We are invited to stand in the shadow of the cross

Good Friday

Psalm 22

John 18:1--19:42

(The context of this sermon was 100% written

in Canada by a human)

What must the women have been thinking, standing at the foot of the cross on that first Good Friday? Standing there on that hill in Golgotha in the shadow of a nightmare. Jesus – a man they loved, an innocent man, a great and kind man – dying on the cross above them. What must they have felt, wincing as each nail was hammered into his feet and his hands?

Surely, inflaming their shock and grief, they must have felt anger burning in their souls, the anger of those who have no power to stop an injustice they see more clearly than anyone.

What of the disciples, in their place of hiding, knowing what was happening on the hill? Their friend, their teacher, the one who had led them from their ordinary lives, was even then being murdered.

What did they feel? Certainly sorrow. Regret, I imagine, that they had not stood up and done more to save him. Hate, for those carrying out this crime. Helplessness that they could not change it.

And anger, surely, the helpless anger, of those who, having failed to act, must now watch a great friend die, and know they cannot stop it.

And what of the mob, so ravenous to see Jesus on the cross? So quickly switched from cheering to jeering. What would they have been feeling? Perhaps a doubt, creeping in. Perhaps a conscience, whispering too softly to be heard. Most certainly anger, the kind that spews forth when we feel threatened, when we are afraid, when we have been fooled by misinformation, when we are offered an innocent man and told he is not innocent at all, and we believe it because we want to, because this anger – this anger that says “I didn’t get what I deserved” feels so much better than shame.

Let us consider these three angers: helplessness, powerlessness, misguidedness. Have we not felt them all? The anger of the women on the hill when they see what needs to be fixed and yet have no power to fix it; the anger that makes us want to scream -- at life, at God, at anyone -- to stop what cannot be stopped. Have we not felt this as well? The anger of the disciples that cries out in the pain of regret, with rage at what cannot be changed. This anger says, “I am sorry. I did not know.” This anger turns backward upon us, because, like the disciples, we always did know. And who among us can claim never to have been swept up in a mob, raging selfishly for someone else to suffer for a problem we caused or did not prevent or are not prepared to pay the cost of to fight today? This anger says: “You need to pay for doing this to me.” This anger avoids responsibility. This anger drowns out the shame.

These angers exist in our past, our present, and our future. They visit us when we are sitting while a loved one wastes away from a terrible disease that cannot be cured. While watching a family member walk out of our lives who we cannot bring back. History has been a long and weary witness to anger – those unable to save their family being marched off to the ovens in the Holocaust; the victims of racism who have been enslaved by violence and bigotry; the mob that flings its rage out in selfishness and cruelty and turns it back on the harm it causes.

What could Good Friday possibly teach us about what to do with our helpless, or shameful, or selfish anger? Good Friday didn’t work out. Pontius Pilate didn’t find some hidden decency and courage inside himself and set Jesus free. The mob didn’t recognize their own hate, and stop; no, they just kept yelling, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” No sympathetic Roman guard spirited Jesus to safety. No miracle from heaven lifted him off the cross. None of that happened. Jesus died an ugly, painful death. He died nailed to a cross so that he could not even be comforted with a kind touch. On that cross, in the midst of his own doubt and helpless anger, he asked for our forgiveness, at the very time we should have been asking for his. What should we do with that? Where should we take the helpless anger?

Good Friday is the darkest day of our faith: it takes us into the valley of death and makes us complicit in what happens there. It forces us to look at the cruelty and weakness of humanity and see ourselves in that same mob. It teaches us life’s hardest lesson: sometimes, here on earth, good people fall, and nobody picks them up. So we stand in the shadow of the cross and we feel that powerless, guilt-ridden, vengeful anger, and think “What is the point of anything?”

And yet, we know the answer. For Jesus taught us. He taught us when he defended the vulnerable, when he chastised the Pharisees, when he trashed the temple. He taught us that we can be angry, but only for the right reasons, only for other people, only if we use that anger to change the world, only if we wrap it in compassion and tolerance and mercy, and temper it with mindful prayer.

Anger, as Jesus taught, is not useful when it distorts the truth and conceals solutions for its own purposes. When we feel that fierce cry within us that something is wrong, we can bring it to God, who can bear all things. And our anger, once helpless and paralyzing, can become something righteous, and motivating.

And we will see, as the women at the cross will see, that if we could not save the ones we loved, we can still save the gospel in their memory. We will see, as the disciples see, that we can create something honorable from guilt.

We have our very own example today, standing guard in this time of betrayal and friendship broken by our closest ally. We feel helpless to change a government we didn’t elect and can’t control. We feel guilty, perhaps, that we did not think about protecting the values and sovereignty and economy of our own country long before it was under threat. We feel rage, the kind that wants to boo the anthem of the opposing team, even at a kid’s hockey game.

How will we transform that anger into something better?

First, we must own and carry the weight of it. This is what today is meant for. We are invited to stand in the shadow of the cross. To feel all that pain. To own all that anger. To ponder it in our hearts. And to lay it before the cross, to ask God to help us carry it, awaiting the certain answer to guide us forward. Amen.