Sermons:
-
Crucifying Jesus, a Good Friday
sermon based on John 18:1-19:42
by Rev. Heather McCance
(see
below)
-
The
Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross (Video and devotion)
-
Christ’s Thirst
and Ours, John
19:28,
by Dr. David Rogne
-
Those
Who Stand Beneath the Cross Good Friday,
anonymous
-
Tenebrae
Service
-
The
Penitent Thief, Luke 23:39-43
by Rev. Doug Ferguson
Jesus is Dead, John
18:1-19:42, by Rev. Susan Russel
-
The
Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, all Gospels,
edited by Rev. Frank Schaefer
-
My God, My God, Why have You Forsaken Me?, Psalm 22,
by Rev. F. Schaefer
-
Splendid Sorrow, by Rev. Thomas Hall
-
Here Is Your Son,
John 19:26-27
by
Dr David Rogne
-
Obedience, Forgiveness,
Love, John 18:1-19:42, anonymous
_______________________________________________________________
 Crucifying
Jesus
a Good Friday sermon based on John 18:1-19:42
by Rev. Heather McCance
When I was seventeen, I took part in a Good
Friday service at my home church. When the cross was brought into the
church and placed in its stand, the priest invited us all to gather
around it and write our names on small slips of paper. He then brought
out a hammer and some nails, and one by one, we each nailed our own
name to the cross. It was quite powerful, a reminder that Jesus hung
there for each one of us.
A few years later, I attended a church that handed out a version of
this morning's reading. Members of the congregation read the various
parts of the reading, and we, the congregation, were to be the crowds.
So we, who only a few minutes earlier had sung out "All glory, laud
and honor," now called out "crucify him! Crucify him!"
It's a very jarring progression we make from Palm Sunday Sunday to
Good Friday. We enter with joy, waving our palm branches, singing our
praises to the king who comes in the name of the Lord. And we then
bear witness through the ages as we hear him crying in anguish from
the cross. Our emotions are stirred, sometimes in spite of ourselves,
and we can find ourselves protesting, "How could they do it?" The
chief priests were one thing; Jesus had clearly threatened their
power. I can understand Pilate, too: he was a politician, caught up in
a tight-rope diplomacy act--trying to please the crowds to forestall a
riot.
Looking back at what happened on that Thursday night and Friday
morning nearly 2000 years ago, I find myself pulled in two directions.
One is to wonder, "How could they do what they did?" I wonder about
Pilate, walking the tightrope between the wishes of the crowd in front
of him, close to riot, and the demands of his Roman rulers back home.
I wonder about the chief priests, sworn to never take a human life,
and yet dodging their own law by getting the government involved,
because of a man who threatened their authority. I wonder about Judas,
what it was that caused him to do what he did, and the despair he must
have felt afterward that made him take his own life. I wonder about
the crowds, the ones who called "Hosanna to the Son of David!" on the
first day of the week but yelled out "Let him be crucified!" on the
sixth.
On the one hand, I find myself condemning them. I would never do
that, I think. I can't imagine being a part of a crowd so
bloodthirsty. I can't imagine giving into such an obviously unjust
demand just for politically expediency. I can't imagine the level of
hypocrisy needed to say "Thou shalt not kill," and then seeking a
man's death. That year I was asked to read the part of the crowd in
the story, "Crucify him!" I found the words catching in my throat, I
wanted so very badly not to say them. [continue]
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