SERMON GOOD FRIDAY APRIL 6, 2007     "Were you there” 

# 233: refrain: Were you there when they crucified my Lord? v. Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? v3. Were you there when they pierced him in the side?

#239 v.1: O sacred head, sore wounded, With grief and shame weighed down; Now scornfully surrounded With thorns, Thine only crown; How art Thou pale with anguish, With sore abuse and scorn; How does that visage languish, Which once was bright as morn!

Suffering is not a pleasant subject to be speaking about to anyone. Suffering is horrible. It is ugly, and we can question why it has to happen to anyone. There are degrees of torment, I remind you from the mild to the severe, and yet even with mild suffering, we wonder why. Why does someone whom God created to enjoy life and the creation have to endure any misery? You watch someone who is suffering greatly whether from it is a physical matter, or an emotional distress, and think to yourself, how unfair that the person has to suffer so harshly. You become like Job and ask the great questions about agony, and get nowhere. Pain, suffering -it is one of those areas of life where we still don't have all the answers and yet when there is an explanation of the cause, we wonder why it still happened. Some people avoid the question of suffering it at all costs, because it is just too painful for them. I suppose suffering is one area where evil is not disguised, but showing itself in its true brutality and torment.  So much of evil can be disguised as good, but not so with suffering.

In today's drama, the various readers participants reflect on the trial of Jesus and ask some probing questions about their life and their relationship to Jesus. They

reflect on the agony and misery of Jesus,

Jesus was a person who did not avoid suffering. It's true that he did ask if there was another way, but even as was asking, he was adding the rejoinder, that in any case he was obedient to the Father's will. Obedience was the first thing on his mind. Jesus suffered horribly because in his heart he knew this was the only way, God the Father could deal with evil.

The verses of the hymn I quoted portray in the words of the poet the great suffering that Jesus endured. You could see the anguish in his face as he hung upon that accursed cross, if you were there. Crucifixion was a slow, very painful way to die, reserved for the worst of criminals. One medical doctor suggests that the person dies an unmerciful, painful death by slow asphyxiation. As the person loses his strength to hold his body upright, his chest sinks lower and lower, and his ability to breathe becomes more and more constricted. Eventually, the body dies for lack of oxygen more than any other reason. Crucifixions took place outside the city in a kind of no man's land, which emphasised the loneliness and outcast nature of the criminal.

Jesus chose openly to move into the mainstream of Jewish culture and thought, and challenge it. The Jews thought they had the mandate from God to tell people about the ways of God. Jesus tried to tell them that they had missed the boat in so many ways. The religious leader’s didn’t like that and had him arrested and put to death, with the

SERMON GOOD FRIDAY APRIL 6, 2007  “Were you there?”  page two

complicity of the Roman authorities. Jesus knew that only by his ministry of death, could he bring deliverance to us, and set our feet at the doorway of true freedom.

Jesus confronted the power of evil directly because he knew that if he was going to conquer evil, he had to somehow absorb its power into himself and thereby defeat it. In the events that led to the cross, we see Jesus taking evil by the throat, and revealing it for all to see in its true light. Then he is taken hostage by the forces of evil. I don't want to single out the Jews because although they are the historical figures who had Jesus arrested and crucified, the forces that caused them to put him to death are still present in the world, trying to their "damndest" if I can use that word quite literally, to get us to pay allegjance to them.  In fact, each one of us has driven a nail into the feet and/or hands of Jesus.

The cross is about the deep and intense suffering that Jesus underwent, but it is also about the power of a love that battles the assaults of evil head on. By going to the cross, Jesus died on behalf of us all. Today, I can't say much more than that, but on Easter I will be able to say a lot more. I will be able to tell you about the power of the cross to free us from evil, and give us the hope that one day suffering will be completely overcome.