GOOD FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

GOOD FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021 | A Sermon based on John 18:1-19:42 (RCL) | by David Zersen |

TETELESTHAI

Sometimes there is fear that bad news is solely bad and that it will never be overcome by good news. A child who is sent to his room be creating mischief among siblings may think this is a dead end for him or her, but typically that isn’t true. At some point, the door will open, all will be forgiven, and happy times can begin again.

In our lives generally, we are helped to be positive people and experience has taught us that “the best is yet to come”. Spring always overcomes winter, optimism replaces bereavement and Easter follows Good Friday.

That’s at least how most of us have been able to experience life. But what about those who ended up in a Nazi death camp and died there? What about those who were so bitter about some experience that they went out and murdered people and were shot by police? And what about those who were wrongly convicted in our justice system and after years of hoping for a retrial ended up dying in prison?

Life doesn’t always seem to have positive or just outcomes? And on Good Friday, do we who have come all too easily to expect the celebration of the Resurrection to follow the remembrance of the crucifixion– do we take such dramatic reversals for granted? Do we take time to probe the real meaning of Good Friday before we don our Easter finest and head for a popular brunch? Do we actually ask about our personal role in the crucifixion before we sing “Jesus Christ is Risen Today”?

Taking Good Friday Seriously

Some years ago when I was involved in a university community, the campus pastor kicked up a fuss because he heard the students were planning to produce the rock-musical “Godspell” during

Holy Week. He objected, not because it seemed out of place in a week marked by religious solemnities, but because, he said, “Godspell doesn’t have a resurrection scene!” Then he proceeded to write one and the musical was presented, in opposition to all rules of literary license, as an “acceptable” religious production!

In a very real sense, the chaplain did not take Good Friday seriously, as had all of Bach’s Passions, for example, which also do not have resurrection scenes. They were written to help us come to grips with the meaning of “Oh Sacred Head, now Wounded,” with the full implications of crowds seeking scapegoats, and with the profoundly personal aspects of our better spirits seeking to avoid any responsibility for Good Friday.

The very long Gospel lesson traditionally read, sometimes even in parts, on this day offers multiple perspectives for sermonizing. The words of Pilate or the high priests, the words from the cross, often used in Tre-Ore services over the years and poignant sentences like “What is truth”? and “Give us Barabbas” are etched in the memory of Christians who have gathered on this day for a good portion of their lives.

But what about the impact of that long reading on us personally? What if, as it might happen in other settings, there is to be no follow-up with an Easter? What if Good Friday were the end of the matter? Is there a meaning in Good Friday that could slip too easily through our consciousness? To quote the first chapter of Lamentations “Is it nothing to all you who pass by”?

I think that some cultures have helped worshipers experience the impact of Good Friday more profoundly than we in the West. One year as a student in Germany, I had the opportunity to spend Holy Week in Greece. On Good Friday, much of the city winds its way up Mount Lycabettos and candle lit processions allow the mourners to contemplate the meaning of Christ’s death long before the priest shouts Christi anesthi.

Our presence, whether in person or through the internet, this Covid-19 Good Friday, invites a serious reflection on the meaning of Christ’s death for us as well as on our place in the crowd. Shouts of “crucify him” come not only from agitated activists, but even from well-intentioned lemmings who find themselves shouting words that they never thought would come from their lips. We’ve watched it on TV too many times in crowd riots in our own communities—and it happened once before in a crowd scene in Jerusalem.

Understanding what was “accomplished”at Calvary    

Occasionally I hear some roving reporter ask people on the street a question like “Do you think that people are basically good”? Typically, the response to the question is “yes”. It is a common response in the U.S. where many have come to feel that “goodness” is something basically American like friendliness, being freedom-loving, and apple pie eating. Even Lutherans who have grown up learning about original sin in confirmation instruction insist that people are basically good. Basic goodness as a concept has never been taught or preached—it just got infused into us from idle chatter shared by people who felt called upon to give an opinion.

Asked however how violent anger and vicious hatred emerge when a riot breaks out, people are often puzzled. Questioned by police when a person shoots family members or mows people down with automatic weapons, the person charged may be surprised at his/her own actions. Surely the same feeling overpowered many in the riots of that first Holy Week, and had we been there, we might have joined the condemnation. I surely might have! When things happen that I resent, deeply, I may very well look for an opportunity to critique another, to condemn him/her, to participate in an opposing campaign or even to find myself in a crowd that shouts “Give us Barabbas” instead!

Jesus was not crucified by well-meaning people who were basically good, but by people who were unhappy with his challenges to their authority, his encouragement to move them in new and more positive directions. Unwilling to move from the platform where they hoped to take their final stand, and looking for a scapegoat to take the blame for their resentment and hatred, they shouted “crucify him”! “Get him out of our face!”

And Jesus let them do what they wanted to him! But the insight for the crowd, and for us who also look for scapegoats to blame for our failure to be the basically good people we may think we are, is that it doesn’t have to be this way! If all we have is Good Friday, and Easter is not even on the horizon, at least we can come face to face with the reality that the Good Fridays in our lives expose our original sin, make us come to grips with the fact that given the right circumstances, we too not only could have, but probably would have been in the crowd that said “We’ve had enough criticism and encouragement to change. Let us be who we will be!” And then, as we well know, one thing might lead to another!

When Jesus gave his last great line from the cross, “Tetelesthai”–“It is accomplished,” let’s be very clear what that Good Friday statement means for us. Not only is the old possibility of looking for scapegoats and spewing anger when we think we are wronged DISABLED for us, but Jesus is saying that a new creation is beginning in and through him. It is a new creation in which we are forgiven, freed and ENABLED to be the new people, not the basically good people, but the new people who have seen what happens when we are left to our good old selves. There is no hope, no promise, no grace, no faith and no life when we are left to ourselves. On Good Friday we are brought face-to-face with the dead ends that we bring on ourselves because we can Jesus take seriously the alternative life-style that were shared in the Gospels.

After the crucifixion, two of Jesus’ disciples were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus wondering what their future would hold. (Lk.24) Like many of their counterparts in their world and in ours, they wondered what Jesus’ death would mean for their future. We know what happened as they ate with him that evening and discovered that he was alive, but that’s getting ahead of the story. With them on the road we can appreciate the dead-ends lying ahead that are not our intended future. In that respect, Tetelesthai is a good Greek word to remember. Say it with me: “Tetelesthai. IT IS ACCOMPLISHED! I completed what I set out to do. I have put to death that which leads to death.” All are intended meanings of Jesus.

Good Friday is not just a stop on the Holy Week journey to Easter. It is the point at which Jesus allows us to nail our sin to the cross with him in order to understand that sin leads to death and death ends for us at the cross. Here where Jesus said “Father forgive” to all who placed him there, the new creation begins. His death is our death to revenge, scapegoating, hatred, and deceit. Sacramentally you were joined to that death in your baptism. Let Good Friday help you remember that in Jesus’ death your death is done and the new creation begins today.

David Zersen, D.Min., Ed.D., FRHistS

Djzersen@gmail.com