We Are the Ones

Sermon for SMHP, Good Friday, March 30, 2018

                ¹⁶Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort.¹⁷And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. ¹⁸And they began saluting him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ ¹⁹They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. ²⁰After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

                ²¹They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. ²²Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). ²³And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. ²⁴And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.

                ²⁵It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. ²⁶The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’ ²⁷And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left.²⁹Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, ³⁰save yourself, and come down from the cross!’ ³¹In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. ³²Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.’ Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.

                ³³When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. ³⁴At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ ³⁵When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah.’ ³⁶And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’ ³⁷Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. ³⁸And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. ³⁹Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!”

                ⁴⁰There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. ⁴¹These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.

                ⁴²When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, ⁴³Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of

the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.⁴⁴Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time.⁴⁵When he learned from the centurion that Jesus was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. 

                ⁴⁶Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.

                ⁴⁷Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid.

           I am always encouraging us to find ourselves in scripture, because it isn’t just a historical narrative.  It is the story of our relationship with God, which begins at creation and continues to this very moment in time.

           It is a bit easier to do when you are named in the story.  If, say, your name is Joseph, or Mary.  Or Rebecca. Or Stephen.  Or Simon

           In the part of the Passion narrative we have before us tonight, we Simons hear our name twice.  We are the one given the whole church, the one whose name is Peter in the story now, but who will always be Simon.

           Simon Peter, who denies Jesus…three times.

           Then we are the one who carries the cross for Jesus. 

           Of the two, I know which one I want to be tonight. 

           Not Simon Peter, who follows Jesus “at a distance,” and then stays in the courtyard of the high priest with the guards, keeping himself warm at the fire.

           I want to be Simon of Cyrene, who picks up his cross, as Jesus has been urging us to do throughout Mark’s gospel.  Simon, the father of Rufus and Alexander, who by tradition became early Christian missionaries.

           I want to be that Simon…but the truth is that at any given time, I am the other one, too.  I stay where it’s safe and warm.  I follow Jesus, but not too closely, not into the really tricky places.  At least not all the time, and he didn’t call me to be selective in my following.  He called me—he called all of us to carry the light of Christ into the darkest corners of this earth.

           And it’s probably safe to say that none of us do it perfectly.  In fact, at any given time, we play all the roles in this Passion Play. 

           We are the ones who appeal to Jesus for healing, and the ones who question his authority. 

           We are the ones who demand signs and the ones who pick him up when he falls.

           We are the ones who tease and the ones who confess his divinity.

           We are the ones who ask why he lets bad things happen, and we are the ones who follow him everywhere, even to the cross.

           We carry his burdens and we deny Jesus and we seek him out when we need stuff.

           We are disciples, in other words.  The same ones described in Mark’s gospel.  We answer the call to follow Jesus, but we sometimes don’t follow too closely and sometimes we don’t follow at all.

           None of us do it perfectly.  And if we did follow Jesus perfectly, we wouldn’t be here tonight at all.  Because there wouldn’t be a Good Friday.

           If we were perfect, there wouldn’t be a cross.  There wouldn’t be a savior.  God wouldn’t have become incarnate for us.

           But we aren’t, and there was, and God did.

           God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ because our propensity to play every role in the Passion Play means that sometimes we will struggle to hear God’s call and to live together in the harmony God intends for us. 

           So God took on our nature and dwelt among us.  God’s became incarnate for us, the us that are really good at following, and the us that are really good at betraying.

           Whether you heard your name in the story, it is there.  God called your name when God decided to become human, even to the point of death.  To take on all of our nature, including our suffering, in order that we might know that God loves us more than anything.

           God has said your name.  From the manger, from the dusty streets of Nazareth, and from the cross.  God became human in order that you might know a love beyond any other—the love that is ours, no matter who we are, or what role we are playing in this story of hope and pain and glory.