Jesus Is Lifted Up... to Everywhere!

John 20:1-18

April 1, 2018 + 

The Resurrection of the Lord

I.

Mary Magdalene has this unprecedented and mind-shattering experience in the garden with the risen Christ.  After she recognizes him and falls down to worship him, he tells her two things.  First, she is not to hold on to him.  And secondly, she is to go and tell the disciples that he is ascending to God.  

When he tells her not to hold on to him, I wonder if he isn’t saying, “Don’t make this about just me.  Don’t cling to my mortal, historical, physical, temporal nature.  Certainly remember me.  Certainly learn and teach and keep my commandments.  Certainly continue to follow me.  My life among you is not meaningless or incidental.  But it’s also more than history and memory.  Don’t reduce me to a figure, however great, who merely lived in the past.  I am the way and the truth and the life.  I am the resurrection.  Do not dwell on who I was to the exclusion of who I am.  Don’t make me distant, either relegated to the past, or in some far away heaven, or only coming at the end of time.  Realize that I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

So many times in the gospels, and this one in particular, Jesus says “I am.”  Only rarely does he say “I was.”  It is certainly true that he was.  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  His incarnation and earthly ministry is the supreme event in human history.  He embodies true humanity, the same humanity we share, which includes having a mortal body and living in space and time.  In so doing he blesses and sanctifies our life and the whole creation.  He even leaves behind on the earth the water and blood of his crucifixion.  

Yet, when Jesus wants to communicate his identity and mission to us, he characteristically says, “I am.”  “I am” of course is the name God uses with Moses back in the book of Exodus.  In saying “I am” so often, Jesus claims to be one with God, a claim that gets him into a lot of trouble.  It means that Jesus is always present.  He pre-exists his human birth, and he post-exists his human death.

The point of our focus on Jesus is that we find in him both ourselves and God.  We follow Jesus, not as a dead historical figure we revere and cherish in our memories and traditions.  We follow him as someone who is present with us now.   

That’s why it is so important for Mary to tell the disciples that Jesus is in the process of ascending.  Ascension is not going away to somewhere else; it is going everywhere.  At the same time, it is not going away; it is going within everything.  The image of ascension, of course, is a movement upward, into the sky.  That’s the way it is depicted in Luke’s writings.  But up doesn’t mean away and gone.  It means Jesus rises to God’s all-inclusive, infinite vision.  The higher you go the more you see, the more you see the more you know.  Ascension means an expansion of Jesus’ embrace until he is present everywhere.

II.

The ultimate act of Jesus is his “lifting up,” something he has been predicting since at least chapter 3.  “When I am lifted up,” he says, “I will draw all people to myself.”  “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that those who believe in him may have eternal life.”  His lifting up is the way he saves the world because in his lifting up he embraces the world.

The process of Jesus’ being lifted up starts when he is nailed to the cross and hoisted upright to hang there and die.  The next stage of his being lifted up is his resurrection from the dead, which Mary now witnesses.  The final stage — and these are all continuous, by the way — is his ascension into heaven.  This ascension is the goal and completion of his lifting up, and that’s what Mary is supposed to tell the disciples about.

Her message is not, “Hey guys, Jesus is back, but he’s not going to hang around for long so you better see him quick.”  No.  Ascension does not mean that Jesus goes away.  When he has her tell the disciples that he is ascending to God it is good news because he is losing his limitations, his boundaries, his being subject to time and space.  He will be able to be with them far more directly and immediately by the influence and inspiration of his Spirit, which he gives them a week later.  It is not that they have to see him now or never see him again; it is that they have to get ready to see and experience him in a completely different way.  They have to open their perceptions to discern the presence of the Lord, not so much with their senses as another human next to them, but now in spirit, with, within, and among them.

The point being that now he is with them forever, and by extension, he is also with us forever, in the same way.  Now, with a risen and ascended Lord, we find him here.  He is not limited to history.  In fact, even the Scriptures are given, not just as a testimony to his time in the flesh, but as an aid to unlock our perceptions so we can see, hear, feel, and follow him today.

The resurrection means that Jesus is present with us even now, if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.  The disciplines of repentance, of gaining a new way of thinking and acting, are to adjust our consciousness so that we can see Jesus’ now.  That is Mary’s first exclamation to the disciples when she goes back to them: “I have seen the Lord!”

That is in a sense the primal Christian confession, that we have seen the Lord, that Jesus Christ is alive and real to us, that we have experienced his grace and forgiveness and peace in our hearts.  We don’t perceive him as directly as Mary, but our interior knowledge of him is even more convincing. 

