GOOD FRIDAY 2007

During one of the ALPHA talks, “Why Did Jesus Die?” I think, Nicky Gumble uses a prop to attempt to affect an adjustment in perspective to the long-standing fashion trend of wearing crosses: about our necks, as earrings, as tattoos. He reaches under his preaching stand, pulls out something that hangs from a rope, and places it on his person as one would a necklace. Except hanging from the end is not a precious stone, or even a cross, but a wooden gallows.

As the laughter of the assembled crowd dies down he goes on to challenge everyone to acknowledge the incongruity of wearing a symbol of torture and capital punishment as a piece of jewellery. Nicky further observers that, as instruments of capital punishment go, few, if any, in the studied history of humankind have ever been so terrible as crucifixion. In comparison, the gallows is frankly quite humane, as death most often occurred in the very instant that the rope snapped about the neck of the victim when the floor beneath his feet was suddenly shot open.

In contrast, those who were crucified, sometimes after having been subjected to physical ignominy before they were nailed to the cross, were known to have hung on the cross for many, many hours, sometimes even days, before succumbing. Nicky points out that the Romans finally abolished the practice a few centuries after our Lord’s crucifixion, realizing that it was utterly inhumane; as mentioned, possibly, arguably, the worst form of imposed death every concocted by our fallen human race.

In previous Good Friday sermons, and often during our Bible study group, it is pointed out that among those acts performed, once for all time by our Lord, the Crucifixion, along with the Holy Eucharist, is one of which we are reminded very descriptively every time we participate in that Divine Liturgy, “Jesus Christ suffered death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there,” (on the Cross) “by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.” And, of course, we understand that last part, “the sins of the whole world” to mean all of the sins committed by all of mankind, past, present and future.

This is to say, although we can date His Crucifixion to sometime between 29 and 34 AD, it was an act in time that is nonetheless eternal in its consequences and efficacy. My sins today, nail Him to that Cross. Eve’s sin in the garden nailed Him to that Cross. The sins of future generations nail Him to that Cross.

We often hear sometimes quite well-educated people musing about the differences that they are certain there would be in our religion had Jesus been born 2,000 years later, in our own time. That is a whole other discussion which we quite inadequately shall put to bed today by simply observing that God’s will, in being perfect, not least as revealed in the life of Jesus Christ, is by definition unchangeable, as St. James points out in his general Epistle, and as is underlined in Hebrews, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.”

Yet, I must admit to musing about certain aspects of the chosen fullness of time being 2,000 years ago, not before then, and not in our own time. Recognizing the truly dreadful nature of Crucifixion, we might wonder whether that was, in some part at least, one aspect of the fullness of time. In order to be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, what more emphatic way to underline that for all time than to be subjected to the worst form of death ever dreamed up in the mind of His fallen creatures?

There is a perhaps natural tendency to contemplate our individual culpability in His Crucifixion abstractly, or even to deny any such complicity. After all, none of us wants to be considered so thoughtless as to have driven nails through anyone’s hands, let alone those of God Incarnate. Yet we must accept our own participation by default, as each of us is a member of fallen humanity.

Of course, the happy news is that the whole purpose of our Lord’s Incarnation was to redeem us from that fallenness. He came into this world, not for His own benefit; but entirely for ours. He came into this world, knowing what was to befall Him on Calvary; and knowing further that it was necessary for our redemption, to make us at one with God again. Atonement.

As often happens during this most solemn week of the Church year, there is a tendency, first on Palm Sunday to look ahead to the Cross of Good Friday. I’ve done it in past years; Fr. Peter did it last Sunday. Then there is the same tendency on Good Friday to look ahead to Easter Day, acknowledging that the apparent tragedy of Good Friday doesn’t end there; rather, triumph awaits humankind three days later with the Resurrection. However, let us, let me attempt to resist such anticipation; and let us dwell on the necessity, unpleasant as it was, as it is, of the Crucifixion. But rather than perhaps dwelling on the graphic horribleness of the Crucifixion, as we have heard in Good Friday sermons in the past, let us turn the magnifying glass on ourselves in terms of the Cross.

In particular, as mentioned, I must avoid thinking too abstractly about the Crucifixion; rather I must remind myself quite plainly that I am, in no small part, responsible for our Lord’s Crucifixion. Every time that I become consciously aware of my having committed a sin, no matter how apparently inconsequential, the consequences are brought starkly before me here on Good Friday. But of course, every day of the year is truly just the same, as His Sacrifice is timeless, He hung there because of sins committed long ago, sins committed yesterday, but equally, for sins yet to be committed. Good Friday is something of which we should all be reminded on a regular basis when we engage, as we all should, in self-examination of our conduct and relationship with God. If we do not convict ourselves of sin, then frankly we are not being honest with ourselves. And if we thus somehow, quite contrary to the very plain word of Holy Scripture, manage to feel justified in our own righteousness, then it is difficult for us to feel any personal responsibility for the events of Good Friday.

In a world that is seemingly so very unaware of His atoning Sacrifice, we must surely pause to ask ourselves, as we go about our daily business, if we spend most of our time attempting to fit into our current society without making too many waves. But topically, and of eternal importance when our very salvation is at stake, we must acknowledge that our society appears to be blissfully unaware of the daily burden of human sin, in which we are all complicit, that falls upon our Lord’s beaten and bruised body as He hangs on the Cross. I daresay that if we carried with us, much higher in our consciousness, an heightened awareness, we should very likely speak differently, act differently and interact with others differently.

I mentioned the necessity of being honest with ourselves in terms of self-examination; and, when we are, several things result: we are moved to tears of contrition and repentance, not only for our complicity in the Crucifixion, but for wrongs done to others; we are then further moved to attempt, with God’s assistance and the grace that flows from our Lord’s Sacrifice, to attempt to avoid the same sins in the future; and, we are moved to tears of joy that the burden of those sins is removed when we turn to the Cross in true lowliness of heart. The last, which should be the most encouraging of things, is often not well understood by penitents, but surely we must take God at His word and acknowledge that He will indeed, as He promised, forgive our sins. When we do confess sins, we must then leave them there, at the foot of the Cross, never to be dredged up again. To carry them about with us afterwards is not only spiritually and psychologically unhealthy, it quite bluntly says that we do not trust God, we do not take Him at His word, we do not truly believe in our hearts that Jesus was crucified “for the sins of the whole world.”

Good Friday. God’s Friday. As unpleasant as it is to contemplate the ugliness stamped on our Lord’s face, by reason of my sins and your sins, contemplate it we must. If we avoid the Cross on this day of the year, then how can we ever expect truly to “take up our crosses and follow Him”? As we studied recently in Matthew, Jesus said quite plainly, “He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10.38).

He is not suggesting that we too be crucified; but He most certainly is suggesting that we must be prepared to suffer for His sake, the way that He suffered for the sake of the whole world; that we must be prepared to bare the burdens of others, the way that He carried the burden of the sins of the whole world; that we must always put others before self, the way that He did when He prayed, “nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done.”

“Take up thy cross, the Saviour said.” Only by so doing will we be found worthy of Him, to share, not only in His mighty and glorious Resurrection when the apparent tragedy of today is turned into triumph on the third day, but also in His heavenly glory.

“Take up thy cross, and follow Christ,

Nor think till death to lay it down;

For only he who bears the cross

May hope to wear the glorious crown.”

THE ANNUNCIATION 2007 +Carl Reid