Seventh Word

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun's light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Having said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46)

When it comes time for me to die, will I have the time, the opportunity, to choose to let go?

In the Great Litany (BCP p. 149), we pray:

"From dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord, deliver us."

But it's not dying that we pray to be delivered from; we all die - Jesus died. And if you had to choose the amount of time it took, some may prefer suddenly.
It's this idea of dying unprepared that's terrible.
- - But this is the thing you do have a choice about. There is no choice about whether you will die, and how you'll die is not really in your control either.
But preparing, you can do - and you can do it now, at any time.  That's the point of Ash Wednesday (BCP p. 265):

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Jesus taught us everything we need to know about being human. He showed us how to love, how to serve, how to pray, how to suffer - even how to die:
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

Most of our lives, we're learning to let go: of people we love, of places we leave, of things we don't need - and anyway can't keep, even of ourselves - who and what we have been.
When we die, it will be letting go of the last of what we're holding onto here and putting ourselves in God's hands.
When it comes time for you to die, will you be able to say this, to do it?

Do you realize that you already have?

As Paul said to the folks in Rome (Romans 6:3)

 "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"

Remember our baptismal covenant (BCP p. 302) :

"Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior ... Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?"     I do.

And remember our prayer at the Eucharist (Prayer B - BCP p. 369):

"Unite us to your Son is his sacrifice, that we may be acceptable through him..."

From dying suddenly and unprepared, he has already delivered us.
At your baptism, you already commended your spirit into the Father's hands; His hands are already holding you.
Let go of everything else.

Fifth Word

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill scripture), "I am thirsty." A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. (John 19:28-29)

It's a genuine human need - the need for water.
We like to think we're complicated, but our basic needs are very simple; our bodies are mostly made of water, and without it, we die.
Jesus was no superhuman, no demi-god or phantom. He was human, like us, and when his body became dehydrated from exposure and loss of blood, he was thirsty.

What do you thirst for?
Listen to your body:
What makes you shaky and sweaty when you don't have it?  alcohol?   coffee?  pills?
Observe your emotions and behavior:
When do you snap at people close to you?  When you need rest?  need food?

What makes you ignore even food and rest, driving yourself into the ground after it, obsessed...
Insatiable thirsts:   for success,  for recognition,   approval?   for power,   love?   for money?
If these are what you want, you will never be satisfied with life - you'll never get enough.

Morgan Dix addressed the congregation at Trinity Church, New York on this same day, on this same topic in 1894 - more than a hundred years ago, but he could be talking to us:

"O poor, dissatisfied, harassed and troubled race! O scene of eager and hopeless longing and desire, on which this Cross looks down, telling that everlasting truth, which men everlastingly decline to believe! There is no relief from it, excepting in the Cross."

You can drink enough water for the next couple of hours, but pretty soon, you'll be thirsty again, and tomorrow, and tomorrow - like the Samaritan woman drawing water from the well.
There is no relief from even the concrete and basic things our bodies crave, much less the abstract and indefinable things our minds desire.

How much approval is enough?

How much money is enough?

If you thirst for things that you can never get enough of, your thirst will be a torture, a continual reminder of what you don't have. You will go "wretched and tormented, from loss to loss, all the days of your life." (M. Dix)

We thirst for God... In him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17)
As a deer pants for water, so my soul longs for God...(Psalm 42)

But the world around is offering me vinegar.

I am thirsty.

Third Word

Standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. (John 19:26-27)

“Who is my mother?”

Once, earlier, Jesus’ mother and brothers came to where he was teaching and wanted to talk to him, and he had looked around and said, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ (Mt 12:48) … ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.’ (Lk 8:21)
That’s what we’re supposed to be about: hearing God’s word and doing it. So, when we’re doing what we’re supposed to, we’re living as part of the household of God, and we should treat each other as family… or preferably, as family should be treated.

Nobody can replace your mother; nobody can replace your father, your sister, your son.