III.

We, the church, are called to be a community of people who have also seen the Lord.  We gather for only one purpose, which is to see Jesus and discern his will for us here and now.  We are a people who have awakened to the truth of Jesus’ ever-presence with us, and have come to know and see him at work in our lives.

We see and know him first of all in the Sacrament he gives us by which to remember him, where we share together in his Body and Blood, and his life enters us and becomes us as we become him.  We see and know him as well in the Scriptures containing his teachings.  He refers to both of these as the Bread of Life because they convey him to us most effectively.

We see him as well in the life of the community.  In the joy and forgiveness, the peace and the affection, the healing and the acceptance which we share in together as his gathered people.  In the church is where we learn to listen, not to the compulsions and desires of our own egos, not to the demands of society and practical politics, not to the supposed necessities and inevitabilities of economics, but to his Word alone.  In the church we learn to subject our every thought and impulse to his example, which is always love.  Our only prayer is that we see and know him and his will and that his will be done in and through us.  

And because we see him in the life of the gospel community, in Word, Sacrament, and prayer, and in the love we share together, we begin to see him out in the world as well.  We see him in the places of suffering and need with which he identifies on the cross.  He explicitly joins himself in solidarity with the broken, threatened, victimized, poor, and hurting world, with creation at risk and people liable to harm.  We know that when we are serving them, we are serving him and so serving God.  We know that when we are subject to suffering, especially for his sake, we are with him.  

We see and know him as well in every act of selfless kindness, every act of personal sacrifice, every act of generosity and decency, every act of forgiveness and humility that we perform or witness, especially for enemies, for the hated, and for those who cannot repay.

We see him when we realize that life and love always win, in the end.  God has even given us springtime as a planetary parable of resurrection, as the miracle of life emerges from the cold, dead, darkness of winter.

Seeing Christ’s Presence in all of this means knowing that God has breathed the universe into being, and it is all good, it is all blessed, it is all sacred, it is all holy, and learning to live in that knowledge, as Jesus teaches.

This is what Mary has to tell the disciples.  “I have seen the Lord, and soon so will we all!”  He is ascending into everything.  He is infusing the world with his Spirit.  He is bringing salvation into all of life.  He is here!  He is present!  He is with and within his people!  He is alive!  And he is love.  

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Caesarian Section.

John 19:31-37

March 30, 2018 + Good Friday

The final callous, brutal act of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus is this incident where the soldiers come to break the legs, and thus hasten the death, of the crucified men, so as not to have them hanging there over the holiday.  This was a concession because the Romans like to have victims in plain sight even long after their death, as birds and animals would come and pick at the bodies.  Crucifixion was even more of a deterrent if everyone saw the bodies desecrated and obliterated in this way.  

So they break the legs the other 2 criminals, but when they get to Jesus they see that he is already dead, and to prove it one of the soldiers thrusts his spear into the flank of Jesus’ body.

A flow of blood and water issues from the wound, pouring out onto the ground.  This is a big enough deal for some reason that the gospel writer feels it necessary to add his own personal verification as an eye witness, “so that you also may believe.”  How does hearing about this blood and water pouring out of Jesus’ body aid our faith?  How does it make us more likely to trust in him?  

As Jesus is being lifted up, a process that begins on the cross and culminates in the resurrection, what he leaves behind of himself, of his physical flesh, on the earth is this puddle of watery blood in the dust.  He is being lifted up for the life of the world, and he leaves a bit of his life in the world.  For water is the life of the planet and blood is the life of life.  In this way he does not abandon us, but leaves some of himself — literally and physically — on the earth, sanctifying it, blessing it, infusing it with himself.

Theologians have pointed out how the water and the blood represent the 2 sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, by which the continuing gospel community is constituted.  We are reborn in Christ by the water of Baptism, and fed by him in the blood of the Eucharist.  It is almost as if Jesus is in labor on the cross, giving birth to the church by the Caesarian section administered by a Roman soldier.  What he intended to prove death, actually becomes the new birth of the church.  In that act the old humanity dies, and the new humanity is born.  Jesus’ wound is actually the birth canal of the church, the vanguard of the new humanity.

It has to be “Caesarian,” that is, it has to be a final, gratuitous act of violence by the epitome of power and hatred that is Empire.  Empire itself has to be neutralized; it has to be turned against itself, so that the Empire’s reign of death is doomed in the birth of God’s reign, and the brutality of one inhuman lord is swallowed up and permanently overwhelmed in the victory of God in the self-offering of the true Lord, Jesus Christ.

And what happens to that water, shining there under the horrible cross, reflecting the sky, the water that once constituted the living body of Christ our God?  It evaporates.  It continues its eternal participation in the cycle of water on the Earth.  It becomes cloud.  It rains down.  It flows in rivers.  It joins the ocean.  It is taken into plants and animals.  It is mixed and scattered, dissipated and infused, and over time the very water that was Jesus literally touches and blesses the whole earth.  It is now in every living thing and each one of us.

After his resurrection, Jesus leaves a third thing with us: his breath, by which he gives his disciples the Holy Spirit.  In his first letter, the apostle John will remind us of these three things that the Lord Jesus, the Word of God, leaves of himself in the creation: the Spirit, the water, and the blood.  These are the testimony to the eternal life in Jesus, God’s Son.  These are his continued Presence, with, within, and among us and all creation.  

In this way Jesus’ lifting up becomes the life of the world, when we see in him, by the power of the Spirit, that because of the cross it is all holy, it is all sacred, it is all blessed.  He embodies literally and fulfills God’s initial declaration of the goodness of creation. 

Because of the cross, the final produce of which is this outpouring of God’s life in the water and the blood from the body of the Lord, we may now walk in that newness of life of which Paul speaks, which is the new life of compassion, nonviolence, humility, forgiveness, and love which Jesus embodies.  Because of the cross we are now able to see the truth that this whole place, and every life, and every person is good and precious.  Because of the water and the blood and the breath, we are reborn, we are fed, we are in-spired now to know and therefore trust our lives to the goodness of the God who by this grace is everywhere and fills all things.         

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Dying to Gather God's Children.

John 11:45-53

March 25, 2018

I.

The justification for killing Jesus, in the words of the High Priest, Caiaphas, is that “it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”  In saying this he is making a political calculus: it is better to kill one troublemaker than to risk annoying the Romans so that they destroy the nation and Temple.

Caiaphas thought that if they gave the Romans this Jesus fellow, they would not threaten the rest of the nation.  If they rat out one of their own people, the conquerors will let them stay in power.  It is the logic of all oppressors, colonialists, slavers, and their collaborators.  Everyone who benefits from the status quo will gladly betray and sacrifice whomever jeopardizes their own comfortable gig.  

Caiaphas here embraces the religious logic of sacrifice, which is that if we can focus our fear, shame, and anger, and pour it onto one hapless victim in an act of lethal violence, we can prevent the whole nation from collapsing in disunity and conflict.  Sacrifice was an act of unifying violence.  The theory being that one victim had to be slaughtered for the benefit of all.

In the Old Testament, God coaxes the people away from the barbarity of human sacrifice.  Now they would only sacrifice animals, using the detailed rituals we find in Leviticus.  Then the people would often eat the meat in special feasts.  That is what the Temple was for, after all.  This was the High Priest’s job.  

But the logic of redemptive violence remained stuck in the human heart.  It was still about killing one so many can live.  And, if the transference to animals was supposed to mitigate violence against humans, like so much of the Law, it didn’t work.  We were supposed to kill animals instead of people.  What happened was we killed animals alright… but we kept killing people too.  The archetypal power of the myth of sacrifice was too strong. 

This is the same foul reasoning that justifies lynching.  The mob preserves its unity by taking out its paranoid rage on a selected individual.  It identifies a person as a threat which must be eradicated in order to preserve the social order.  And it is seen as a good thing.  White people in America used to send each other postcards of lynchings, showing the happy, satisfied crowd under the twisted and broken body of the victim. 

This was why the Romans crucified people in the first place.  They picked individuals to sacrifice for the common good… as it was defined by them.  They said, in effect, “Be glad we are inflicting our rage on this poor slob because otherwise we might have to come and slaughter all of you.  Oh, and you don’t want to be this guy.”

The logic of redemptive violence is always about killing someone else so we can live.  It reduces life to a zero-sum game where some only live because others die.  That is the choice we are given: Unless we knock off this enemy, we’re all going to die.  This is what terrorists are thinking when they attack Gays or Muslims or immigrants or foreigners or African Americans, as happened just this week in Austin and Sacramento.      

II.

Unfortunately, I find that many of us at least unconsciously still buy into the corrosive myth of redemptive violence.  We basically agree with Caiaphas here.  If our religion and our nation are to survive, someone has to pay, is the thinking.  Someone has to die.  Someone’s blood has to be shed and offered in sacrifice.  

