Good Friday
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Object:
Theme For The Day
Viewing the death of Jesus through the eyes of Mary, we experience the deepest sort of love and faith.
These passages occur in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day.
Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
The Fourth Servant Song
This is the last of the four Servant Songs from Second Isaiah. The first (42:1-9) has occurred on Baptism of the Lord Sunday; the second (49:1-17), on the Second Sunday after Epiphany/Second Sunday in Ordinary Time; the third (Isaiah 50:4-9a), on the Sixth Sunday in Lent. This moving song has long been associated with the figure of Christ on the cross, although there is not an exact correspondence between the sufferings of this anonymous man and those of Jesus. The line, "He shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days" (53:10) is particularly difficult to apply to Jesus. To its original audience -- the disconsolate community of exiles in Babylon -- was the suffering servant a messianic figure? Isaiah himself? An allegory of the suffering Israel? Evidence can be found to commend all these attributions, although none matches perfectly. Perhaps we can best understand it as a moving poem about the suffering of the righteous at the hands of evildoers -- one which certainly does help bring us closer to the cross of Christ, so we may be awed by his sacrifice for us.
New Testament Lesson
Hebrews 10:16-25
Confidence In Jesus' Blood
Writing to a largely Jewish Christian audience, the author of the letter to the Hebrews could assume that they were familiar with the sacrificial rites of the Temple in Jerusalem, which had recently been ended forever, as the temple was destroyed by the Romans. In razing the center of Israel's worship, the Roman general, Titus, thought he had obliterated its traditions -- when, in fact, he had merely shifted the focus of Jewish devotion to the synagogues scattered throughout the Mediterranean world. Most Christian worshipers, today, are unfamiliar with that historical background, which makes the argument in Hebrews rather obscure. Building his argument on the concept of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31:33-34 (which he cites in verses 16-17), the author goes on to identify Jesus' flesh with the curtain that formerly barred the holy of holies to all but the high priest, who entered once a year to make atonement for the people's sins (Leviticus 16:15-19). Because Jesus' flesh has been opened, on the cross, the way to God's heart is now also opened, to all who come in his name (verses 19-22). His is the once-for-all, atoning sacrifice. The encouragement to "hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering" is directed to a Christian community under persecution (v. 23).
Alternate New Testament Lesson
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
Jesus, The New High Priest
Another option for Good Friday is these two earlier passages from Hebrews, which likewise present Jesus as the fulfillment of, and successor to, the recently suppressed high priesthood of Israel. Jesus, the new high priest, has passed not through the temple curtains but "through the heavens" (v. 14). This high priest is not aloof, "unable to sympathize with our weaknesses," but has undergone the same sufferings and struggles this persecuted community has known (v. 15). He has now become the people's advocate, before God -- one who knows their situation infinitely well. Verses 7-9 are a theological commentary on the crucifixion. The verb used in verse 9, "having been made perfect" (teleioo), goes beyond our usual understanding of perfection. It refers not so much to moral perfection (although that, too, was true of Jesus), but to the completion of an arduous task. Jesus is perfected, on the cross, in the same sense that the "perfect tense" in grammar indicates a completed action. Jesus' words on the cross, "It is finished," refer to more than simply the end of his sufferings. They also describe the completion of the work of salvation.
