Recognizing Our Role

Sermon preached Friday, April 2, 2021, Good Friday, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

We’re here on a day that only happens once a year. Some of the rituals, prayers, and practices we participate in tonight are unique. Some might even seem strange…but they’re important. It can be easy, too, to get confused about what it is we’re doing here. The altar is stripped. The sanctuary is more bare than it normally is. I’m not wearing an alb or a stole. We will not be having communion. Tonight is more solemn. More somber. More serious.

It might even look like a funeral. It might look like we’re holding a funeral for Jesus two thousand years later, pretending that we don’t know Easter is around the corner. It might look like we’re playing pretend or forcing ourselves to try and “be sad enough” because, we’ll Jesus died tonight and we’re supposed to be in mourning…

That’s what it might look like—but that’s not what Good Friday is. That’s not why we are gathered here tonight.

Good Friday is an observance of the death of Christ, yes, of course it is. But we are not pretending to crucify him again. We are not pretending like we don’t know the end of the story. Instead, we are here to witness it, to stand at the foot of the cross and worship our God who loved us to the end. And, we are here to recognize our role in the passion of Christ.

You might ask yourself, “Recognize our role? We weren’t alive two thousand years ago! We didn’t deny Christ! We didn’t ask for Barabbas! We didn’t mock Jesus on the cross! We didn’t yell ‘Crucify him!’”

Of course not. But we are humans, part of the fallen humanity that refused to accept a God who offered reconciliation instead of a sword and solidarity with the outcast instead of institutional power. We are part of the humanity who couldn’t handle a God with love so abundant and far-reaching…and so we did the only thing we could think of—we killed him. Tonight, we recognize that we are not innocent in the crucifixion of Jesus. We are complicit.

One of the ways in which we name that complicity is through this service and the Solemn Reproaches, in particular. Towards the end of the service, I will read several stanzas, written as if God were speaking to all of us. Each stanza begins, “O my people, O my church…” These words, words that are hundreds of years old, are still for our ears. In each stanza, God tells us, tells humanity, what God has done and what we have done in return. Whereas God has given us life and light and healing, we continually turn away from God and go our own way.

On Good Friday, it is easy to look at the figures in the passion narrative and feel superior. We are not like Pilate, we tell ourselves. We are not like the Romans. We are not like the crowds shouting for Barabbas. We are not like Peter denying even knowing Jesus. We are not like those people, we assert.

…but we are. And the Solemn Reproaches don’t let us forget that fact. Every stanza, after God repeats all the good that God has done, ends the same way: “…but you have prepared a cross for your savior.” That’s it. We are those people. We have prepared a cross. And tonight, we gather at the foot of it.

The “Good” of Good Friday comes here. The stanzas of the Solemn Reproaches aren’t the final word. They’re not purely condemnation. They’re not meant to just make us feel guilty or depressed or to beat ourselves up. They’re an acknowledgement, an admission of our sin—and then a plea. The refrain of the Reproaches is a plea for mercy: “Holy, holy, holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy on us.” We cry out to God in praise and in supplication for forgiveness.

Good Friday is “good” because God is good. Good Friday is “good” because God forgives us and loves us, even though we are “those” people. Good Friday is “good” because God came and died for us because we are “those people.”

“Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy on us.” Amen.