THE REV. ROBERTO DESANDOLI
Good Friday
Psalm 22
Hebrews 4: 14-16; 5: 7-9
John 18: 1-19: 16-42
“Painful Anticipation”
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What did it take to send Jesus Christ, Our Lord, to the cross on Good Friday?
According to John, it was a combination of things, performed by a variety of actors, each with a part to play:
Judas Iscariot – who sold his master for thirty pieces of silver
Soldiers and Police – who were “just doing their duty”
Peter – who denied his master three times
The other disciples – who did even less than Peter
Annas and Caiaphas, the Pharisees – who performed their duty to keep peace in their temple
Pontius Pilate – the embodiment of Roman justice, who was too proud to hear the truth standing before him
And finally…
The Crowd – who howled for the blood of a condemned, though innocent, man, Jesus of Nazareth
All told, no one person sent Jesus Christ to the cross.
Were this story a murder mystery, a “whodunit?” it would be impossible to name the one killer.
What did it take to send Jesus Christ, Our Lord, to the cross on Good Friday?
Only ordinary things:
Selfishness
Deference to authority
Denial of the truth
Cowardice
Duty
Pride
Hatred
Seven acts of sin.
Seven simple acts of sin that we are all capable of and have made at some point in our lives.
But there is another simple act of sin that is more dangerous even than these, and that is our ability to forget that we are still sending Jesus Christ to the cross in our own time.
Good Friday, the self-giving of the Lamb of God on the cross, the spilling of his blood for the salvation of all.
This story, told by the Gospel and heard by the faithful for thousands of years, this story is the story of Jesus Christ, the man, the Rabbi, the master who lived two thousand years ago; a specific man; the only true Messiah.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus went willingly to that cross “once and for all,” so that all would believe the Good News and turn to Him who offers life eternal.
God intended the cross to be once and for all.
So why do we still send Him there?
Why do we still send that man to the cross?
Why do we still send a thousand men, women, and children to the cross?
Why do we still send them for the same reasons?
Killing out of selfishness?
Turning a blind eye in order to follow authority?
Denying the truth of who is our true Master?
Acting as cowards?
Doing our earthly duty?
Practicing pride and stoking hatred?
Now, you may be thinking:
“Surely not I!”
“I haven’t sent anyone to the cross!”
“See, I don’t have any blood on my hands!”
And yet, each person named by John in his Gospel could claim the same innocence.
As each of these (named by John) waited in “painful anticipation” at what they had done (Judas, the soldiers, the Pharisees, Pilate); as each stood by as Christ was arrested without charge, as each turned their eye when he was beaten and fitted with a crown of thorns, as each howled for his blood and then quickly washed their hands of the stain of hatred, that as each waited in “painful anticipation,” the sin within them burning, each could say the same:
“Surely not I”
“See, I don’t have any blood on my hands!”
My friends, I DO have blood on my hands.
I have blood on my hands every time I hear of war or disease or school shootings and count myself “lucky” that I live in a “safe country.”
I have blood on my hands when I practice the kinds of selfishness that damage the earth for my comfort.
I have blood on my hands when I see persecution and racism and injustice on the streets of Saskatoon and do not speak up.
I have blood on my hands every time I encounter poverty on the streets of this city and do not have the courage to look in the eyes of the beggar.
I—and all of you—have been called to witness to Christ in the place that we pray and gather, that is, at the crossroads of 20th and Spadina. I have been called to witness to Christ whose own face shines in the faces of the least of those around us, and yet, too often I do not.
Too often I take my silver and go home
Too often I follow the rules of the country, I follow the rules of the temple,
Too often I deny my master
Too often I am blinded to the truth by pride
Too often I allow my own small world, and my own small anger to cloud what is real and right in-front of me.
I HAVE helped to send Jesus Christ to the cross.
I have done as much and as little as anyone in John’s story – how about you?
Joining the cast of characters in John’s story, we too wait in “painful anticipation” of what is about to happen.
We wait, as Jesus is led away by Pilate’s guards; bruised, bloodied, wearing a mocking robe and a crown of thorns – we wait for the crucifixion that is about to take place in anticipation of what is about to happen, and in the pain of truth that we too have sent him to die on the cross.
This cross and this man, Jesus the Christ are bound to us and one another in mystery.
It is a mystery that Jesus, who went willingly to the cross to save us from our sins, was yet placed on the symbol of our forgiveness by sinful hands.
It is a mystery that Jesus, who comes to show the world that we are loved and have been redeemed in His blood, that this same Jesus uses our very sin to spill his redeeming blood.
On Good Friday we stand before the cross, as the crowd stood before the cross at the crossroads of sin and salvation.
And that is enough.
It is enough on Good Friday simply to stand and to witness.
To see the face of Christ without looking away.
It is enough on Good Friday to wait and to watch with “painful anticipation” at what is about to happen.
It is enough on Good Friday to know that this story of death and sin is about us; that it is about our neighbors.
On Good Friday, Jesus Christ, Our Lord, took on terrible and agonizing trials in order to show us the result of this mystery: that He did it for us. That even though we played a part, He did it for our salvation.
Faced with the task of letting the whole world know who God is and what God is like, Jesus Christ, God-made-flesh allowed Himself to be handed over to the powers of sin and death that we might not perish but have eternal life.
And so we wait…
We wait in “painful anticipation” with Judas and the Soldiers, with Pilate and the Pharisees – we wait and we watch what is about to happen to Our Lord. And we believe, through faith, that in this waiting, in this pain and anticipation, the redeeming mystery of Easter morning shall be revealed to us; if we only have the courage to look and to see Christ on the cross.
