Good Friday

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
April 6, 2012

Good Friday

Not too many stories tell us how the story will end before we finish the very first paragraph. But John’s gospel does exactly that. The gospel of John begins: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not over come it." In those few beginning verses, we hear of Jesus’ work with God in Creation, and of the life and light given to all people, and of the end, when the darkness could not put out the light.

John gives us these words to hold onto because tonight, by all appearances, the darkness has won. Jesus is dead, crucified as a common criminal. The soldiers have cast lots for his clothing. Jesus’ has entrusted his mother to the care of the beloved disciple. Jesus has said "I thirst" in order to fulfill the scripture. And now, we hear Jesus say "it is finished." The powers of darkness have done their worst and the darkness appears to have overcome the light.

In our own lives, darkness sometimes appears to have won. The death of Jesus on Good Friday can remind us of the death of loved ones, or of suffering we have endured, or a time when the light at the end of the tunnel seemed all but extinguished. In our prayers on Good Friday, we lift up those for whom the light may be very dim: the hungry and the homeless, the destitute and the oppressed, the sick, the wounded and the crippled, those who live in loneliness, fear, and anguish. On Good Friday, we recognize the terror of the darkness, and we hold in our hearts those places where the light appears to have been overcome.

On Good Friday, however, we hear the story of the Passion from John’s gospel, rather than from one of the other gospels. Last Sunday, on the Sunday of the Passion, we heard the passion story from Mark’s gospel and we heard Jesus ask God to take this cup from him, and we heard Jesus’ cry from the cross "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But in John’s gospel, more than any of the other three, Jesus’ death is a gift freely given by Jesus. In John’s gospel, Jesus does not go to Gethsemane to pray and ask God to take this cup from him. Jesus says, with all confidence, as the soldiers arrive to arrest him, "Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?" At Jesus’ trial, Jesus is in complete control of the interrogation, even to the point of causing Pilate to question the nature of truth. Even from the cross, in this gospel, Jesus is in control. In a most tender moment, he looks down from the cross at his mother and gives Mary to the disciple whom he loved to take as his own mother and gives the disciple whom he loved to Mary to take as her own son. When he says "I am thirsty," the gospel makes it clear that this is not to indicate weakness but to fulfill scripture. Once he has received the wine, Jesus says "It is finished" and bows his head and gives up his spirit. Jesus’ life is not taken from him. Jesus gives up his life as a gift and the light of the world enters the terror of the darkness.

Sometimes in our own lives, we must stand in the darkness and wait, trusting that God will act, but not knowing what that action will be. Tonight we gather, not to mourn a dead Jesus, but to stand in the darkness of the cross and wait, trusting that God will act. For we are promised from the beginning that "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome the light."

Amen.