Sermon by the Rev. Bernadette Hartsough
Good Friday 2021
“It is finished. Jesus bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” Today we remember Jesus’s last day, his last words as a man on earth. Through the last six weeks we retold and remembered his journey and his ministry on earth. We retell them to remember and to have a deeper understanding of who Jesus was, why he came, and to figure out where we are in the story.
Good Friday is hard. As a child, I grew up Catholic until about age 10 with my biological mom and with my foster parents. I attended catechism classes every Wednesday. I was introduced to Jesus through these classes. The nuns made Jesus come alive. They instilled in me the importance of having a prayer life to establish and maintain a relationship with Jesus.
About age seven, as I learned to pray, I felt a strong connection with Jesus. I felt his presence and I understood His goodness. I had a small white prayer book. It had the mass in it, various prayers, and the Stations of the Cross. The Stations of the Cross back then were not cute Lego figures or cartoons, they were gruesome pictures of flesh and blood being mutilated. I did not understand. Good people like Jesus do not die like that. Every time I looked at Jesus on the cross, I became very upset. I felt His pain. I cried. It was like watching a loved one suffer and die.
I was a curious child and I had questions. What did Jesus do to deserve to die? Why didn’t anyone stop it? I do not remember anyone answering my questions. Maybe they did and I was too young or too upset to understand. I know after a few weeks; my prayer book was taken away. I think my foster parents thought that once Easter came, and I was given lots of orange chocolate I would understand. Easter came and yes, I was given lots of orange chocolate. I also started to understand that sometimes the world is not nice. Bad things happen to good people. Jesus’s death was not the end. Jesus’s death gives us Easter. But still those violent images are seared into my mind.
Throughout my life, the questions have lingered, and I have heard many people ask these questions. What did Jesus do to deserve to die? Did he have to die? Why didn’t anyone stop it? Our answers come from the New Testament, other ancient writings, church history, and the ongoing revelation about Jesus from the Holy Spirit. We take these things together with our reason to understand these questions.
Here is one way to understand Jesus’s brutal death. Humankind sinned causing us all to be born under sin. Sin caused a separation between us and God. God desired to be in relationship with us. Only a perfect human could undo sin because it was a human that caused sin.
Jesus died a violent death because Jesus’s message was so radically different than the power structures that existed in the world he lived. The first century, especially the Roman Empire, was not ready to embrace this type of change.
Jesus threatened the established power structure. So, he had to die. For the Romans, anyone against Cesar had to die a violent death to instill fear in others.
Many people ask how God could sacrifice His son. As I worked through these questions, I realized that was the wrong way to look at it. because Jesus is God-it was God that hung from the cross. God and Jesus are one and the same. When I looked at it that way, Jesus’s death becomes an act of love-not an atonement theory to pick.
Jesus as fully divine is goodness and love. Goodness and love are the opposite of human systems based on fear, control, and power. Jesus’s message was the opposite. Jesus based his life and teachings on giving up power.
Jesus came to change society one person at a time. As individuals in society cared for each other and gave up their own desire for power and control, the world would change. They would live lives based on love and peace, not on fear and control. Jesus’s disciples didn’t need the emperor. With Jesus, individuals could go directly to God and be transformed. This type of life was radical, but it worked. In the first century, Jesus’s disciples lived the way of Jesus. They spread his message of love and peace and the church was born. In 2021, we still struggle to live our lives based on love and peace instead of fear and control. That is why we tell Jesus’s story, and we remember.
Those images of the crucifixion from my childhood remind me every Good Friday of Jesus’s pain and sacrifice. When I feel his pain, I am reminded that he suffered for us because he had to be close to us. When I speak of Jesus’s love it sounds so cliché. We hear the sayings all the time “Jesus loves you.” A saying like this said in passing makes his love sound small and trite and human. Jesus’s love is a powerful force. Good Friday is a somber day to reflect on Jesus’s suffering and death, but it is also a day to open yourself up to feel bathed and washed in this powerful love. It is a love so vast and pure and gracious. It is hard to believe that we could be loved that much. But we are. Feeling the love changes us. It compels us to be better and to live our lives differently. We look at the cross and we remember, and we love. This is Good Friday.