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Good Friday
March 25, 2005 Sermon
by Rev. Barb Hauck, Deacon
This is a day I have
difficulty commemorating. The memory of what happened on this day – on
this day, not two days hence – is horrific. My mind has difficulty
comprehending the horror that was witnessed by so many on a hillside
that day. My heart feels heavy – oh, so heavy – with the small piece of
it that my mind can barely begin to understand. The image of the cross
is burned into both my heart and my mind.
Things were going so well just a few days earlier. Peter’s friend,
Jesus, was finally being treated like royalty – the king they expected
to save them. His royal carriage was a donkey, the road was made smooth
by cloaks that had been spread on the ground before him. The crowds were
going wild – shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Finally, things
were going his way.
But then things changed – that can happen in an instant, you know – and
the few days they spent in Jerusalem provided both the time and the
opportunity for things to change forever.
At supper the night before this awful Friday we call “good,” Jesus had
told his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
Then comes the passage we just heard.
Peter said, “LORD, where are you going?” Peter wanted to go with him,
but he was told it was not yet time for him to come along. Peter was
stubborn in his insistence – “Why not?!? … I will do whatever it takes,
even die for you!” The words flowed quickly… surely by this time Jesus
knew that Peter would stop at nothing to see the LORD’s work was done.
But no… “before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times,”
Jesus replied. What a shock to the system that must have been. “No! I
believe in you… I will go to the ends of the earth, even to death for
you.” I can understand Peter’s denial… I must admit I know what it is
like to deny whatever I least want to acknowledge is alive within my
heart. I imagine the same is true for most of us.
And as dawn just began to break… the cock crowed. And Peter came face to
face with a part of himself which he truly didn’t want to believe was
there. Peter came face to face with a part of his humanity – and a part
of ours – which is unbelievably painful to accept. But, painful or not,
it is there – and it is something we must never forget.
We forgot it during the Crusades. We forgot it during the holocaust. We
forgot it during all the wars through all the centuries. We forget it
when we look the other way while “ethnic cleansing” is taking place. We
forget it when we concentrate on keeping the abundant blessings in our
own lives while others are dying because of the ravages of poverty. We
forget it when we get so involved in the busyness of our own lives that
we don’t notice the signs of anger and alienation in others – until it,
tragically, boils over. We forget it when we say to ourselves, “what
difference can one person make?” Jesus knew, and we must never forget.
It’s been two thousand years since they crucified our Lord. Two thousand
years for us to get it right. And that is what breaks my heart when I
approach this day… just as much as the event we are remembering. For God
came into the world in the person of Jesus to save us – save us from
ourselves by transforming our hearts – and two thousand years later, we
still haven’t learned to love one another as Jesus loves us.
What will it take for that to happen? What will it take for us to love
our enemies? What will it take for us to look in the mirror in the
morning and see all God hopes for staring back?