But the respect and honor you give your parents, the unconditional but also unrelenting love and concern you have for your children - can inform how you relate to people here and in the Church as a whole.

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your
family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be
betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer
death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (BCP p. 276 - Good Friday liturgy)

Blood is thicker than water –
and we are bound by Christ’s blood to each other.

As he was dying, Jesus connected the one who loved him
with the one he loved.

He still does:

- he gives you people who love him and asks you to honor and respect them as you would your own parents … Here is your mother

- he gives you people he loves and asks you to love and care for them as you would your own children … Here is your son

First Word

When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals--one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. (Lk 23:33-34)


Who have you crucified?   
Nobody? Come on…

What’s the maddest you’ve ever been?
– so mad it scared you and you try to forget about it?
Who did you turn on?
What did you do to them?
Have you ever talked about it since?

Who has most deeply offended and disappointed you?A teacher? Public official? Sports figure? The president? A priest?
What did they do? Or at least… what was the accusation? (In public opinion court, it’s the same thing…) Did they molest a child, embezzle money, have an affair? … or in some other way not live up to expectations?
What was the response of the community? of the news?
And where were you in the mix? Did you shoot your arrows with the rest – or were you out front yelling ‘fire!’, doing “a dirty job that somebody’s gotta do.”

What about the time you were accused…
when they needed the blame to fit somebody, and you were called in to answer.
“So, who was responsible for this?”
Even if it wasn’t you, who did you throw under the bus?

If not any of these, there are always sins of omission...
failing to render aid…
Whose trouble have you so successfully looked past, ignored so that it’s just annoying background noise?

Not our finest hour – any of these.

And from up there, he has seen it all.

But we can join his gracious prayer: Father, forgive me… I didn't know what I was doing.

Sixth Word

The Sixth Word

“It is finished”

It is finished.    The accounts are satisfied. The debt is covered - Paid in full.

It is finished.    Your ransom has been negotiated. The deal is sealed. Payment made.

It is finished.   The cycle of retribution stops with me.

What is the debt? Why are we held for ransom? What’s the retribution for?

Sin.

Sin is separation, distance, estrangement. It’s emptiness, nothingness – a great blankness from which we can’t escape, like a black hole.

Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us. He became empty, became nothing, became separated, distant, estranged, heavy with the weight of the sins of the world. He became sin for us, like a black hole.

Here’s one description of how a black hole is formed.

“As a body is crushed into a smaller and smaller volume, the gravitational attraction increases…. Eventually a point is reached when even light, which travels at 186 thousand miles a second, is not traveling fast enough to escape. (Cambridge relativity site)

Jesus poured himself out into the world completely, to displace all of its emptiness. And making himself a void, he took in all our emptiness. The weight of it began to crush him, and still he took in more and more, like an imploding star, pulling into himself all the pain and sin of the whole world, drawing it all together like a massive source of gravity until he contained it all within himself and nothing could escape.

NASA describes black hole formation this way:

“The star eventually collapses to the point of zero volume and infinite density, creating what is known as a " singularity ".

It’s that single point; that single moment of death on the cross; that single person of Jesus Christ, who drew in all sin, pain and sorrow, taking all our emptiness into himself.

It is finished.

Fourth Word

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which is “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

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 Where are there cries of misery around us in our world today? What do they say?

God, "Let the cry of those in misery and need come to you, that they may find your mercy present with them in their afflictions… and give us the strength to serve them…” (BCP - Good Friday Liturgy, Solemn Collects)

 “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” 

It’s Aramaic. Remember, Jesus didn’t speak English.

In a minute I’m going to act out a modern parallel of what Jesus experienced at the hands of the Roman soldiers. The Roman soldiers utilized the cross as an instrument of shameful death.

Here, on Good Friday, the cross is no beautiful ornament.
It’s a torture device. So, what I’ll show you is a modern image of torture, which may be disturbing to you. It’s disturbing to me.