The Gospel
John 18:1--19:42
John's Passion Narrative
As with Passion Sunday, this lengthy reading affords the opportunity to present the entire story of Jesus' suffering and death in narrative form. It includes the following pericopes:
The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus (18:1-11)
Jesus before the High Priest (18:12-14)
Peter Denies Jesus (18:15-18)
The High Priest Questions Jesus (18:19-24)
Peter Denies Jesus Again (18:25-27)
Jesus before Pilate (18:28-38a)
Jesus Sentenced to Death (18:38b--19:16a)
The Crucifixion of Jesus (19:16b-30)
Jesus' Side Is Pierced (19:31-37)
The Burial of Jesus (19:38-42)
In preaching or teaching on any of the episodes in John's Passion account, it is important to handle very carefully any statement in which he blames "the Jews" for particular atrocities committed against Jesus. John was writing in a polemical context, in which he and a Judaizing faction were struggling for control of his churches. John was quick to blame "the Jews" because he was trying to distance himself from any person who taught that the way to Christian faith led first through Jewish religious practices. To blame "the Jews" for Jesus' death is patently absurd: for Jesus himself was a Jew, as were his own disciples, only one of whom betrayed him. John's Passion account has been frightfully misused, over the centuries, to justify all manner of pogroms against Jewish communities in Europe. Until very recently, the most dangerous day of the year for European Jews was Good Friday, the day when their Christian neighbors were most likely to fall on them and cause them harm. A deeper understanding of the events of Jesus' Passion may be gained through the simple device of mentally substituting "the religious authorities" for most occurrences of "the Jews" in these chapters.
Preaching Possibilities
The crucifixion of Jesus is such a huge event, in the imaginations of our listeners -- huge not only in terms of the emotions involved, but also in theological and devotional significance -- that it is often hard to lead Christians to view it in a fresh way. One way of approaching the crucifixion is to lead the people to view the cross from the narrow perspective of a single observer. The gospels mention several such observers who were present that day. One of them is Mary, the mother of Jesus.
John tells the story of how Jesus tenderly provides for his mother's needs, even in his agony: "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' " (John 19:26-27a).
Of all the people at the cross, she is the most familiar -- and the most unfamiliar (at least to those of us who are Protestant). Mary of Nazareth was Jesus' first disciple and his most loyal. By all rights, she ought to be numbered first among that company of those who were his followers. Yet, some of us are hesitant to do that. Some of us, still doggedly fighting the wars of the Reformation, remember the extremes of Marian devotion in the late Middle Ages that led Reformers such as Luther and Calvin to cry, "Enough!" and banish nearly all mention of Mary from the life and thought of their churches.
Yet, this is not as it should be -- nor is it as the writers of the gospels mean it to be. Mary is at the heart of their witness: that teenage girl who heard the voice of angels; that mother who (with her husband, Joseph) protected the child from those would harm him, and later, faithfully brought him to the rabbis for instruction. As her son's ministry began, it would seem that she was part of that band of followers, the disciples (who always numbered considerably more than twelve). Unlike most of the others, she stood by him even on his dying day.
Mary was not an old woman, on that day -- at least, not by our standards. If, like most first-time mothers of her era, she bore Jesus while still a young girl of thirteen or fourteen, which meant she was in her mid-forties at his crucifixion. Because life expectancies were shorter, back then, perhaps others thought of her as an old woman, but she could very well have lived many years longer.
It's hard to picture her because of the ways she has been portrayed in so many works of devotional art over the centuries: as an ageless, timeless, eternally young woman of ethereal beauty. Yet the real Mary, the Mary of the crucifixion, was an ordinary person: a Palestinian Jewish peasant woman, her face lined with care, her back bent from years of hard manual labor.
Let us go on a journey of imagination. Let us try to imagine the feelings of this great woman of faith, as she looks with horror on the death of her son....
***
Happier times. Try to think of them, Mary says to herself. Try not to look at him. Try not to see the skin peeling from his body in strips, the drops of blood dripping from his toes, the rising and falling of his chest with each rasping breath. She tries not to look, but she can't help herself. Mary's eyes -- the eyes of a mother -- are drawn, again and again to his. To those eyes, the same eyes that once smiled back at her, as she cuddled the infant boy: eyes that have always seemed, to her, to be pools of deep mystery and abiding peace.
But not today. Today, those eyes are vacant, listless -- even fearful. There are moments when those eyes focus briefly on her, and then for an instant she sees the light of kindness flicker across them. But then, there comes another spasm of pain, and he seems to look off to some distant place, a place where she cannot accompany him.
What's that he had said to her a few moments before? And not only to her, but also to that young disciple, the one he loved especially well: "Woman, here is your son." And to him: "Here is your mother." Words that broke her heart more than anything else she'd witnessed that dreadful day. Those words brought home the reality that he was dying. Yet, even in his pain, he had done what a faithful son ought to do: He provided for his mother. As the teary-eyed young disciple nodded his head in agreement, Mary thought she saw the hint of a smile cross her son's face.
