Good Friday

This day stirs guilt and shame at what we humans did, have done, evermore will do to Jesus who came in divine love, not a king, but an ordinary man, to show us God the Father (John 14:9 if you have seen Jesus, you have seen the Father), and to draw us back to the divine image in which we are created - - our brutal treatment of this man who was so different from all that human nature has rotted into. 

We have four canonical, and several supurious, gospel accounts of Good Friday in early Christian writings, including the “Passion Gospel according to John”, that we just now read and heard; each account so different from the others that, like Pontius Pilate, we ask “What is truth?”: truth is whoever’s story you happen to be reading at the moment, Luke on Palm Sunday when I dismissed you with the word “saved”, but saved from what, or saved for what? 

Today, the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John with his anti-Jewish bias of the late first or early second century. John’s passion narrative could convince us that we Christians are innocent of the blood of the Lamb of God because this torture and crucifixion is the demand and doing of Jews who hated Jesus. For those who go that way, that perversion of Holy History has been a basis of antisemitism by Christians down through the ages, indeed has given some Christians all the justification they’ve wanted, after hearing the Passion Gospel on Good Friday, to rush frothing madly out of church into Jewish neighborhoods insanely raging and screaming “Christ-killer”, to murder, lynch, massacre innocent human beings simply because they are different. We are those people again today: why do we hate people who are different from us, people who believe other things, who have different Truth? 

WE did this to God the Son, and, in the two-thousand years since, have exponentially multiplied that blasphemy in our hatreds and abuse of people who are different from us: Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, other races; even other Christians: politically we hate liberals, conservatives; how, where do you stand? do you crucify Jesus by hating others? First Corinthians 11:26 and following, “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. 27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 So examine yourself first, and only THEN eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 29 For whosoever eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation (κρίμα, damnation)”, the Word of the Lord.

We need not be so much concerned about our guilt in the one-time Good Friday mob lynching of Jesus ~ as about our hatred and divisiveness that lynch Jesus today. And about our answer to Pontius Pilate’s question “What is truth?” - - where each of us “Christians” and Christian denominations with our own boxed-in “truths” are dead certain of our own Truth, and most contemptful of the Truths of others. 

Good Friday is not a day for hating Jews, or hating Romans, or hating political or religious or racial or ethnic or social groups different from us, nor even a day for hating ourselves. Good Friday is a day for realizing that Christ on Calvary does not save you from Hell, but from yourself. Good Friday is fair time for recommitting yourself to your baptismal promises because The Crucified Jesus loves you. As Father Charles LaFond wrote in “The Daily Sip”, “anyone who thinks Christianity is about spirituality has not been paying attention.” Christianity is not religious hocus-pocus or perfect liturgy or beautiful worship nor even crosses and crucifixes. Christianity is how you treat other people, how you speak about other people; especially in this electronic age of anonymity, how and what evil words you write about other people online, how you feel about people who are different from you; what rubbish you “share” on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Christianity is about, and Good Friday is the day for, surfacing and conquering your hatreds and fears. Christianity is that your certainties are - - skybalon (let the HEARER understand). Christianity is that you examine yourself, repent and return to the Lord, and walk in the Way of the Cross. 

Your OWN cross, the sacrifice of love that Good Friday wants of you, is not only your answer, but your action to these promises:

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

Will you proclaim by word and example, the good news of God in Christ Jesus?

Will you seek and serve Jesus in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? and respect the dignity of every human being? AND RESPECT THE DIGNITY OF EVERY HUMAN BEING?

Will you? HAVE you? Are you keeping your promises? Really? This is Good Friday, what is truth? You may be on very thin ice.

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The Rev Tom Weller, Good Friday homily preached in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida on April 19, 2019.

Text: The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John. 

art from Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ"