Good Friday
Some thoughts on Holy Week
Many of you know that we are in Holy Week, and today is none other than Good Friday, the day of the crucifixion of our Lord. The day before, yesterday, Maundy Thursday marked the Last Supper of our Lord with his Disciples. I want to discuss some of my thoughts from this Holy Week, during my time in meditation, and from a few sermons I heard. I also listened to some fantastic thoughts from a friend of mine, published with his permission, of course.
Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house. Peter followed at a distance, and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. Then a maid, seeing him as he sat in the light and gazing at him, said, “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” And a little later someone saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him; for he is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are saying.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
— Luke 22:54-62 RSV “Peter Denies Jesus”
Let’s walk back a little bit farther into Holy Week…
And when he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Beth′phage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village opposite, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat; untie it and bring it here. If any one asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this, ‘The Lord has need of it.’” So those who were sent went away and found it as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their garments on the colt they set Jesus upon it. And as he rode along, they spread their garments on the road. As he was now drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
— Luke 19:28-40 RSV “Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem”
How often in our lives do we do what Peter has done, what Jerusalem did, welcome Christ in, then a few short days later, crucify him? In our own lives, our own hearts, we often welcome Christ in, we walk into Church on Sunday excited, but by the pastor's third point in his sermon, we are already ready to trade in Christ for some lunch, or the afternoon game. We are more than happy to confess our faults and accept our need for Christ, but rarely are we actually willing to repent. To commit the time and effort actually to change our ways.
Holy Week is a time of the Church’s year were we meditate on the Passion of our Lord, a beatiful prayer that I’m fond of praying incapsulates what this week is about “By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion; by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and by the Coming of the Holy Spirit, Good Lord, deliver us.” This is a time when we reflect on the propitiation of our sins. Christ came to ransom us from sin and death, yet even this week, we take our sins back almost every day, practically without thought. On Sunday, we will hold our palms high, singing “Hosana Hosana,” but by the time we drive home, we’ve already forgotten and fallen back into sin.
Perhaps I am merely preaching to myself, but I suspect that I am not. For some strange reason, we as the modern Church are more than happy to make the claim that the Jews killed Christ, forgetting that there is no longer any Jew or Greek. The Church is now Israel, and as such, I believe it bears the blame for all the sins of Israel. Each and every one of us nailed Christ to the Cross; each and every one of us is the worker who murdered the vinedresser’s son. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn so aptly puts it, “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds… But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” Each of us is the Roman’s bartering for Christ’s clothes; we are all Peter, one day stating that we would die for Christ, on Thursday, asking Christ not only to wash his feet, but his whole body, and on Friday, denying that he ever knew him.
Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.— Good Friday, by Christina Rossetti
A friend of mine shared this poem with me, and it is such a beautiful poem, that so encapsulates us. How often do we forget what really happened on Easter? Through sheer exposure to the Cross and Passion of our Lord, we are desensitized to its significance, like Moses smiting the rock to bring forth water, we need to be smote, to bring forth tears. Tears for our Savior, our Lord, who humbled himself to the point of death, death on a cross nonetheless, for us, and yet we often still reject him. That is who we are, and yet Christ would still die for us, because that is who he is!
Some might say that we ought not to dwell on things like this, it’s dark and depressing; I heartily disagree. It’s good to recognize who we are, and who Christ is, that Christ came not to help the healthy, but the sick. Christ was our ransom, and IS our ransom. Just as Christ on the Cross cried out, “It was finished, is finished, and ever will be finished,” so are we in salvation. We came to Christ, are in Christ, and will be in Christ. Holy Week is the perfect time to reflect on this; are we coming to Christ still? Or are we content to rest on our faith from months and years ago? Are we content to be happy with Moses smiting the rock for the Israelites, or do we wish that Christ would smite us, to bring forth tears for him now? Will we fall and weep under the cross this week? Or will we shout “Hosana,” and then “Crucify him?” I hope that each of us can recognize that we all crucified Christ, but that he came down and willingly gave himself up as our ransom, so that we may step boldly before the throne and pray…
By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion; by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and by the Coming of the Holy Spirit, Good Lord, deliver us.
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— Godspeed
Jonathan R Kutz
Each of us is Peter denying Christ, but what about Judas?
Imagine betraying our Lord so outrightly, and dreadfully regretting it, but with such an overwhelming sense of shame and self-loathing that you cannot find it in you even to approach Him for forgiveness, and so instead you seek out an eternity as a wretch.
If I'm being candid and sincere, I have to say that I think I am Judas too. I must admit, were it not for the grace of our Lord, I would have certainly perished.
My heart breaks every time - during the Palm Sunday Passion reading - we reach the words, "And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself."