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.

Nothing Can Seperate

Sermon preached Friday, April 19, 2019, Good Friday, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. 

If there is one thing you take out of the Passion Story this year, I hope it is the knowledge that nothing can separate you from God.

In the story of the Passion, there are so many characters who fail to do what they should. There are the disciples who fall asleep in the garden and who resort to violence when Jesus calls for peace. There is Judas, who leads the authorities directly to Jesus to arrest him. There are the religious leaders who compel Pilate to punish him. There is the crowd that calls for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be crucified. There is Pilate, who finally hands Jesus over for torture and execution and all of the people who carry out the sentence and mock Jesus along the way.

None of these people are doing what God would prefer of them. None of them are faithful and all of them are falling short in different ways.

There are also the characters who do stay with Jesus, who watch and wait at the foot of the cross, like Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene, and the disciple whom Jesus loved. There is Joseph of Arimathea who was a secret follower until it really counted and he took a risk and asked Pilate for Jesus’ body. And there are all the woman who readied the spices and ointments for Jesus’ body, even though they never got the chance to use them.

Both groups, those who struggled and those who remained steadfast, are equally valued and equally loved and equally held in relationship with God.

Again, I’ll say, nothing can separate you from God—that is what the cross tells us.

Your own sin cannot keep you from God: no matter what you may have done, small sin or big sin, God is still with you. No matter what you may have failed to do, God is still with you. Like Judas, who Jesus still welcomed to the table or the criminal who Jesus promises to see in Paradise, or the soldiers who Jesus forgives from the cross, God is with you always.

Your own sin cannot keep you from God and whatever hardship or oppression or difficulty of life you might face can’t either. No one’s words or actions—not one thing you might suffer at the hands of others can keep God away.

And how to we know this? Because of the cross. Because of this story. Christ has been there, Christ is there, and Christ is by our side, regardless of the circumstances. Through the cross, we know that God has already felt the full extent of grief, pain, and death and so knows how to be with us through our own trials.

Through the cross, Christ reconciles all people to himself and through the cross God brings salvation to the whole world. Everyone, saint and sinner and all of us who fall somewhere in between are brought back into reconciled relationship with the one who first created us.

Although we use the cross to remind us of this, although the cross is a symbol of our faith, we know that it is not the cross that does this, but the self-sacrificing love of God that can somehow bring life out of an instrument of torture and death.

In a little bit, a cross will be processed in and laid here in front of the altar. During the procession, it is proclaimed: “Behold the life-giving cross on which was hung the savior of the whole world,” and you all as the assembly will respond “O Come, let us worship him.”

You’ll then be invited to come up and reverence the cross in whatever way is meaningful for you. Again, it’s not about worshipping the cross—it’s not divine, only God is. Rather, it is about recognizing how our incredible God can manage to work even in the darkest circumstances and turn even this scandalous, terror inducing thing into a symbol of hope and love and life—life in God and with God, now and forever.

Amen.

Our Complicity Continues

Sermon preached Good Friday, March 30, 2018, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

We’re here on another 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 chant 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.