this hill, this death – it’s the way the road goes for people like me.

The crowds line the streets – they said they would.

People spit, others cry.

The king falls and falls again. Someone else carries his cross. And his mum is there too. It looks like her own heart is pierced, just as our hands and feet will soon be.

My head spins, blood gurgles in my throat and blurs my eyes.

My ears are muffled to the sound of the crowd and all they hear is the thud of my heart. How many more times will it beat, before it stops, for good?

And then we arrive. The cross hits the ground, we are thrown on top and the guards pin us down, tie us down and then drive the nails into our wrists and feet.

I’m sure I black out. I feel it. I can’t feel it. My mouth is dry and my limbs are burning.

I feel a rush of air as the cross is raised, and pain like I’ve never felt before excrutiates through me as it, as I am dropped into the stand. The place I will die.

Again, I black out, I come round.

The crowd blurred below, the soldiers gambling and laughing – fighting over something, spitting and drinking.

I try to move my head and I see the man beside me, and the one beside him.

I thought he was pleading – get us down from here – but he’s mocking – get us down if you can, King.

He calls him Jesus.

This is Jesus?

The prophet? Messiah? The son of God? I’m dying beside the Christ?!

And I don’t know what happens, but I find a voice. I tell him to shut up – we deserve this and he’s making things worse. We are in the presence of royalty, in the presence of divinity and holiness. He must know what I have done and yet all he says is ‘father forgive’ and ‘I thirst’.

What do I have to lose? These are my last breaths, my last minutes. What can I lose? What can I gain?

I manage to swallow – a mix of blood, sweat and saliva – and in one breath I force out ‘Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom’

My mind is cloudy but my thought is crystal clear. In that moment I knew it.

That forgiveness was for me.

That thirst is for righteousness, holiness, freedom.

He will drink in another kingdom, and I want to be there.

He looks at me and there is something like a smile, something like love, and he says, through split, dry, lips ‘today, you will be with me in paradise’.

Today? This day, that began with the promise of sure and certain death?

This day of torture, shame, mockery and pain.

Today, paradise.

What dawned in the depths of darkness is setting into a truly Good Friday.

A Sermon for Good Friday

Good Friday 2023 – John 19: 14 ff

I don’t like boxes much. Especially when they contain theology.

As a child, the Good Friday box contained an angry God who needed to be placated, and that could only ever be done through the death of his Son. The box contained adult words like sacrifice and blood and atonement and substitute. And I knew I was bad and could only be good because of whatever it was that was in that box.

As a young adult, the box held a vengeful wrathful God that I was uncomfortable with. I found him a bit embarrassing – all this talk about there needing to be a death so the debts could be paid – it got in the way of Good News, and wasn’t appealing, so I sealed the box more tightly and tried to ignore it; instead looked ahead to Easter Sunday, not wanting to spend any time looking at the contents of this day, at all.

As an older adult, who left the church in shame and confusion, I tentatively lifted the lid on those boxes, and many others that I had gathered along the way. All kinds of things tumbled out of them – words and phrases and feelings and pain. And I realised I understood way less than I ever thought I had. My lack of understanding became my guilty secret. It was authentic, at least, but it couldn’t be enough. Could it?

As a student of theology and then an ordained person, I began meeting others; those who wrote about what they believed and preached it and those who were daring to lift lids on boxes and didn’t seem ashamed of what had been buried there.

And then I met disciples and other Jesus followers; those who had shouted crucify, to avoid answers to questions like ‘weren’t you with this man?’. I saw those who had given kisses of betrayal and said, ‘this is the one’.

And those disciples are great company on this day, as we hear again those taunts – crucify him – and as we hear the mockery of ‘the king of the Jews’. As we hear the soldiers casting lots for the blood-soaked tunic, and the sobs of the weeping of the women. We can sit with those confused, distraught would-be followers as they see Jesus thirst, and know somehow that it is a thirst for righteousness and a new kingdom, not for sour wine on some pock-marked sponge on a filthy stick.

And as we hear our saviour say ‘it is finished’, as we watch God die, we don’t know much, if anything, but may we know beyond all knowing that whatever is in those bloody boxes is not even a fraction of what happened there that day. May we know that whatever it is we have been told and constructed is nothing compared to what actually went on in flesh and blood, and in the heavens above and the earth below; that as those words ‘it is finished’ came out in spit that mixed with air, and in blood that seeped into soil, so something significant happened.

Something significant happened. And we can never grasp it and never understand it. But for the love of God we will keep on trying.

Because that cross, in its bloodied, brutal, glory, is surrounded by boxes.

Open Boxes, without any lids, with questions and uncertainty tumbling out.

Boxes with lids nailed down, with theology and surety firmly held inside.

And the base of that cross goes down into the ground, way further than we know

And the top of the cross reaches taller and higher

And the cross beam stretches wider and broader than we can ever imagine

And as that cross goes deeper and wider and taller and broader, so must we keep digging deeper and reaching higher and stretching wider in our encounter with the crucified lord. Not rushing ahead to Sunday, but spending time here – as uncomfortable as it is, as painful as it might feel, as uncertain and tentative as it feels – we need to wait here, surrounded by these boxes of questions and theories.

And as we wait, something is already beginning to happen. Something is already changing in the highest heavens and the deepest depths.

May we wait. May we never stop waiting.

