To The End
Good Friday B, April 3, 2015 (Preaching John 19:1-42)
I remember a few years ago – a number of our youth had a sleep over at the church from Maundy Thursday through Good Friday. They were present for the Maundy Thursday service. They quietly and carefully observed as at the climax of the service the altar was stripped. They were still and listened as the lector read Psalm 22 – "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Then immediately following the service, our youth worker summoned me. "Tim, you have to come and talk to the youth!"
Innocently I asked, "Why, what's wrong?" Her response, "Just come and see."
I walked into a group of youth who were somberly and quite uncharacteristically, silent. They had never attended a Maundy Thursday service. Prior to worship that evening I doubted if any of them had attempted to seriously reflect upon the reality of Jesus' suffering and death. And now, they were appalled. Somehow they sensed that JESUS' SUFFERING AND DEATH was both for them and because of them.
Sometimes even as we gather in this beautiful and meditative place – sometimes even when we come as if to escape the trials and vicissitudes of our lives, the muck and guck of living with others and ourselves, we lose touch with the reality of what we are hearing. The Scriptures call us, beg us, cajole us to know and experience the mystery of God and ourselves.
Today we attempt to gather around the cross of Jesus. It is not easy for us to watch, to hear, to see. But it is so important! Earlier John's Gospel Jesus promises this, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." (John 12:32) This statement is made in the context of the Passover Feast even as some Greeks desired to see him. Their question begs these questions: How do we see Jesus? How (on earth) can we ever see Jesus as He is?
Jesus' response, indeed God's response through all of John's Gospel, is that we are only allowed to see Jesus for whom He is on the cross.
Jesus is the truth – not in the sense of he is right and others are wrong. Such thinking leads to relative truths, to people then yelling, screaming and hating others. Instead, Jesus is the truth in that as Jesus hangs on the cross we are encountered by two profound realities.
Firstly and most importantly, Jesus has come to love his own until the end. "End" in the English sense of that word, can mean the termination of something. But "end" can also mean the goal of someone or something. As Jesus tells us that he has come to love his own to the "end" I am convinced that he means both. Jesus is the beginning and the end. He is also our goal
It is Jesus' love for others (and remember his own is his love for the "world") that he is unwilling to compromise. It is His uncompromising love for others that gets him, lifted up on the cross. This is the life- bringing truth not only for us, but for the world. God in the flesh loves us so much – that nothing, not even the hate-filled cross that claims God's own Son's life will make God give up on us. God's steadfast love is BEAUTIFUL, amazing, beyond full comprehension.
But there's also an ugly part, a dark truth revealed in the crucifixion of Jesus. As John writes in his prologue, "He came into the world and the world knew him not." We hang him on the cross. Along with Pilate, who didn't find Jesus guilty frequently side with that weak, delusory kind of power. We stand by as Jesus is executed. We are anything but innocent. This is part of our ugly reality.
The religious leaders of the day know that for anyone to declare themselves to be God is blasphemous. There is only one God. Examining Jesus, coming from his "low" (by their standards) estate, questioning their authority and the place of their hearts, certainly could not be God. In their judgment Jesus is guilty - guilty of blasphemy, punishable by death. In attempting to follow this principle, they then declare to Pilate, that they have no King but Caesar. Yet Caesar in the utter depths of blasphemy has declared himself to be God.
But before we quickly pass judgment, haven't we ever, on principle, lost our integrity? Haven't we ever elevated someone or something – even if just for awhile, above God? At times our truth is also ugly.
We are sometimes afraid like Peter. In our fear we act as if we do not even know Jesus. We think of ourselves before and at times instead of Him. We often think of ourselves before others whom he also loves so much – the sick, the lonely, the poor, any who are victimized by systems that we are part of. Even as that happens, somewhere a rooster crows, once, twice, three times. Sooner or later we will hear it....
Yet, as Jesus is lifted up he draws us to himself. Do we see him there? Can we help but know that somehow we had a hand in putting him there – our selfishness, our greed, our refusal to admit and live hungering and thirsting for God? Like those youth of a few years ago – can we see him there – because of us, for us and others? Indeed, beneath the cross of Jesus.
When Jesus is lifted up he draws us to himself – to see ourselves, truly – without our masks or pretense.
On that cross he also draws us to himself to see Him. He kept working for Pilate to see him, the truth. He kept working with the Jewish authorities of that time and place so that they might see Him. And He kept working with Peter who denied him three times so that Peter may see and know him. Later, following the resurrection in John's Gospel, Jesus appears to Peter and asks three times that Peter feed Jesus' sheep.
On this day of all days, might we gather at the foot of the cross? See the ugly truth of our rebellion, our rejection of God's own Son, preferring darkness over the Light of the world, deception over the truth. See that Jesus suffers because of us and with us. Make no mistake. We share responsibility. Even now, as the earth groans, as people starve, as many are certain that there is no God - we share the responsibility.
But also see this - the beautiful, amazing wondrous truth of Jesus' unfailing determination to love us and this world to the end. Cling to that for dear life people – the whole truth. In that beautiful and horrific truth, our Lord hanging on the tree, is our hope and the hope for the world. He loves us to the end. Amen.