God Likes Fridays
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Friday, April 6, 2012
Text: Romans 5:1-8, Luke 23: 44-49
A few years ago, during an August day, I had the pleasure of spending a few days in Presov, in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains in Slovakia. I was there, as some of you already know, to perform a wedding of a friend. And I had the day in Presov to myself, a relatively small city that is the home of Carpathian Rusyns, a group of people who live on the border of the Ukraine and Slovakia and Poland. It's a beautiful part of the world. And on a Friday afternoon, before we were going to the church to prepare for the rehearsal, I did a walkabout through the town. It was a very hot day. And around four o'clock in the afternoon I heard this most incredible music. I went around a corner, and a little further down the main street in the city was this church with its doors wide open. They were celebrating the mass. They were Eastern-Rite Catholic Christians.
Wanting to hear more of the music and interested why at four o'clock on a Friday afternoon people would be gathering for worship, I went into the back of the church and stood in the narthex. It was the only thing I could've done anyway because the place was full; there wasn't a seat in the church. The choir was singing this magnificent music. I couldn't identify it, I didn't understand the language, but it was marvellous. I sat there and waited for the service to end and spent time in prayer. At the end of the service a large cross was carried back down the aisle past all of those who were worshipping and past me standing alone in the narthex. This magnificent, cross was brought by, on a Friday afternoon, at four o'clock, in August, in Slovakia. I was overwhelmed.
I was overwhelmed by the piety of the people. I was overwhelmed by the power of the worship. But there was just something about that cross that I will never forget. I bowed my head and I thought this is Friday and there's something marvellous about worshipping God on a Friday. I think God likes Fridays. And here we are, on a Friday, but in the morning. We're faced with this incredible paradox that seems to hit all Christians over the head every single time Good Friday comes along. It is the paradox that on the one hand, what we're remembering today is the brutal execution of an innocent Jew in Jerusalem over 2,000 years ago; banished in many ways to the outer walls; pushed to the periphery; nailed onto a cross; and denigrated by all the people who were around. We're faced with the horror of the cross. And yet, on the other hand, we call this Good Friday. There was something amazing about that moment. Something that was so profoundly good that we couldn't let it go. For years, since the early church first named it, it has been Good Friday.
Why the “good” when we have this paradox of suffering and death? It's good because God was up to something amazing on Good Friday. It was a good Friday for God because God was doing something through God's son for the people that God loved. Yet when I say that there is within me this sense that maybe I want to find something good on Good Friday. Maybe it's my need; maybe it's our need just to say something positive when we face so many negative things in the world. Are we being seduced into thinking that Good Friday is more good than it really is?
The singer and writer and Christian thinker Michael Card, in a wonderful book on the cross, asks this very question of us, and I want to quote him. He says:
In North American Christianity the cross has become somewhat objectionable. Well known pastors avoid referring to it in their sermons and on their TV programs because it is seen as too negative. Some contend that it is somehow dysfunctional to feel that we owe something to someone who sacrifices anything, much less himself. Can't that become manipulation? Wouldn't it be better to respond to God for our own reasons rather than because we owe him something? Other people are put off by the violence the cross portrays. No question about it, the blood and the gore and the pain of the crucifixion would certainly get the R rating on screen. Given the problems of violence in our society, why glamorize such things? Shouldn't we focus instead on the gentle side of the gospel and on the good news?
He goes on to say:
I believe that if we are to maintain Christianity in the new century, we must refocus our attention on the cross, and not just as an idle passing glance. We must live it and celebrate it at a time when more Christians in the world are dying for Christ than at any other time in the history of the faith. We must be even ready to die for it.
He understood that the power of the cross is something positive. The power of the cross is something that can lift us up. It is not just a negative thing that needs to be pushed to one side and ignored, but something to be elevated and lifted up. Where do we see this in the Bible but in the writings of St Paul. In many ways the gospels are there, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to give an account of what happened with the crucifixion. But it is the Apostle Paul who interprets the crucifixion for us; it's he who brings the cross back into our daily lives and lets it make sense. In this incredible from the Book of Romans he says “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
For the Apostle Paul this is good news. This is why God likes Fridays: Because it has something powerful to say. It says first of all that we are accepted by God. Paul begins this whole passage that says “Now we have been justified by faith we have peace with God.” the cross is God reaching out to humanity to say be at peace with me and let me be at peace with you. Do not feel we are at enmity. Do not feel that we are on a collision course with disaster. Let the cross embrace you and bring you in that you might experience what they call in Judaism, Shalom, the full peace of life. That you are brought in and that you become one with God. The Good Friday is the Christ coming to us on behalf of God the Father and saying “Be at peace.”
