Good Friday

Friday

 

Mark 15: 1-47

 

Jesus didn’t have much to say to Pilate on the morning before his death.  

 

“Are you the King of the Jews?”

 

“You say so.”

 

Shouts from the crowd came fiercely – “Crucify him!”

The soldiers took him to the governor’s headquarters and put a purple cloth around him.  A color of royalty.

They twisted a thorny branch into a circle and forced it onto his head.  A king’s crown.

They made fun of him.  They spat on him.  They mocked him.  Then they ripped the purple cloth off of him and led him away to be crucified.

 

The scripture says it was 9 o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.

At noon, darkness covered the land as Jesus hung there, suffering.  And at 3 pm he managed to cry out in agony – asking where in God’s name was God.

 

Do you remember a long time ago….when Jesus first began his ministry?  After his baptism he was led into the wilderness to learn about the challenge and the hardships that his kind of work would bring.  What would his work be?  To show the world what it means to be a beloved child of God.  To show the world what it looks like to be more like himself.  To show the world that, no matter how gruesome and unjust and cruel life can be – God’s love would be bigger than all the pain and agony and violence they would ever know.  And that God would never be far.

 

In a world where children are bullied….in a world where people are hurt for being who they are….in a world where violence has the upper hand when it comes to handling conflict…. we would be wise not to overlook just how critical Jesus’ work was for us.  People may say it’s easy to love.  People may mock and make fun of the idea of loving one’s neighbor or offering forgiveness to an enemy.

 

But if we are to take Jesus seriously, then we will acknowledge that what appears to be easy is never simple. 

 

Jesus’ work continued with him all the way up to the cross.  It wasn’t the soldiers that led him to the cross.  It was his love for all the world.  It was his oneness with the God of the universe.  It was his transformational work that so many of us would rather reject, or deny, or spit upon, that led him to the cross that day.  

 

And what did he do up until the very end, if not show us just how powerful – and even painful - that love can truly be?

 

Jesus didn’t have much to say on the day of his death.  He let his actions do all the talking.

Perhaps we should do the same.

 

At 3 p.m., Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.  

 

Dear God,

On a day like today, we think about what a world without Jesus would look like.

And sometimes it feels as though we already live in one.

When we see death and hate and despair.

When we hear the news of children crying for fear of their lives.

And laws get passed to protect the powerful and forsake the poor.

But teach us, on this dreadful day, that your love is never absent.

That our suffering is never in vain.

And that Jesus extended his arms on that cross not because he had to

But because he wanted to. 

Draw us in to that love.

Draw us in to that kind of work.

Amen.