Sermon on John 19:30, for Good Friday, "Beginnings and Endings...and Beginnings"
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The death of Jesus Christ has a power and gravity all of its own. It has a way of wrenching us out of our own existence, our busy worlds, our self-absorbed lives—and plunking us right down in the middle of holy history. (paraphrased, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 53-54). Refocusing our attention on Christ crucified on the cross. In all other parts of history that we might choose to study or consider, we’re more or less spectators on the outside looking in. We played no active role, we merely witness what history has recorded. But the Good Friday story pulls us right out of our particular time and place and sets us down nearly 2,000 years ago outside the ancient walls of Jerusalem, and shows us that we are participants in this story. Here we stand, at a hill far away, beneath an old, rugged cross. A scarred and ugly hill, marred by bloodstains of criminals; the wind scraped by the harsh gasps of suffering. F...