In our waiting may we wonder. May we dig deeper and reach higher and stretch wider. May we burn the boxes of our theories and understanding and may we simply wait here, at the foot of the cross, in the presence of our crucified Lord, not knowing what is happening, but trusting that even Friday can be Good. Amen.

The Great Unknowing

A sermon for Good Friday*

*I first preached a variation of this sermon in 2017, on my first Good Friday as a priest. My training priest was so furious with me – that I had told people that I don’t know why Jesus had to die – that I didn’t preach on Good Friday again, until 2022. Now I think that sharing our doubts and questioning, even as priests, especially as priests, is essential. So here it is again; revised, revisited and still unsure whether Jesus really HAD to die, or if it was a sure consequence of real living…

I remember the exact moment when all I knew and believed about what happened on the cross came tumbling down around me.

It was 2011, and a Tuesday, around 7:30am. I was sat on my sofa, drinking coffee, reading the bible passages for that day. I had all my theology and knowledge, safely and neatly stacked in metaphorical boxes around me, lids firmly fixed down. I remember so clearly that as I sat and read one of the accounts of the crucifixion, I felt this creeping sense of unease wash over me, and something inside my mind or heart dared to ask this question that I’ve asked countless times since: Did Jesus have to die? ‘Why did Jesus have to die?’

And I realised I no longer knew the answer.

I knew it was safely stored somewhere in one of these proverbial theology boxes that I’d carefully been packing since Sunday School, but I couldn’t locate it. And I knew it was important – I mean, I had to know why Jesus had to die if I wanted to be one of His followers, right? So I put down my coffee, and quickly got dressed. I didn’t have to be in work until 9am, there was still time to figure this out and get things straight before then. I drove to my church and burst through the door and straight into my priest and blurted out ‘I no longer know why Jesus had to die?’ and she looked a bit stunned by this early morning theological conundrum, and she ermed and ahhed a bit, and then she looked at me and said what, in hindsight became the most beautiful answer. She said, ‘I don’t know the answer to that’…

And so, my quest continued…

At that time, I worked at the cathedral and was surrounded by priests all day, so I went to ask them. I dashed to work, armed with my burning question; desperate to have it sorted, as quickly as possible.

I got to my desk and was facing precious Martin; a wonderful, kind priest, who was very posh. And I said to Martin ‘why did Jesus have to die?’ and, without missing a heartbeat, he said ‘Gemma; Jesus died for the propitiation of our sins’ and then he paused and said ‘…yep, I’m happy with that’, but I wasn’t. I tried on this theory for myself and I couldn’t make it fit. And I didn’t know what propitiation meant.

And then in bounded Keith – big, brash, loud, Baptist minister Keith. And I asked Keith, ‘why did Jesus have to die?’ and he said ‘so God could look at you.’

What?!

‘Yes’, he said ‘before Jesus died, God couldn’t bear to look at you because you were so full of sin and God can’t look upon sin’. And I remembered this explanation from before; this was one I’d clung onto for years, and I tried it on again, and the weight of it did something bad to my heart and soul and I knew I couldn’t carry this explanation around any longer. I knew God loved me, loved all humanity, every last one of us, through all time and eternity, and I couldn’t reconcile that love with God not being able to look at God’s people, unless Jesus died.

So I pressed on with my big question.

And I pressed on.

And I still press on.

And I will press on, always.

And, if that even is a question then, still, I don’t know why Jesus had to die. In fact, I don’t believe he had to; not to fulfil a great celestial plan, anyway. But Jesus showed – still shows – such a radical way of living, such a purity of life, heart and mind that death was… inevitable.

I know Jesus turned everything upside down with His outrageous, indiscriminating, love; and when humankind comes face to face with that love, it does something to our very core and sears into our soul and it’s so rare, so ‘raw’ that it’s terrifying, and our fear causes us to kill it. To kill love. I know that.

And I also know that even though Jesus told his closest friends, over and over, what was going to happen to him, still they didn’t understand either. They didn’t know why Jesus had to die. Not only did they not understand, they ran away and betrayed Him, and denied they’d even known him. They didn’t understand what was happening.

On that first Good Friday night, they weren’t sat around in the upper room waiting for what had been promised to them, full of hope, nodding knowingly. They were hiding; huddled there, this night, terrified, distraught, guilt-stricken, with images of their best friend; bloodied and beaten and broken. They could still hear the cries of the crowd – crucify him. And they could hear their own voices – I don’t even know the man. Life was gone. Hope was gone. Jesus was dead. That’s what they knew. So if that’s all we know too, that is enough…

Today we do well to kneel at this cross, where our friend Jesus is beaten and broken. And we kneel undone, as we see our sin and hear our own failings ringing in our ears. All we have known is in tatters around us because we haven’t always followed the examples of our Jesus. But we also know, in ways we can never comprehend, that His crucifixion is part of something bigger than our understanding.

We do not fully know what happened on the cross, or in the darkness of that tomb, none of us do – and the truth is we cannot, because this is the work of God Almighty, an unfathomable act of grace and mystery, where death equals life. And that is enough. That is even good.

So, we kneel here today, clinging to our faith and to our humanity, and onto to any shred of knowledge we may ever had – albeit tentatively – and, as we do, we hold fast to all we know of the extravagant, unending, indestructible love of God. We kneel with those disciples who knew nothing, but still dared to be together, even if it was in hiding.

And we watch, and we weep, and we wait… And it is good. Amen.