Good Friday 2022

What do you want? I know this might not be a question you ever really pause to reflect on, that’s OK, I mean it as broadly as you’re willing to take it tonight.

What do you want?

I think one of the best ways for us to discern our deepest longings is by looking at the places in our life where we tend to have strong emotional reactions. Maybe there is a conflict you keep having in your marriage that on the surface doesn’t seem all that serious, but it really makes you frustrated and angry. Maybe you get really defensive when someone asks you about your work or your family of origin. Maybe you’ve become very particular about how you like things done in your home, or your workplace, and when that is changed in any way you become incredibly anxious.

What these strong emotional reactions tell us is that something deeper is happening below the surface, something is happening in our hearts because some of our most deeply held desires are being confronted and exposed.

Let me give you an example. One night when I was a child - I must’ve been about 8 years old - I got a surprise visit from one of my older cousins who I hadn’t seen in a long time. He was probably 12 or 13, so I naturally looked up to him. Well, this was around the time of Halloween, so he came over wearing his costume. It was this super cool ninja costume, complete with, you know, all the really cheap plastic swords and throwing stars and all of that.

Now, even though I already had a costume of my own, I remember in that moment how badly I suddenly wanted a ninja costume like his. And here’s the thing - I really wasn’t known for having tantrums or strong emotional outbursts as a child. But on this night, I just completely lost it.

As I’ve look back on that night more, I’ve realized it wasn’t really about the ninja costume. Sure, I did actually want one. But what did I desire more than the costume? I wanted connection with this older cousin who I had missed and who I looked up to. I wanted to be valued by him in our relationship. The costume was simply the avenue by which I thought that would be possible.

Our passage this evening tells us of a glorious day of salvation for God’s people. We see this miraculous outpouring of the Spirit, the prophetic piercing of God which we know will be fulfilled in Christ. And, how beautiful is this image of a fountain of grace that will be opened to cleanse God’s people from their sin.

We also meet an emotionally-charged people, a people filled with mourning, mourning that drives them into separation and isolation. The grief has made the burden of their community seemingly too much to bear, and so they retreat into their own homes, every family in mourning, every family by themselves. At the seat of this emotionally-charged state is desire: the desire for mercy. They want to be known, accepted, and loved by God. Yet, when they look upon God, they realize that their sins have pierced him; a word used throughout the Old Testament for someone who has been stabbed to death by having a sword or spear thrust through them.

The people are desperate. They need mercy for their sins. Yet where shall they find it, if they’ve killed the only one who can give it?

They mourn.

If we truly let ourselves feel tonight, I think we could each - no matter where we might be on our own spiritual journey - relate to how these people feel. Every one of us is born into this world wanting to be known and loved. Every one of us wants someone in their life who will see us all the way down, not just our successes and strengths, but even our greatest faults and weaknesses. Yet if our life experience tells us anything, it’s that such people are incredibly difficult - if not impossible - to find.

In his book The Soul of Desire, psychiatrist Dr. Curt Thompson says that in our early childhood, we develop the need for the four S’s: to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure. And while these may develop early in our lives, they are necessary for growth and integration for our entire lives. The need to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure never stops. The only question, he says, is who can provide these things for us.

Christianity teaches that there is in fact a God in heaven who offers this to us; that there is a God who created us in love, and who stands ready to forgive, pardon, and bring us into a secure relationship with himself. I think there are two ways most of us tend to respond to this message. One way is we begin to think, that if God is so gracious and forgiving, my sin must not be that bad, so we ignore our sin and become numb to it. Another way we might respond is to think, yes, I know God may be gracious and forgiving toward some, but you don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know who I am. If God really knew who I was, he’d be ashamed. We start to believe that God’s mercy couldn’t possibly apply to us. So we find other ways to numb our desire for mercy: addictions of all kinds, a relentless commitment to our vocations where we quite literally work ourselves to death, or the crushing burden of expectation we might put on a spouse or child.

Either way, we become numb not only to our sin, but to the very one who stands ready to give us the mercy we desperately desire so that we might be truly seen, soothed, safe, and secure.

I don’t remember if this was before or after the ninja incident - but I was about the same age, maybe 7 or 8. I was at my best friend’s house around the corner, playing in the back yard. His family was having an addition put on to their house, so there was a lot of lumber and other construction materials lying about. At one point while we were playing, I stepped on a board with a large nail sticking out, piercing my shoe and going up through my foot. Now, before you get the wrong idea, no, I am not Jesus in this illustration, ok?

My father was the only one home at the time, and for reasons I can’t quite explain, I was incredibly afraid of going to my father with my wound to tell him what had happened. I was afraid of how he would respond to me. I was afraid of the consequences for my friend and his family. I allowed my fear and my perceptions to keep me from the very person who was ready and able to treat and care for my wound.

So what did I do? Well, I swallowed my tears, limped home, snuck into the bathroom, hid my bloody sock, covered it in fake bandages, put my shoe back on, and tried my best to pretend nothing ever happened. For weeks, I hid a wound which, had it become infected, could have killed me. All because of my false perception that bringing what had happened to my father would be worse than stuffing my pain down and keeping it to myself.

Isn’t this how so much of us go through life? Limping along from one place to the next, hiding from the One who can truly give us what we so desperately desire?

Here is where the good news of Jesus is so sweet: acknowledging our sin, that which we ignore, or see as an obstacle to God’s love, is actually the very thing which qualifies us for God’s free offer of mercy and grace.

It was our sin which put Jesus on the cross; for our sin he was pierced and died. And as a result a fountain was opened, a fountain of living water that cleanses us from sin. Grace and mercy are freely available to all who will call upon Jesus Christ. No sin is too great to keep us from his great salvation. It is possible to know God who will see you all the way down, all your faults and and failures, and love you all the same.

But, first, we - like the people in Zechariah 12 - must see the full extent of our sin. No more ignoring. No more pretending. No more numbing. No more hiding. We must look upon the one whom we have pierced and feel the weight of our sin. We must see, as one author has said, how when given the chance - we killed our creator. Our sin put him on the cross; our sin put him in the grave.

When we look upon this one whom we have pierced, this only begotten Son of God, an appropriate response is to mourn, to taste the bitterness of our sin. In a moment we are going to have a guided time of silence and prayer. I want to be clear, our intention is not to manufacture an emotional response in you right now. If we were, that would just be another kind of pretending. This is not smoke and mirrors.

We want to give you space to wrestle with desire. What do you want? Do you want mercy? Do you want grace and pardon? Do you want to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure with and by God?

Then beloved, confess your sins before your Savior. He was pierced for our transgressions, and by his wounds we are healed.