But what are we talking about here? A man who has been beaten, physically and psychologically degraded and humiliated, and at the time he gives this cry of misery - is undergoing horrific torture, not only at the hands of his enemies, but with the approval and even the insistence of his own people. That’s disturbing.

We’re talking about how a society can justify a means to an end. The religious authorities who had Jesus killed considered it necessary – and people who were squeamish about it were just naïve. That’s disturbing.

Caiaphas told the council “You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” That’s disturbing.

Here in our nation today, people argue about the justification of torture in these same terms. If, by torturing and/or killing a bad person, we can protect good people, then it’s okay – it’s worth it – it’s necessary even. That’s disturbing.

Here’s the situation:

A volatile time, an unstable area, a strange culture, a fanatical religion...

An ineffective officer relegated to an undesirable post, with insufficient support and high demands...

Soldiers stationed in a post none of them want, surrounded by religious fanatics they can’t understand, told to keep order...

So what happens?

Where is your God?   Where is your God now?

Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison…?

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References and related information

The Rev. George Pitcher (CoE) – blog entry "When we torture terror suspects, we torture Christ"

New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib abuses

Newsweek article– Abu Ghraib: many prisoners common criminals, not terrorists

Second Word

The Second Word

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 “Save us!”

On Sunday, people were saying it with joy and excitement, like they maybe thought it was true. Because that’s what “Hosannah!” means – “Save us!”

On Friday, the tone is much different, both from the people, and the one thief.

Now, it’s bitter sarcasm; it’s despair that becomes mockery.

- amazing how hope can make you so fragile, teetering so precariously over love and hatred, joy and bitterness.

In a way, their hatred and bitter sarcasm shows the hope underneath, the hope that is cracking under the strain of waiting so long and feeling it will never be realized.

What keeps hope alive? What is the food of hope?

It’s memory.

We have hope that God will be merciful to us, because we remember that he has been merciful to us.

How do we remember? We tell the stories – over and over and over. We make monuments, and write books. We act the stories out, we put them into poems and songs and art and liturgy. Every week, we meet together and remind each other.

Like the Seder meal, we have hope God’s promises will be fulfilled, because we remember how they have been fulfilled. And that memory works both ways. We ask Jesus to remember us, and he asks us to remember him.

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Do this in remembrance of me.

“Today you will be with me in paradise.”

I am with you now in your suffering. You will be with me in paradise.

Remember this.

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Seventh Word

"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

Henri Nouwen wrote, "Dying is trusting in the catcher. To care for the dying is to say, 'Do not be afraid. Remember that you are the beloved child of God. He will be there when you make your long jump. Don't try to grab him. He will grab you."

It's the image of a small child at the edge of the swimming pool, and Dad's in the water, holding his arms out, saying, "Come on, I'll catch you. Don't worry. I'll catch you."
You look at the water, you look at your dad, and you open your eyes wide and jump.

We don't have to try to jump far enough. He's going to catch us, even if we just lean over and fall in. And that moment doesn't have to be just when we die. It's whenever we make a trusting movement towards Him, and the moment we do that, his hands reach out and catch us.
I don't think distance is an issue, because I think there's never a moment when he's not paying attention, when he's not right there.

It might be, too, like learning to float on your back. Your dad's telling you he's got you, that he's not going to let you sink, just take a deep breath and lean back...
It's hard to let go and let your feet up, not touching anything solid, but you try to trust him, even if you're afraid.

I think dying is a little like that - I think there is a moment when we let go of everything else. A moment when I realize God's with me - when I feared he wouldn't be, and I know that He has me, and He's not going to drop me, and whatever else happens, it doesn't depend on me. He's got it under control. So finally, I trust Him, lean back, and let go.

Fifth Word

"I thirst."

I'm hungry.
I'm tired.
I'm sad.
I'm angry.
........... I'm human.

In Hebrews, we read "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (Heb 4:15-16)

Sometimes, in my time of need, I can't even say what it is I want - sometimes, I don't even know.
I can only say what's happening. Here's how it is with me - I'm upset. I'm scared. I don't understand. I don't want to do this. It hurts.
I'm thirsty.

To make these kinds of statements is to make ourselves more vulnerable. To say something like this, I'm telling about my weakness - and whoever hears it has the opportunity to use it - either to help - or to ignore - or to hurt.

And this is something Jesus understands about what it is to be human - what it is to be weak, to ask others for help... to be disappointed by their response.
As he was dying, Jesus said, "I thirst," and the people who heard him gave him vinegar to drink...

The night before, he told his friends he was very distressed and asked them to stay up and watch with him - But they fell asleep.

He asked his Father, if it were possible, not to have to go through all this, but his Father didn't change the plan.

Jesus knows what it is to be scared, to be sad, to be in pain, to die.

Again, Hebrews says, "Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. ... Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested." (HEb 2:14-18)

Third Word

"Woman, behold your son." ... "Behold your mother."

Did you ever try to comfort a child who's upset because their pet died? Parents sometimes try this:
"We'll get you another fish..." "I don't want another fish! I want my fish!"
Similar is not the same.

'Better' is also not the same. 'Better' even if it is better, mainly just feels 'different' at first, and 'different' feels about the same as 'bad.'
People sometimes tell parents who are marrying off their daughter and watching her leave home and move away, "Don't think of it as losing a daughter; think of it as gaining a son."
Maybe in the future, they'll have a great relationship with the son-in-law also and maybe grandkids who bring a lot of joy to their lives, and that will even be better, but there's no way to know at the time how it will be in the future.

What about a mother sending her son off for military service?
You can see the group of them walking through the airport - him, his mom, his younger sister and his good friend from school.
He's in his uniform, has a bag, really short hair. They come up to the line for security. He sets his bag on the floor. They're all looking at him. He leans down and hugs his mom; her eyes are starting to well up. She shakes her head; she can't say anything.
He looks over at his friend and back at her.
"Mom, Jake's your son now, till I get back. Take care of her, man."
He picks up his bag and walks over to the line, shows his ticket and ID, puts his bag on the conveyor belt and walks through. On the other side, he picks it up, looks back, waves, and goes through the revolving door. They're standing there watching him. She's really crying now. The friend steps up and puts his hand on her shoulder.

What do you say to her?
"Don't think of it as putting your son in danger; think of it as protecting our nation."
It doesn't matter whether or not that's true. It doesn't change the grief and fear of letting him go.

Mary stood, looking up at her son. He says to her, 'Woman, behold your son," and to his friend and disciple, "Behold your mother."
Mary doesn't speak. But what may her heart have been saying?

YOU are my son; I don't want another son.

Don't think of it as losing your son, Mary;
think of it as gaining the whole world...

I don't want the whole world -

I want my son.

First Word

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Can you think of a time when you did something to someone that had unintended bad effects?
Playing a joke, it hit somebody the wrong way...
Or, being mad, saying something that seemed totally warranted - but then watching the other person's face crumple, and you really had no idea it would hurt them like that...
Or worse, knowing it would hurt them like that, and saying it anyway - because it would hurt - and then, seeing how much it hurt, a lot of regret...

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to..."

Some of the answers can be pretty harsh:
"Well, you didn't mean to to!" I'm sorry...
"Sorry's not good enough!"

But here, there's a different response.
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Even before people could realize what they had done, Jesus was understanding them and accepting them, and wanting God to be gentle with them. He didn't ask for justice; he didn't want to be vindicated, for God to get them back - to make them suffer like he was suffering, so they'd know what it felt like - so they'd know what they had done.
How could they know, really, what they had done? How could they have any idea?

When they did start to realize it and came to God with their apologies and their grief and their sorrow, God listened - and he didn't say, "Sorry's not good enough!"

In confession, we come to God and say, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to... I didn't realize..."

and God looks at Jesus and then back at us and says, "I know."