But now there comes another spasm of pain. His eyes lose their focus again. Mary feels the pain, too. Deep within her chest. An ache more profoundly painful than any she's ever known. She's not even sure she'd call it pain. It seems to go beyond the limits of that word. She feels her knees buckle under her, and hears -- as though she's standing outside herself -- an animal cry emerge from her mouth. Strong arms catch her, and hold her, arms of her dear friends, those other women standing beside her.
"And a sword will pierce your own soul too." How vividly those words come back to her now -- words Mary hasn't thought of in years. It was back when Jesus was so very small: a mere babe in arms. She and Joseph had brought him to the temple, on his day of circumcision, and there they encountered that old man: Simeon. The toothless old prophet had reached out his arms to Mary -- and what could she do but place the child into them. Old Simeon looked down tenderly into her son's eyes, then said a prayer: "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation."
Simeon said other things as well, but the thing Mary remembered most vividly -- of all the many memories she treasured in her heart -- was what old Simeon had said as he handed the child back. It was a mere whisper, an aside, for her ears only: "A sword will pierce your own soul." Now, lo these many years later, as Mary feels the stifling tightness in her chest, she understands for the first time what old Simeon meant. Today is the day of the sword. Today is the day it pierces her heart. Today is the day she experiences every mother's worst nightmare: standing by, helpless, watching the death of her own child.
It's one of those things, they say, that's just not supposed to happen. It's unnatural -- a ragged gash in the fabric of the universe. Mothers are not supposed to look upon the death of their own children. It's meant to be the other way around -- and, even then, only at the end of a long and beautiful life. Yet, this is no nightmare, but the grim reality of this day. This is the experience old Simeon had somehow foreseen. Mary knows that, in time, perhaps she will accept it -- just as she has learned to accept so much else in this strange and God-touched life of hers. "Let it be with me, according to your word," she had responded, so long ago. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.
Was it all for nothing? Did God give her the precious gift of that laughing little boy -- for this? Was this how God always intended it to end?
Mary feels the arms of her friends sustaining her, giving her strength. It's not her strength, now, it's theirs -- flowing into her, a quiet power, leaping the barrier of human skin. More than ever, these women are truly her companions.
There is Mary of Magdala, that strong and outspoken disciple, in many ways the boldest and most courageous of his little band. She is a woman of strength and virtue -- one of many people her son had healed. The Magdalene's gratitude and admiration were so great, she never left him, as so many others had left him, once they were healed -- and she hasn't left him, even now.
There's Salome, also, the mother of James and John. She loves her boys, too. It was Salome who had come up to Jesus, one day, to ask a favor. Would he grant to her boys the privilege of sitting at his right hand, and at his left, in the heavenly places? "You do not know what you are asking," he had said, at the time. "Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" he replied. "We are able," said Salome's boys, brightly. Today, Jesus does indeed have two others, at his right and at his left: those two rebel insurgents the Romans have hung up there beside him. Good thing for Salome, Jesus didn't grant her that request. Otherwise, it could have been James and John hanging there beside him: his escorts, on his journey into the next life!
There are other women as well -- other members of his chosen band, disciples every bit as courageous as Peter, James, Andrew, and all the rest. They're even more courageous, these women, for they have shown up here, haven't they, under the inquisitors' gaze of the soldiers of Pontius Pilate? Yes, there's perhaps a slight chance the Romans won't bother them because they are women but only a slight one. The Romans have never respected either tradition or law when it came to maintaining national security. On this, the darkest of all days, it is the women -- and, yes, that one young man also, the one whom Jesus loved -- who have shown true courage.
"It is finished." As Mary hears him gasp out those words, she knows in her heart to be true. It is all... finished. Over -- done with -- this whole, mighty work that has been Mary's life: this raising of a child, this following of him as a man. It is all finished.
Or... is it?
Prayer For The Day
God of compassion,
of all the experiences of life,
one we most fear
is that of grief.
