Good Friday sermon

Good Friday 2009
And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all people to me.
The image of Jesus dying on the cross is powerful and disturbing. It is probably the most unlikely religious image in a world filled with a myriad of religious images. It is an image of pain and death. It is an image of failure and defeat. It reveals betrayal, false accusation, rejection and abandonment.

Several people have commented to me over the years how they found the image of Jesus dying on the cross so disturbing and so offensive that they rejected the Christian Faith. One person mentioned to me how as she grew up she began to question how any Father could allow his son to die such a horrible death. Another individual questioned why the death of this one man, among so many thousands of men who suffered the same fate, should be any different and have any special meaning.

One person remarked to me that the crucifixion proves that Christianity is death religion not a life affirming religion. I can remember my own shock as a college student when I considered the crucifix and decided Christianity was a barbaric religion from a distant age of barbarism that had no place in our modern civilized society. I was very naive.

The image of the cross is meant to shock. It is in fact the perfect mirror to our soul. The crucifix reveals to us that place of separation, rebellion and death that resides within each of us. The Bible calls this place sin. Jesus died on the cross to rescue us from this sin.

Jesus came into this world as we all come into this world: small, defenseless and weak. He embodied the fullness of the divine nature of love and the divine character of holiness. Jesus never separated from God the Father and so as the Bible tells us he was human in every way we are human except- except he never sinned. Because he never separated from the Father he never rebelled. Because he never rebelled his mind, heart and will never experienced the terrible distortions of fear, self will and pride.

In a world of people who are lost and lonely and broken Jesus brought faith, hope and love. The human reaction to Jesus was to make demands, react with fear, and finally to inflict on him all of the pain and torment we as a species carry within our souls.

And that was why Jesus had come into the world. And that is why the Father asked the Son to bear this terrible pain. If Jesus has just been another man his death would have been tragic, barbaric and all too commonplace. But, Jesus was not just a man. He was fully human and fully divine. He was, and is, the love of God in human flesh.

The perfect mirror of the crucifix reveals the spiritual state of humanity. It is a state of separation from love, rebellion against love, and the terrible pain of a species that has abandoned love for power. Jesus embraced this place of pain and death. He freely chose the death on the cross. He made that choice because Jesus just doesn’t have love, or show love, or teach about love. Jesus is eternal uncreated love in human flesh.

Sin killed Jesus. But Jesus was not just a man. He was a man who never separated from God, who never rebelled, who never sinned. He was a man who in fact was the incarnation of love.
That love gave him the strength and courage to do the unimaginable. That love gave him the ability to take the sin and death of the entire human species upon himself, to suffer the ultimate consequence of death, and then to transform sin and death back into holiness and eternal life.
Jesus did this because Jesus is the love of God in human flesh. That love is infinite and eternal. The crucifix is no longer just a symbol of death, It is now a perfect mirror to the human soul and God’s universal invitation to all people everywhere to receive the gift of reunification with the divine nature of eternal love in Jesus Christ.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the great promise of God to all people that life overcomes death, holiness swallows up sin, and love transforms all things back into their original blessing.
The seal of love is in the real choice we make to receive the gift God offers us. The gift is reunification with the infinite and eternal love of God the Father, through the person of God the Son, by the indwelling presence of God the Holy Spirit.
Jesus freely gives himself for you. Will you give yourself to him?