For us

There is real danger here that we merely lose ourselves in historic ruminations, thinking back about poor Jesus suffering in Jerusalem, saying what a gloomy day that was, without saying at the same time “what a gloomy day this is.

We would like to keep Good Friday safely back there in the past, without seeing how it is connected with our life this day.

Says Paul:

We were buried therefore by baptism with Christ in death, so that as he was raised, so might we also be raised.

We simply do not skip merrily along to Easter without dealing with this concept also...

that once and for all sacrifice of death on the cross makes possible a life for us that is ours by a death that now means something.

Our death is no longer an event of meaninglessness, it is a dying to sin, a putting away of an old way of life;

it is a dying which we do every day.

Indeed I am risen with Christ, but the paradox of Christian living is that I am not fully risen in this life.

Christian life is a ceaseless movement through death – everyday death to life.

It is not an accident that the little service of Prayer at the Close of the Day has an order for Confession inside it, so that before we enter the little sleep of overnight we can lay aside the ills and wrongs of the day in forgiveness, even as we trust Jesus to remove from us the ills and wrongs of a whole life in forgiveness at the time of our death.

It is a continuing movement throughout our lives from things of death to things of life, from things about self to things about God and the whole body of Christ.

I have had a recent experience of this.

The preparation for my hernia repair surgery several weeks ago went very quickly and smoothly and by 7AM I was ready for the operating room.

Thinking about things theologically,

I realize that I was tied to a cross on the preparation table.

My left arm had an IV and I could feel the drugs creeping up my veins;

my right arm was fastened in a blood pressure cuff.

I remember thinking what a contrast with our Lord Jesus and his horrible suffering.

I have drugs, and a little bit of pain hours later....Jesus has incredible agony and the weight of the world upon him, and he refuses any narcotic at all.

I am briefly naked so that the surgeon can do his job....but Jesus is stripped and abused, everything is taken from him, and he is killed.

In the quiet hours at home after the surgery was all over, when I was drifting in and out of sleep, I was thinking that well now, this experience was all about me.

I'll blame that vile thought on the residue of the drugs.

What the surgery and recovery has done of course is to throw me back into the life of the body of Christ again, not to allow me to dwell on myself.

In the parish we have people rejoicing, others grieving; life is happening, and we all have many things to do in the name of Jesus.

How can I have such an attitude?

Because that is the attitude that the Gospel of John gives us this night.

Jesus rules from the Cross.

He knows exactly what he is doing, and in the next chapter of John's Gospel, is shown to conquer every enemy, including death.

This is a solemn night, but not a tragedy.

Jesus suffered and died, because he loves us, and he gives us life, life together in his body! Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.