Can we ever consider ourselves ready
for that stabbing pain, deep within --
the pain of loss that can never be healed,
only borne with courage and strength?
Yet, we do not fully believe
we have the courage and strength.
Teach us, by your indwelling Spirit,
that when such dark hours come,
we will have what we need to face them.
Show us, as we contemplate the cross of Christ,
that you have known this pain, too,
and will bear us through it. Amen.
To Illustrate
A British army chaplain of World War I, G.A. Studdert-Kennedy, was thinking about the Mary of the crucifixion -- as well as the unworldly Mary of the devotional paintings -- as he wrote this poem. It's called "Good Friday Falls on Lady Day":
And has our Lady lost her place?
Does her white star burn dim?
Nay, she has lowly veiled her face
Because of Him.
Men give to her the jewelled crown,
And robe with 'broidered rim,
But she is fain to cast them down
Because of Him.
She claims no crown from Christ apart,
Who gave God life and limb,
She only claims a broken heart
Because of Him.
***
To be Christian is to cease saying, "Where the Messiah is there is no misery" and to begin to say "Where there is misery there is the Messiah." The former statement makes no demands; the latter is an assignment.
-- Fred Craddock
***
There is nothing a Roman soldier enjoys more than the sight of his commanding officer openly eating the same bread as him, or lying on a plain straw mattress, or lending a hand to dig a ditch or raise a palisade. What they admire in a leader is the willingness to share their danger and hardship, rather than the ability to win them honor and wealth, and they are more fond of officers who are prepared to make efforts alongside them than they are of those who let them take things easy.
-- Plutarch, in his life of the Roman general Marius
***
The Christian must not only accept suffering, but he must make it holy. Nothing so easily becomes unholy as suffering.
Merely accepted, suffering does nothing for our souls except, perhaps, to harden them. Endurance alone is no consecration. True asceticism is not a mere cult of fortitude. We can deny ourselves rigorously for the wrong reason and end up by pleasing ourselves mightily with our self-denial.
Suffering is consecrated to God by faith -- not by faith in suffering, but by faith in God. Some of us believe in the power and the value of suffering. But such a belief is an illusion. Suffering has no power and no value of its own.
It is valuable only as a test of faith....
The death of Jesus on the cross has an infinite meaning and value not because it is a death, but because it is the death of the Son of God. The cross of Christ says nothing of the power of suffering or of death. It speaks only of the power of him who overcame both suffering and death by rising from the grave.
The wounds that evil stamped upon the flesh of Christ are to be worshiped as holy not because they are wounds, but because they are his wounds. Nor would we worship them if he had merely died of them without rising again. For Jesus is not merely someone who once loved us enough to die for us. His love for us is the infinite love of God, which is stronger than all evil and cannot be touched by death.
Suffering, therefore, can only be consecrated to God by one who believes that Jesus is not dead. And it is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning.
-- Thomas Merton, "To Know the Cross," from No Man Is an Island (Harcourt, 1955)
***
The cross is vulnerable to those who hate its message, its absurdity offering the ultimate grounds for the mocking of faith. And it is vulnerable, too, to those who fear its message, its violence giving a precedent and a weapon to Christians who cannot tolerate the way of peace. It is vulnerable to those who forget its message, its familiarity providing a pretty promise of protection to be worn around the neck. But it is perhaps most vulnerable to those who love it, and who genuinely wish to understand it. Sometimes, in order to honor the cross, we adore, domesticate, possess it, make it ours, part of our own experience, in the quietude of mystic oneness or in the exertion of busy emulation. Sometimes, in order to exalt the cross and its outcome, we speculate about its infinite significance and turn it into a metaphysical principle: the negative and positive rhythms of the cosmos, for example....
Mercifully, despite its vulnerability, the cross that is God's powerful weakness continues to resist its interpreters, exploding theology's own conceptions and compelling it to suspend its judgments until it has discovered from the story itself what may or may not be true.
-- Alan E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 27
***
Of all the pains that lead to liberation, the worst is to see your loved one suffer.
