Good Friday | a sermon
A sermon by Rev. Andrew Colman on Good Friday
Today, we are at the very heart of the Christian life.
We are here bearing witness to the moment that changed everything for
everyone.
It is also the darkest moment of all time.
The opening of the Gospel, according to John, goes like this.
In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him, and without him, not a thing was made
that was made. In him was life! And the life was the light on all
people.
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it!
That word who was in the beginning - through whom all things were made
the heavens and the earth, the darkness and luminescence itself.
that is the person who was pinned to the cross this night.
Is it any wonder that the sky, from noon to three, went dark as the
light of the world was being extinguished on Calvary?
This is the heart of the Christian life because it is the moment when
Jesus, our saviour, won the final victory over Sin.
The final victory over the power that kept us from being able to be in a
close personal relationship with God - and keeping us from being in the
very place as God.
One of the prayers that I offer when healing is needed is that God's
Spirit of peace and comfort would rest on the shoulders of the one in
need of that healing. We know that we can /feel/ the presence of
God—meaning God is with us /in place/ always, and especially in our
times of need.
When we cannot feel that the Power of Sin is telling us a lie —as we
heard from Matilda, the great 13th-century mystic—the absence of God is
the Great illusion of the Enemy. God does not know how to be absent.
Which, in a way, is to speak of the veil in the Temple that we heard
about in tonight’s reading. It was at the entrance to the Holy of Holies.
The Holy of Holies was at the place where the ark of the covenant, very
Presence of God did dwell. Thing is, is that no one but the high preist,
but once a year could enter in to the Holy of Holies.
Just outside the Holy of Holies was the Temple where not one but the
priests could be doing their priestly duties of sacrificial offering
everything from a handful of grain mixed with olive oil to a small
600-pound bull.
And just outside the temple was the court where the Jewish men could be
And outside that were the Jewish women
And in the outermost court was the court of the Gentiles, the court
where most of us would find ourselves.
If you took a survey of most, if not all, of human history, you'd find
altars, paintings, sculptures, temples, and monuments all created by
people trying to get close to God, trying to bring themselves into the
place of the transcendent.
It's one of the most natural human impulses to try to be one with our
creator.
But for all of those attempts, there was only so close that we could
get. After all, we are here, and God is nowhere to be seen—maybe here
but maybe not, maybe there but maybe not—but somewhere for sure—that
much we seem to have figured out—but where?
And then, for reasons known only to God, God came down in the burning
bush, in the wilderness, as a pillar of fire by night and smoke by day
to lead God's chosen people to the promised land, where He would
eventually dwell in a place in which we could also be: in the temple
through all of the entrances of those courts behind that veil in the
Holy of Holies.
Nearer to God. Incomparably nearer than ever before.
Now, anyone could be within a few hundred meters of the Presence of God,
Jews and Gentiles alike.
Not only that, but God gave us the gift of the law by which we could
live—a way that would keep us close, the way that God desired for all
humanity, one where all could choose to be nearer than ever before.
And when we slipped up and fell into Sin; included in that law were the
ways to make things right. Ways to cleasne us from our sins.
That was the work that happened in the temple day by day, but especially
on that one day of the year by that one high priest. He would take the
blood of a lamb without blemish and offer it to God for the sins of the
whole people, and God would see the sins of the last year no more. This
is actually the Jewish Festival of Yom Kippur.
The Festival was where Sin was cleansed from the people by the blood of
the lamb.
We are at the moment that is the heart of the Christian life because it
is the moment when the blood of that once-a-year lamb is deemed no
longer necessary.
Last night, as we prayed the Agnus Dei in the BCP eucharist, it struck
me; we know it here primarily through Mike Koop's setting: "Lamb of God,
who takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us…"
It struck me last night that Jesus is the Lamb of God. It's one of those
things that we can sing and say so often that it loses its meaning...
but tonight,
hear it in light of the account of the curtain in the temple, in light
of the Holy of Hollies being the place where but once a year but one
high priest went to take the blood of the lamb to cleanse us from our sins,
Jesus is the lamb of God... 1st Peter 18-19 says, "You know that you
were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with
perishable things such as silver or gold, with the precious blood of
Jesus Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was
destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest for
your sake."
Today, we are at the heart of the Christian life because it is the
moment that Jesus gave up his life on the cross for our sins. It is the
moment that we are washed in the blood of Jesus so that when God looks
upon us all he sees is you for who you as you were created in all your
perfection. Nothing else. Only perfection. Only God's beloved as clean
as the freshly fallen snow belove.
That was the power that Sin held in this world of which God could not
abide. There was something between us, and that was unacceptable.
So God came to rectify the problem himself.
Separation was the line - separation from us was too much for God. God
knew it was something only he could take care of, so he did.
At the cost of himself. We read ever so poetically in First John 3:16,
"By this, we know love, that he laid down his life for us;”
Today, we are at the heart of the Christian life because the very thing
that separated us from the very presence of God was torn in two.
It's often said that the presence of God in this tearing of the veil
allows us to come into the presence of God.
But the God we know is the one who leaves the 99 sheep to go and find,
to go and be with—the one who was lost.
So maybe the tearing of the veil that separated you and me from the very
presence of God was, in fact, God rushing out to to meet us.
The veil was torn in two because God, the one who brings us home, who
draws us home, could not help but tear through the barrier between you
and me to get close. To be near. To be nearer still be one with all of
those whom he loves.
That we might feel the Spirit of Peace on our shoulders when we're in
times of grief and pain. That we might feel God’s Spirit of comfort on
our shoulders when shudder at the horrors of the world. So that the
Light and Life of the World could shine out from within each and every
one of us no matter what.
That is the victory of the cross. That is the power of the work that
Jesus worked for us upon the cross. The Love of God was loosed upon us
from the cross in a way that nothing could contain.
Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
not anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen
