Sermon for SMHP, Year C, Good Friday, April 19, 2019
Luke 23:39-49
One
of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are
you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ 40But the
other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same
sentence of condemnation? 41And we indeed have been condemned
justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done
nothing wrong.’ 42Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you
come into your kingdom.’ 43He replied, ‘Truly I tell you,
today you will be with me in Paradise.’
44It was now
about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the
afternoon, 45while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain
of the temple was torn in two. 46Then Jesus, crying with a loud
voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this,
he breathed his last. 47When the centurion saw what had taken
place, he praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ 48And
when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had
taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. 49But
all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee,
stood at a distance, watching these things.
Some
of us are verbal processors. You know
who you are. You figure stuff out by
considering it. Out loud. From multiple perspectives.
Others
of us are what they call “mental processors,” who should maybe be called considerers, since verbal processors are
also using their brains. Considerers are harder to read, because
we have to observe…and then think…and then think some more.
Jesus
had in his life folks who processed both ways.
James and John, the Sons of Thunder—definitely verbal processors. Peter too.
And probably Judas, who quickly came to regret his dealings with “the
chief priests and officers of the temple police.”
But
there were considerers around Jesus
as well. I think Good Friday tells their
story, and why they are important to the story.
At
the end, as Jesus lay dying on the cross, many in the crowd beat their breasts
and cried out, and then returned to their homes. They processed out loud, and they called
attention to the travesty taking place there in Jerusalem. Those verbal processors were important in letting
folks know what was happening as it happened.
The
considerers, as one might expect,
appear at the end of the story. Verse
49: “But all
his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these
things.”
They watched.
As Jesus was paraded through the
streets, they watched.
As he was derided by soldiers and then
criminals, they watched.
As he hung on an instrument of
torture, dying, they watched.
They were bearing witness. Marturia.
They were the martyrs of the Chief Martyr. Witnesses to the thing that God was doing in
the garden, the courtroom, the road, and the hill called Golgotha.
It took time to process what happened
there. On Sunday morning we will hear
the story of some of the women, the first witnesses of the resurrection. When they tell what they have seen, the men
dismiss their words as “an idle tale.”
It can take a while to understand the
story we just heard. And what we know
will happen next. I know I’ve been
processing it for a while now. Anybody
else?
Love is like that.
Make no mistake—this is a love
story. And love is not always easy to
understand. Isn’t it? Sometimes it is hard to even recognize.
What God was doing at Golgotha has
been studied, examined, translated, and considered for two millennia. And still we come to it anew each year,
trying to understand what we have heard, and seen.
We use big phrases like
“substitutionary atonement” and “satisfaction theory” to try to wrap our minds
around how God could agree to become human and then suffer and die on our
behalf.
I heard something this week that
helped. A guy was talking about the
sermon his pastor preached on Palm Sunday.
She was talking about the crucifixion and how hard it is to understand
how God could allow Jesus, God’s only begotten child, to suffer. And she said this: “The cross is not something God does to Jesus; the cross is something God
does as Jesus.”
I’ve been considering that all
week.
God became incarnate in order to love
us in a whole new way. A way that can be
hard to understand and maybe even to recognize.
Because it is love that asks for nothing in return, and honestly, we
don’t get to see a lot of that.
I invite you, no matter what your
regular inclination is, to consider that
tonight. Consider the love that God
shows us as Jesus. Take some time to ponder just how much God
cares for us and just how much God was willing to give up in order to become
like us, to experience life as we do, all the way to its end.
This consideration is our final act of
witness for the season of Lent, and we come to it willingly, because witnessing
is itself an act of love. It is an act
of love to stand and watch, and to tell what we have seen.
Consider this night how you will tell
the story of God’s love as Jesus Christ.
How will you convey a love so strong, so radical that it gives
everything and asks nothing?
How will you witness to this almost
incomprehensible love, before a world which is desperate to comprehend it?
Consider that. Consider love.
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