The great Christian writer Len Sweet in Jesus Manifesto puts it this way:
When my son was crucified, you were in him, so you also died with him. The person you used to be in fallen Adam was annihilated. Your flesh, your old nature, your self nature, was done away with on the cross of Christ. In my records, says God, you were already dead because you died with my son. Furthermore all your sins died with you. They no longer exist according to my bookkeeping and I'm the only one whose calculations count.
“I am the only one whose calculations count.” You see what this is about? This is what I've been talking about the last few weeks: The notion of a new covenant where God wants to bring people to himself, to accept them, and to bring them into his covenantal love. He does this for his son. That is why Fridays are good for God.
Fridays are great for God. God says break out the champagne, bring in the new wine, tell the prodigal who has wandered away to come back home. Tell Zacchaeus to come on down. Tell Mary Magdalene to come to the foot of the cross. Tell the alcoholic that they can find redemption. Tell the guilt-ridden that they can find peace in their soul. Tell the bullied that they will find a place where they are loved. Tell the people who find themselves in places of violence that here is their Shalom, their peace. Tell those who are addicted to gambling that it is not in casino buildings that they will find release from the pressures of their desires, but they will find it at the cross of Christ. Tell those who are broken and mournful because they have lost a loved one that the very crucified one says: “Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Bring in the stray, bring in the wayward, bring in the lost, bring in the lonely who sits in their home and feel that no-one loves them. Bring them all home. Because the cross is the place around which they gather. This is Good Friday. God loves Fridays because in his son God loves us. And God also not only accepts us, but God invites us in, in an even deeper way. God allows us to have access to him.
There was a time when people felt that they had to earn their worthiness to come into the presence of the Lord. But as the great theologian James Dunn says “In Jesus, God has come with the Royal Chamberlain to open up the doors to come and have an audience with the king.” Jesus, as the Lord Chamberlain, the Royal Chamberlain, the way to the monarch, is a wonderful image. Even those who hated him, even those who crucified him, understood that he was the royalty and the way to the kingdom. So much so they put a crown on his head that said: “King of the Jews” and they mocked him. They did it in many languages so everyone would understand the mocking; a plural, cosmopolitan way of demeaning Jesus. But Dunn is right - it was because of that cross that all our pretence, all our self-righteousness, all our claims to be good, are brought low as we enter into the presence of God.
Jesus himself knew that for the Father this was a good Friday. He knew that in his own suffering he had been obedient, because he knew that God the Father wanted to draw all people unto himself. He also knew that when it was over he would declare “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” His work was done. He knew that he wasn't drawing just himself into the presence of God, but the whole of the world. That means you and me. Because what this Good Friday reveals, more than anything else is the heart of God. When we say God loves us, what do we mean? When we say God is love, what evidence do we have to show it? We see it in his son Jesus. That is where we see it.
If there was any question that this is not a good Friday for God, then it is to misunderstand the love God has for us that he gave his only son, says John (John 3:16). And yet this is a mystery to us. Somehow to think that God in God's love would give his son for the sake of us all, is this not beyond our comprehension and our ability to understand? I heard a wonderful story of a curator in a museum in France. In this wonderful museum there were many artefacts from French history, many of which are priceless. The curator waits till the end of his presentation to take all those who were on the tour into a very dark room. He asked all the participants to stand with their backs against the wall and face something that is in front of them. He then goes behind this item that is hanging up, takes a very bright light and illuminates it. All people see is this weird collection of strands; strands of wool and of cotton in a form that seems to make no sense whatsoever; just a mismatched kaleidoscope of lines and circles. Finally he comes out from behind the veil, switches off the light puts on the lights overhead in the room revealing one of the most ornate, one of the most beautiful and one of the most magnificent tapestries ever made. Looking from the back with the light on it didn't make sense. It looked like it was rough and incomplete, but when the light finally came on it was one of the most beautiful tapestries in all of France.
That's what Good Friday is like. From where some people stand it looks like confusion and a mystery and a series of lines and ideas that have no bearing on the way that we look at life. We think that it is foolishness, says Paul in the Book of Corinthians. It seems like Good Friday is nonsense, but when the light comes on and God reveals it for what it is, it is the most beautiful thing in the whole world. It is God's celebration of Fridays and it is God's celebration of his son. It's God's celebration of you from this side of the canvas we probably cannot see it fully. The glory and the wonder of the cross is what makes God so loving and so kind. God loves Fridays. We see it on the cross. God loves us. We see it on the cross. But God has more to do, and Jesus loves Sundays, so we'd better return on Sunday and hear why. Amen.