We have two services on Good Friday and I preach two different sermons, in part because there are a number of people who are present at both, but mostly because there is too much to say in just one. These are the manuscripts from Good Friday, March 29, 2024, which are more or less what I preached. (I don’t preach with my notes, so there is always some variation.) This is from the noon service.

We are using Wilda C. Gafney’s A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church: Year B. The readings for Good Friday are Judges 11:29-40, Psalm 22, Hebrews 12:1-4; Luke 22:14-23:56.

Some of you have probably heard this story from me before that when Kathleen was about 10, she was searching for a gift for me.  She was checking out the jewelry stores in our local mall because she wanted to buy me a cross.  She was having a really hard time finding what she was looking for: a plain simple cross, lacking the crucified Christ.  At one point she encountered a friend’s mother, working at one of the stores.  This family was Roman Catholic and the woman showed her a crucifix, saying, “this is beautiful.”  And Katie said, “I don’t mean to be rude but we’re Episcopalians.  Jesus didn’t get stuck on the Cross.”

I share this story because we are focused on the Cross right now, as we should be, but we also need to take a wider view and wonder how anyone could come to call the day the Son of Woman, the Incarnate God, could be hung on a cross like a common criminal, and still have this day be “good.”  How can it be good?

I know that there are a lot of different understandings and that there are a lot of people who believe that by his death on a cross Jesus invited us to suffer along with him and that he atoned for our sins.  While I don’t think that God ever wants us to suffer, the atonement of sins – the fact that Jesus sacrificed himself for us is good news. There is the Good News that his sacrifice points to: the love of God for all of God’s people, the love of God for each and every one of us. The love of God who can be broken in body, hanging from a cross, and still reassure the person on the cross next to his that all would be well, that he would enter Paradise and be with Jesus.

There is something about that moment because we are reminded that even as Jesus sacrificed himself, as he was willing to suffer with us and for us, Jesus never stopped being the incarnation of perfect love.  It’s a reminder that throughout all our life, even the most horrific moments of our lives, Jesus is with us because God’s love is ever present.  God’s love is unconditional. 

When we think about this particular story, we think about Judas.  Jesus knows he is about to be betrayed.  Did he know that it was Judas in particular? I don’t know.  But he knew that in order for this story to play out – the story being the particular events that lead to his trial and execution – it would not be good.  Jesus knew where he was, he knew who he was with, and he knew how the system worked.  In order for the system to work as so many people needed it to or thought they needed it to work, he would have to be betrayed.  Peter denies him, which is a kind of betrayal.  Judas betrays him with a kiss.  Jesus doesn’t rant and rave, and say “how could you do this to me?”  Jesus remains right there with Judas, and it plays out like Judas needed it to, or thought he needed it to in that moment.

This merciful, compassionate, forgiving God let us show the worst of who we could be and continued to love us to the end of his time on earth.

Jesus wasn’t stuck at the moment of the Cross.  Jesus could look beyond the moment of the Cross at all the potential, all the promise, all the hope that God has for us all of the time.  He made the sacrifice for us.  He made that sacrifice not so that we would feel guilty or feel like we had to suffer to understand Jesus’ suffering -because in reality, which one of us could?

Jesus made the sacrifice, he made this Friday “Good” for no other reason than God’s love.

We have two services on Good Friday and I preach two different sermons, in part because there are a number of people who are present at both, but mostly because there is too much to say in just one. These are the manuscripts from Good Friday, March 29, 2024, which are more or less what I preached. (I don’t preach with my notes, so there is always some variation.) This is from the evening service.

We are using Wilda C. Gafney’s A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church: Year B. The readings for Good Friday are Judges 11:29-40, Psalm 22, Hebrews 12:1-4; Luke 22:14-23:56.

One of the questions – one of the age-old questions – is why is this day called “Good” Friday? The day that the Son of Woman is hung on a cross like a common criminal, taunted by the likes of us, and eventually dies – how can it be a good day? And yet, I think it is fair to say that when we take this day, fast forward a couple of days and look at the whole picture, it is part of the best days.

Part of our questioning about it is because when we look at the cross and we see suffering, we see humiliation, we death. I’m not convinced that Jesus every saw the cross in and of itself because  he saw everything beyond the cross.  Jesus saw the fullness of God’s love for God’s people, and the promise he had come to fulfill some 33 years before he was executed.

He was executed because he was so radical and was standing up to the authorities.  He wasn’t standing up for no reason or because he never outgrew his teenage tendency to defy authority just because he could. It was about showing us, telling us, inviting us to understand that the way we live together, the way we treat each other, is essential to our wellbeing.  It was about showing us the Way of Love. 

It was about showing us the kind of love in which and from which it made sense to be born a human in a horribly violent and conflicted time, where there were people who never stood a chance and a few people who had all of the privilege and all of the resource, as well as the people in-between.  It was a time not unlike the times we find ourselves in today.

Jesus came to show us that there are different ways for all of us to feel richly blessed, for all of us to feel that we have authority in our own lives, and the power and agency to make the world a better place.  Jesus was born from love, lived only in love, died in that love, all so that we could understand that love, which is, quite frankly, beyond our comprehension.

That is the good news of Good Friday. The good news isn’t in our horrifically bad behavior. It isn’t in our ability to justify the horrible things we do to each other and to God’s creation, and to eventually feel vindicated because some authority figure somewhere says, “Sure.  You must be right so we’ll punish this person.”  It is about helping us to live our best selves, showing us that there is a love that knows no bounds, a love that will tolerate immense pain to sacrifice themselves for us.

It is not about the suffering.  Yes, Jesus had to have suffered.  The fully human person suffered on that cross just like any one of us would have.  The fully divine welcomed that in some way as further proof that the divine love will conquer everything, including death.  That’s good news.

When we look at that cross, a question for all of us is what do we see?  What does it mean for us? I’m reminded of a 10-year-old Kathleen telling a friend’s mother that “We’re Episcopalians.  Jesus didn’t get stuck on the Cross.”

That’s the good news.  Jesus died on the cross.  The human person died on that cross, but the divine Christ lived beyond it and continues to live still. It’s that perception that God has of who we are and what we and the world can that God was willing to sacrifice God’s self. That is the good news.

I think we observe Good Friday solemnly in part because I’m not sure that if Jesus came back today, that we would do any of it any differently.  The good news is that the God who loved us into being and loves us still, would still think it worth doing.

The Cross, though a place of suffering, is not a symbol of suffering.  The Cross is a symbol of a magnificent, unbelievably generous love that is perfect and is everything we need.