John 19
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In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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We have just heard the spiritual that captures – for me – the
crucial question of the day; this day, this Good Friday.
“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” In
fact, I’ve been thinking about that question all
week. Thinking about where I might have been on that
wind–swept hill that day. Thinking about how I might have
felt, how I might have acted as I watched that agonizing trial and
execution. And today I have to tell you that I have been
there. I am there. I probably will be again – though
not in any way I want to boast about.
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At first, I could only imagine myself a bystander – I want to say
an innocent bystander – in the crowd that day. I’ve
come into town to buy the lamb, the grain, the eggs and herbs for
tonight’s Passover meal. But somehow, in the crush of other
shoppers, I get caught up in another crowd that’s throwing stones
and abuse at a small group of condemned prisoners, naked and bloody,
dragging their crosses through the streets on their way to be
executed. And something in my own horror and revulsion at the sight
makes me want to pull my skirts aside, to fix some great gulf between
myself, a decent citizen, you understand – and them, the condemned
ones. It’s like seeing a bus marked “State
Prisoners” on the side of the road. An armed guard with a
shotgun keeps watch over a bunch of convicts in orange jumpsuits as they
pick up litter in the weeds on the shoulder of the road. You want
to keep your distance. You want not to get involved. But you
can’t help staring at them as you pass by – as far to the
other side of the road as you can manage – thinking, “How
awful for them. How glad I am not to be among them.”
And you drive on.
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But that isn’t the only role I could see myself in that day in
Jerusalem. I could also imagine myself among the Roman government
workers, maybe even an official. Trying to be a good cog in the
massive Imperial machine, being careful not to soil my hands with the
dirty business of this dubious accusation, this trumped–up charge
against an innocent man. But we have to keep our eyes on the big
picture here, don’t we? We’re here to keep the
peace, are we not? And with every peace–keeping effort
there’s bound to be a bit of collateral damage, isn’t
there? I mean, isn’t there?
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Or maybe I’m among the soldiers – going about their business
as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Rolling dice for the
prisoner’s merchandise. Placing their bets on the things of
this world. Doing everything they can to screen out the cries and
groans of the men they’ve just nailed to crosses at the top of the
hill. “I mean, it’s a job, isn’t
it? Everybody has to eat. Some of us have families.”
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Most easily of all, though, I could imagine myself one of the women
gathered together on Golgotha hill. Maybe not at the foot of the
cross, where John places them, but a safer distance away, where Luke
remembers them. It’s a scene straight out of a hospital
ICU. Someone is gravely ill. The situation is
critical. So you go, not really sure how you can help, but maybe
just to show up, just to show your concern. And the family
murmurs, “Thank you for coming. You will never know how much this
means to us.” Then all together, among beeping monitors and
fading hopes you pray – with every ounce of faith that is in
you – that this one, somehow, might be spared. That death,
somehow, might be averted. But Jesus was not spared. Death
came . . . and inside, you know, though we
were sad, we were also relieved. Just to have it over. The
long day of dying finally, mercifully, had come to an end.
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Well, there are other groups I might identify with on that green, rocky
hill, but you get the point. Whichever weak, well–intentioned
group I joined, I never really was with Jesus – on the losing side
of thing. Instead, in each group I found myself on the safer
side – the decent, secure, self–protective side of
things. And anyway, what could I have done? Nobody could
have stopped it. Everyone felt helpless, powerless.
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And that, of course, is the point. That’s the whole point
of the cross. While we were yet sinners he died for us. For
love of all of us losers. While we were yet weak–willed and
fickle, saving our own skins, breaking faith with the ones we
love – He died for us.
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And he did it all for love.
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We didn’t get it then and we don’t have what it takes
now. We don’t have what it takes to love, to stay faithful,
to be peacemakers. But he does. And he forgives us our
failures, our weaknesses . . . and comes
to us in mercy, in compassion, somehow supplying our need. We can
hardly understand how it happens, but somehow our deepest need is
satisfied.
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The late preacher, Fred Craddock, used to tell the story of a little boy
who falls down and skins his knee. He runs crying to his
mother. The mother picks the child up and says, “Let me kiss
it and make it better,” as if she has magical healing
powers. So she picks the child up, kisses the skinned place, holds
the child in her lap, and . . .all is well.
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Was it the kiss? Was that what made it well? No.
It was that ten minutes in her lap. Just to sit in the lap of
love and see the mother crying. “Mother, why are you
crying? I’m the one who skinned my knee.”
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“Because you hurt,” the mother says, “I
hurt.” And that does more for a child than all the bandages
and all the medicine in the world, just sitting in her lap.
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That’s how God does it now. He comes to us in our weakness,
our sorrow. Then he abides with us because we hurt. Even
now. Even today. Maybe we have failed him. But he will
not fail us.
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Amen.
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