-- Julian of Norwich
Viewing the death of Jesus through the eyes of Mary, we experience the deepest sort of love and faith.
These passages occur in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day.
Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
The Fourth Servant Song
This is the last of the four Servant Songs from Second Isaiah. The first (42:1-9) has occurred on Baptism of the Lord Sunday; the second (49:1-17), on the Second Sunday after Epiphany/Second Sunday in Ordinary Time; the third (Isaiah 50:4-9a), on the Sixth Sunday in Lent. This moving song has long been associated with the figure of Christ on the cross, although there is not an exact correspondence between the sufferings of this anonymous man and those of Jesus. The line, "He shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days" (53:10) is particularly difficult to apply to Jesus. To its original audience -- the disconsolate community of exiles in Babylon -- was the suffering servant a messianic figure? Isaiah himself? An allegory of the suffering Israel? Evidence can be found to commend all these attributions, although none matches perfectly. Perhaps we can best understand it as a moving poem about the suffering of the righteous at the hands of evildoers -- one which certainly does help bring us closer to the cross of Christ, so we may be awed by his sacrifice for us.
New Testament Lesson
Hebrews 10:16-25
Confidence In Jesus' Blood
Writing to a largely Jewish Christian audience, the author of the letter to the Hebrews could assume that they were familiar with the sacrificial rites of the Temple in Jerusalem, which had recently been ended forever, as the temple was destroyed by the Romans. In razing the center of Israel's worship, the Roman general, Titus, thought he had obliterated its traditions -- when, in fact, he had merely shifted the focus of Jewish devotion to the synagogues scattered throughout the Mediterranean world. Most Christian worshipers, today, are unfamiliar with that historical background, which makes the argument in Hebrews rather obscure. Building his argument on the concept of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31:33-34 (which he cites in verses 16-17), the author goes on to identify Jesus' flesh with the curtain that formerly barred the holy of holies to all but the high priest, who entered once a year to make atonement for the people's sins (Leviticus 16:15-19). Because Jesus' flesh has been opened, on the cross, the way to God's heart is now also opened, to all who come in his name (verses 19-22). His is the once-for-all, atoning sacrifice. The encouragement to "hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering" is directed to a Christian community under persecution (v. 23).
Alternate New Testament Lesson
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
Jesus, The New High Priest
Another option for Good Friday is these two earlier passages from Hebrews, which likewise present Jesus as the fulfillment of, and successor to, the recently suppressed high priesthood of Israel. Jesus, the new high priest, has passed not through the temple curtains but "through the heavens" (v. 14). This high priest is not aloof, "unable to sympathize with our weaknesses," but has undergone the same sufferings and struggles this persecuted community has known (v. 15). He has now become the people's advocate, before God -- one who knows their situation infinitely well. Verses 7-9 are a theological commentary on the crucifixion. The verb used in verse 9, "having been made perfect" (teleioo), goes beyond our usual understanding of perfection. It refers not so much to moral perfection (although that, too, was true of Jesus), but to the completion of an arduous task. Jesus is perfected, on the cross, in the same sense that the "perfect tense" in grammar indicates a completed action. Jesus' words on the cross, "It is finished," refer to more than simply the end of his sufferings. They also describe the completion of the work of salvation.
The Gospel
John 18:1--19:42
John's Passion Narrative
As with Passion Sunday, this lengthy reading affords the opportunity to present the entire story of Jesus' suffering and death in narrative form. It includes the following pericopes:
The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus (18:1-11)
Jesus before the High Priest (18:12-14)
Peter Denies Jesus (18:15-18)
The High Priest Questions Jesus (18:19-24)
Peter Denies Jesus Again (18:25-27)
Jesus before Pilate (18:28-38a)
Jesus Sentenced to Death (18:38b--19:16a)
The Crucifixion of Jesus (19:16b-30)
Jesus' Side Is Pierced (19:31-37)
The Burial of Jesus (19:38-42)
In preaching or teaching on any of the episodes in John's Passion account, it is important to handle very carefully any statement in which he blames "the Jews" for particular atrocities committed against Jesus. John was writing in a polemical context, in which he and a Judaizing faction were struggling for control of his churches. John was quick to blame "the Jews" because he was trying to distance himself from any person who taught that the way to Christian faith led first through Jewish religious practices. To blame "the Jews" for Jesus' death is patently absurd: for Jesus himself was a Jew, as were his own disciples, only one of whom betrayed him. John's Passion account has been frightfully misused, over the centuries, to justify all manner of pogroms against Jewish communities in Europe. Until very recently, the most dangerous day of the year for European Jews was Good Friday, the day when their Christian neighbors were most likely to fall on them and cause them harm. A deeper understanding of the events of Jesus' Passion may be gained through the simple device of mentally substituting "the religious authorities" for most occurrences of "the Jews" in these chapters.
Preaching Possibilities
The crucifixion of Jesus is such a huge event, in the imaginations of our listeners -- huge not only in terms of the emotions involved, but also in theological and devotional significance -- that it is often hard to lead Christians to view it in a fresh way. One way of approaching the crucifixion is to lead the people to view the cross from the narrow perspective of a single observer. The gospels mention several such observers who were present that day. One of them is Mary, the mother of Jesus.
John tells the story of how Jesus tenderly provides for his mother's needs, even in his agony: "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' " (John 19:26-27a).
Of all the people at the cross, she is the most familiar -- and the most unfamiliar (at least to those of us who are Protestant). Mary of Nazareth was Jesus' first disciple and his most loyal. By all rights, she ought to be numbered first among that company of those who were his followers. Yet, some of us are hesitant to do that. Some of us, still doggedly fighting the wars of the Reformation, remember the extremes of Marian devotion in the late Middle Ages that led Reformers such as Luther and Calvin to cry, "Enough!" and banish nearly all mention of Mary from the life and thought of their churches.
Yet, this is not as it should be -- nor is it as the writers of the gospels mean it to be. Mary is at the heart of their witness: that teenage girl who heard the voice of angels; that mother who (with her husband, Joseph) protected the child from those would harm him, and later, faithfully brought him to the rabbis for instruction. As her son's ministry began, it would seem that she was part of that band of followers, the disciples (who always numbered considerably more than twelve). Unlike most of the others, she stood by him even on his dying day.
Mary was not an old woman, on that day -- at least, not by our standards. If, like most first-time mothers of her era, she bore Jesus while still a young girl of thirteen or fourteen, which meant she was in her mid-forties at his crucifixion. Because life expectancies were shorter, back then, perhaps others thought of her as an old woman, but she could very well have lived many years longer.
It's hard to picture her because of the ways she has been portrayed in so many works of devotional art over the centuries: as an ageless, timeless, eternally young woman of ethereal beauty. Yet the real Mary, the Mary of the crucifixion, was an ordinary person: a Palestinian Jewish peasant woman, her face lined with care, her back bent from years of hard manual labor.
Let us go on a journey of imagination. Let us try to imagine the feelings of this great woman of faith, as she looks with horror on the death of her son....
***
Happier times. Try to think of them, Mary says to herself. Try not to look at him. Try not to see the skin peeling from his body in strips, the drops of blood dripping from his toes, the rising and falling of his chest with each rasping breath. She tries not to look, but she can't help herself. Mary's eyes -- the eyes of a mother -- are drawn, again and again to his. To those eyes, the same eyes that once smiled back at her, as she cuddled the infant boy: eyes that have always seemed, to her, to be pools of deep mystery and abiding peace.
But not today. Today, those eyes are vacant, listless -- even fearful. There are moments when those eyes focus briefly on her, and then for an instant she sees the light of kindness flicker across them. But then, there comes another spasm of pain, and he seems to look off to some distant place, a place where she cannot accompany him.
What's that he had said to her a few moments before? And not only to her, but also to that young disciple, the one he loved especially well: "Woman, here is your son." And to him: "Here is your mother." Words that broke her heart more than anything else she'd witnessed that dreadful day. Those words brought home the reality that he was dying. Yet, even in his pain, he had done what a faithful son ought to do: He provided for his mother. As the teary-eyed young disciple nodded his head in agreement, Mary thought she saw the hint of a smile cross her son's face.
But now there comes another spasm of pain. His eyes lose their focus again. Mary feels the pain, too. Deep within her chest. An ache more profoundly painful than any she's ever known. She's not even sure she'd call it pain. It seems to go beyond the limits of that word. She feels her knees buckle under her, and hears -- as though she's standing outside herself -- an animal cry emerge from her mouth. Strong arms catch her, and hold her, arms of her dear friends, those other women standing beside her.
"And a sword will pierce your own soul too." How vividly those words come back to her now -- words Mary hasn't thought of in years. It was back when Jesus was so very small: a mere babe in arms. She and Joseph had brought him to the temple, on his day of circumcision, and there they encountered that old man: Simeon. The toothless old prophet had reached out his arms to Mary -- and what could she do but place the child into them. Old Simeon looked down tenderly into her son's eyes, then said a prayer: "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation."
Simeon said other things as well, but the thing Mary remembered most vividly -- of all the many memories she treasured in her heart -- was what old Simeon had said as he handed the child back. It was a mere whisper, an aside, for her ears only: "A sword will pierce your own soul." Now, lo these many years later, as Mary feels the stifling tightness in her chest, she understands for the first time what old Simeon meant. Today is the day of the sword. Today is the day it pierces her heart. Today is the day she experiences every mother's worst nightmare: standing by, helpless, watching the death of her own child.
It's one of those things, they say, that's just not supposed to happen. It's unnatural -- a ragged gash in the fabric of the universe. Mothers are not supposed to look upon the death of their own children. It's meant to be the other way around -- and, even then, only at the end of a long and beautiful life. Yet, this is no nightmare, but the grim reality of this day. This is the experience old Simeon had somehow foreseen. Mary knows that, in time, perhaps she will accept it -- just as she has learned to accept so much else in this strange and God-touched life of hers. "Let it be with me, according to your word," she had responded, so long ago. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.
Was it all for nothing? Did God give her the precious gift of that laughing little boy -- for this? Was this how God always intended it to end?
Mary feels the arms of her friends sustaining her, giving her strength. It's not her strength, now, it's theirs -- flowing into her, a quiet power, leaping the barrier of human skin. More than ever, these women are truly her companions.
There is Mary of Magdala, that strong and outspoken disciple, in many ways the boldest and most courageous of his little band. She is a woman of strength and virtue -- one of many people her son had healed. The Magdalene's gratitude and admiration were so great, she never left him, as so many others had left him, once they were healed -- and she hasn't left him, even now.
There's Salome, also, the mother of James and John. She loves her boys, too. It was Salome who had come up to Jesus, one day, to ask a favor. Would he grant to her boys the privilege of sitting at his right hand, and at his left, in the heavenly places? "You do not know what you are asking," he had said, at the time. "Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" he replied. "We are able," said Salome's boys, brightly. Today, Jesus does indeed have two others, at his right and at his left: those two rebel insurgents the Romans have hung up there beside him. Good thing for Salome, Jesus didn't grant her that request. Otherwise, it could have been James and John hanging there beside him: his escorts, on his journey into the next life!
There are other women as well -- other members of his chosen band, disciples every bit as courageous as Peter, James, Andrew, and all the rest. They're even more courageous, these women, for they have shown up here, haven't they, under the inquisitors' gaze of the soldiers of Pontius Pilate? Yes, there's perhaps a slight chance the Romans won't bother them because they are women but only a slight one. The Romans have never respected either tradition or law when it came to maintaining national security. On this, the darkest of all days, it is the women -- and, yes, that one young man also, the one whom Jesus loved -- who have shown true courage.
"It is finished." As Mary hears him gasp out those words, she knows in her heart to be true. It is all... finished. Over -- done with -- this whole, mighty work that has been Mary's life: this raising of a child, this following of him as a man. It is all finished.
Or... is it?
Prayer For The Day
God of compassion,
of all the experiences of life,
one we most fear
is that of grief.
