Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

Good Friday, evening service – 4/13/01

by Gregory S. Kaurin

Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care and Development

 

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John 19: 23-30

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill what the scripture says, “They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.” And that is what the soldiers did.

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 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.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill scripture), “I am thirsty.”  A jar full of sour wine was standing there.  So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.  When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.”  Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

 

The Sermon:

 

The radio plays in the background.  A voice sings, questioning how it is that life and death are so connected:

An angel closes her eyes.

The confusion that was hers

Belongs now

To the baby down the hall.^[1]

 

Endings.  Beginnings always imply endings.  And endings are nearly all too soon.  Even in long life: the end of health comes too soon.  Prophets and the greatest minds: if only they lingered with us a little longer, if only their clear-sighted vision would remain a little longer.

 

And Jesus, a ministry of only a few short years, moving too quickly to an end.  From "Hosannas" and palm branches, to a holy moment at table cleaned in haste. 

Abide with us, fast falls the eventide. 

The darkness deepens; Lord, with us abide.^[2]

 

But suddenly from a drowsy night of prayer to torches, a trial, and now, an evening later, we stand on a hill.  A man hangs dying.  A man hangs dying.  Someone’s child is dying.

 

Christians, Biblical scholars, pastors, archaeologists, and anthropologists have scrutinized few passages more than the dying of Jesus.

• Why the difference in the gospel accounts? Note the similarities.
• Were the spikes driven through his palms or his wrists?  Were his feet nailed by two, or together with one spike?
• Was it mild vinegar to quench his thirst, or strong, in order to torment his parched lips?
• Was the sponge placed on a reed or a spear?

 

What are the answers?

 

What is our fascination?

 

Is it morbid curiosity? –in our minds we look upon the gruesome death of Jesus through our parted fingers?

 

Perhaps we imagine ourselves standing watch with Mary.  There are those in this congregation who know some of her pain, have seen their own child die.  But there are few who watch the spittle drying on his blood-cracked face, few who see their dying child jeered, few who see his naked body publicly exposed, and clothes gambled for.  Even these last few breaths ...mocked.

 

A mother's child is dying!    Where is the rescue team, the ambulance? Where are the Jaws of Life?  Doctors; nurses?

 

No.  Instead, this is the mother who hears the last cry of her child, steps and reaches, but is held back, as a gruff voice says to her, “It's over, lady.  ...He's finished anyway.”

 

Endings.  From the start we are confronted with endings.

 

A grandmother, surrounded by those she loved, receives her last breath -- pushed into her tired lungs by mechanical tubes and sounds, now removed.  No one really knows if that last breath escaping from her pale lips was ever her own.  She may have died already, days ago; but now it hits the family, after this long wait, suddenly it is over: she is finished.

 

The aging boxer stares angrily and fearfully at his shaking hands, tries desperately to hold them still, fighting his own body, but realizes in unspoken silence, “It is over for me ...I'm finished.”

 

A little girl. She was exposed to the horrid darkness that can willingly torture and snuff out even the bright light of life shining from the eyes of a six-year-old.  Already, so soon, cruel hands have finished her.

 

It's happening again to granddad.  He tries to read the paper--he's done this ...how many mornings?  But he looks at words, and doesn't recognize them.  He finally works through a sentence, but can't recall its beginning.  He thrusts the paper away in frustration that gives way to fear as he gazes at his unfamiliar living room.  Unfamiliar in his own house.  The times are closing in on him.  In fact, much of time is already at an end.

 

Finished.  A young man, too young, tries to spare the life of a rabbit on the highway, swerves too hard and loses his own life...

 

The golden bowl by death is broke.

      The pitcher burst in twain;

The cistern wheel has felt the stroke,

      The pleasant child is slain.

 

The winding sheet enfolds his limbs,

      The coffin holds him fast;

Today ‘tis seen by all his friends,

      But this must be the last.^[3]

 

Silence.

 

Silence follows words of “finished.”

Christ's own last word was: “tetelestai,” finished.  His head then rolls first to one side, the other, and finally lowers with a last sigh.  He hands his spirit into a silence that still echoes that last “tetelestai,” finished.

 

Finished.

 

But what an odd choice.  The word that Christ said did not mean “finished” as in “done” or “over.”  No, tetelestai meant finished as in “accomplished.”  It is finished and stands accomplished.

 

It is like Jesus was saying, “I have done what I came to do, and now with this last breath all is complete; it stands accomplished.”

 

Accomplished?  Complete?  Finished?!

 

“Indeed, Jesus, we see that your life is done, and that we all come to endings.  But to call death accomplished…when all looks so failed?”

 

What ending is ever really an accomplishment?

 

“Endings are always followed by beginnings,” says the optimist, and he's right.

“Yes, but beginnings are only the start of still more endings,” says the pessimist, and she's right.

 

Accomplished?  What did Jesus see that we don't?

 

Who could smell the burning flesh of the Holocaust, who could look at the hanging forms of beautiful brown skin turning to a ghastly pallor, who could hear the wounded moans in Kosovo, the blast in Oklahoma, the constant struggles over the Holy Land, see the violence in Cincinnati, who could embrace the frightened woman who hears the medical voice saying, “I'm afraid it's malignant.”  ...Accomplished?

 

If life remains full of endings...  If whatever is gained cannot be held onto...

 

Accomplished?  What is accomplished when the real ending we seek is not only elusive but beyond our comprehension.

 

An old anonymous poem tells this tale:

 

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;

      Round and round they sped,

I was disturbed at this;

      I accosted the man.

“It is futile,” I said,

      “You can never—”

“You lie,” he cried;

      And ran on.

 

 

And in our own world, the noise raises and meshes and roars into a great white noise so that screams cannot be heard from the loud boisterous laughter. All these years of bombs and hate, slander and lies, names and shouted titles all become a great deafening silence. And even the very sanity of living can seem but an insignificant movement—rocking ourselves until and into the quiet silence.

 

Accomplished?  What then is accomplished?

 

 

There is something right, something pivotal, when this man, Jesus, says, “It is finished.”  For through his words of teaching, his hands of healing, washing, and feeding, in these were promised greater things.

 

His death would be too anticlimactic.  This ending leaves too much unrevealed.  We know, we believe, there must be purpose to this death, because there was so much purpose in his life.

 

He said, “Accomplished.”

 

It doesn't make complete sense.  But somehow it clears a way.  It is heard by many above the loud deafening silence, and clears a space for a lasting greater purpose.  “The silence, the noise, is not empty, there is purpose to your life.”

 

Something there is that stands accomplished.  It has been accomplished since a Friday afternoon when a man handed his spirit to the Creator of Purpose.

 

Tonight and many nights we move into darkness, but our grief, though real and inspired by losses and endings, ...our grief itself has been wounded, …by a hammer of hope.  For as he died, Christ's word of accomplishment suggested a sunrise.

 

Finished?

 

The radio continues playing in the background, a voice sings, questioning how it is that death and life are so connected: 

“An angel opens her eyes.

Her pale blue-colored eyes.”^[5]

 

“The hope of life returns with the sun.”^[6]

 

[Sing Chas. Wesley's “‘Tis Finished!  The Messiah Dies.”]

 

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