Can we ever consider ourselves ready
for that stabbing pain, deep within --
the pain of loss that can never be healed,
only borne with courage and strength?
Yet, we do not fully believe
we have the courage and strength.
Teach us, by your indwelling Spirit,
that when such dark hours come,
we will have what we need to face them.
Show us, as we contemplate the cross of Christ,
that you have known this pain, too,
and will bear us through it. Amen.
To Illustrate
A British army chaplain of World War I, G.A. Studdert-Kennedy, was thinking about the Mary of the crucifixion -- as well as the unworldly Mary of the devotional paintings -- as he wrote this poem. It's called "Good Friday Falls on Lady Day":
And has our Lady lost her place?
Does her white star burn dim?
Nay, she has lowly veiled her face
Because of Him.
Men give to her the jewelled crown,
And robe with 'broidered rim,
But she is fain to cast them down
Because of Him.
She claims no crown from Christ apart,
Who gave God life and limb,
She only claims a broken heart
Because of Him.
***
To be Christian is to cease saying, "Where the Messiah is there is no misery" and to begin to say "Where there is misery there is the Messiah." The former statement makes no demands; the latter is an assignment.
-- Fred Craddock
***
There is nothing a Roman soldier enjoys more than the sight of his commanding officer openly eating the same bread as him, or lying on a plain straw mattress, or lending a hand to dig a ditch or raise a palisade. What they admire in a leader is the willingness to share their danger and hardship, rather than the ability to win them honor and wealth, and they are more fond of officers who are prepared to make efforts alongside them than they are of those who let them take things easy.
-- Plutarch, in his life of the Roman general Marius
***
The Christian must not only accept suffering, but he must make it holy. Nothing so easily becomes unholy as suffering.
Merely accepted, suffering does nothing for our souls except, perhaps, to harden them. Endurance alone is no consecration. True asceticism is not a mere cult of fortitude. We can deny ourselves rigorously for the wrong reason and end up by pleasing ourselves mightily with our self-denial.
Suffering is consecrated to God by faith -- not by faith in suffering, but by faith in God. Some of us believe in the power and the value of suffering. But such a belief is an illusion. Suffering has no power and no value of its own.
It is valuable only as a test of faith....
The death of Jesus on the cross has an infinite meaning and value not because it is a death, but because it is the death of the Son of God. The cross of Christ says nothing of the power of suffering or of death. It speaks only of the power of him who overcame both suffering and death by rising from the grave.
The wounds that evil stamped upon the flesh of Christ are to be worshiped as holy not because they are wounds, but because they are his wounds. Nor would we worship them if he had merely died of them without rising again. For Jesus is not merely someone who once loved us enough to die for us. His love for us is the infinite love of God, which is stronger than all evil and cannot be touched by death.
Suffering, therefore, can only be consecrated to God by one who believes that Jesus is not dead. And it is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning.
-- Thomas Merton, "To Know the Cross," from No Man Is an Island (Harcourt, 1955)
***
The cross is vulnerable to those who hate its message, its absurdity offering the ultimate grounds for the mocking of faith. And it is vulnerable, too, to those who fear its message, its violence giving a precedent and a weapon to Christians who cannot tolerate the way of peace. It is vulnerable to those who forget its message, its familiarity providing a pretty promise of protection to be worn around the neck. But it is perhaps most vulnerable to those who love it, and who genuinely wish to understand it. Sometimes, in order to honor the cross, we adore, domesticate, possess it, make it ours, part of our own experience, in the quietude of mystic oneness or in the exertion of busy emulation. Sometimes, in order to exalt the cross and its outcome, we speculate about its infinite significance and turn it into a metaphysical principle: the negative and positive rhythms of the cosmos, for example....
Mercifully, despite its vulnerability, the cross that is God's powerful weakness continues to resist its interpreters, exploding theology's own conceptions and compelling it to suspend its judgments until it has discovered from the story itself what may or may not be true.
-- Alan E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 27
***
Of all the pains that lead to liberation, the worst is to see your loved one suffer.
-- Julian of Norwich