Remember when Caiaphas says this.  It is just after Jesus has raised Lazarus from death.  Death is the ultimate power.  The fear of death is the whole motivation behind the institution of sacrifice which was Caiaphas’ meal ticket as High Priest.  Yet Jesus has defeated death.  Caiaphas is afraid that Jesus’ subsequent popularity will anger the Romans, and that they will come and demolish the Temple and destroy the nation.  All Caiaphas cares about is his religion and his nation.  Caiaphas thinks Jesus has to die to preserve his self-serving order, as a sacrifice to Rome, to save the nation and religion from Rome’s wrath.  

Jesus’ death is necessary, but not to preserve any nation or religion, and certainly not to maintain a particular social order or way of life.  If we think Jesus came to save us from death in the sense of exempting us from change and transformation, then we are completely on board with Caiaphas.  That’s what he is hoping for when he says Jesus has to be the one man who dies for the people.

But when the gospel says he will indeed die for the nation, it is not in the sense Caiaphas means about redemptive violence.  It means that his death, because of who he is, will save the nation — and all nations — from the lie of redemptive violence itself.  His death exposes, swallows up, absorbs, negates, and erases the false and destructive idea in the human heart that violence can ever be redemptive.  

His death saves because it reconciles us to God by revealing God’s true nature to us on the cross as the suffering servant, the endless font of love, the ocean of compassion, the infinite well of forgiveness, who pours out eternal life for us.  God is revealed in the Word, Jesus Christ.  And Jesus never demands payment in blood or coin as the price of forgiveness or redemption or healing or anything.  Never.    

Not only does God in Jesus not demand someone else’s blood in order to be placated, in Jesus Christ God’s blood is shed, God’s life is given for the life of the world, God takes on the form of a slave, becoming humbly obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, according to Paul.  In Christ, God is on the cross reconciling the world.  There is no daylight between God and Jesus.  God becomes the ultimate sacrifice, not to reform or replace our sacrifices but to end the whole false myth of sacrifice altogether. 

Just as in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus repeatedly criticizes people using to do evil a Law that God intends for good, so he confronts the whole sacrificial system to which the same thing happened.  God does this by becoming the ultimate, absolute, and final sacrifice.  The sacrifice in which sacrifice itself is sacrificed, enduring the death in which death itself dies.  

III.

Against falsely redemptive violence, Jesus embodies the truth of redemptive suffering that neutralizes, negates, disarms, and dissolves violence.  Jesus’ death is indeed necessary, not to placate God’s wrath, which turns God into a monster, but to put an end to ours.  Because we are the real monsters here.     

The gospel writer tells us that indeed, “Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God.”  He dies for the nation first by showing that it is indeed just another nation, oppressed and victimized by Rome.  They were not special.  His death reveals the truth of their situation as conquered people.  But he also dies for the nation in the sense of fulfilling the sacrificial system given in the Torah, and doing in himself what the sacrifices of animals could not do: win for the nation their forgiveness and true identity as God’s people.

His death also gathers the dispersed children of God, who are all people, everyone made in God’s Image, but unaware of their true nature and destiny.  In the preaching and witness of the apostles, this dispersed children of God perceive and come to know about the Jesus who is lifted up on the cross.  But instead of taking it as a warning of what would happen to them if they didn’t tow the line, as the Romans intended, they would see him as their liberator from Rome’s power.  For not even crucifixion is strong enough to keep him dead.  

The dispersed children of God would see in him their own suffering and victimization at the hands of cruel powers, and at the same time they would see the awful consequences of their own sinful actions, and feel God’s forgiveness.  In him, we come to reject the world of violence that claims to be redemptive because we realize we are a part of that world.  Like the hymn says, is it the awareness that “I crucified thee.”  Not because we were literally there when he was crucified, but because we participate in the continual victimization and sacrifice of weak and poor people all the time.     

And because his being lifted up on the cross is completed and fulfilled in his being lifted up from the tomb in resurrection life, the dispersed children of God would know that to identify with him and share in his death is to gain a share in his life as well.  It would be to put death behind them and advance with the Christ into new life.  The dispersed children of God would then find their unity not in mutual hatred and murder of a victim, as in the sacrificial system, but in the neutralization of death itself, and its transmutation into new and eternal life.

And these dispersed children of God would find in him a new way of life, without fear, bereft of anger, and shorn of shame.  They would gather together in new communities of peace and forgiveness, leaving behind violence and inequality.

IV.

Today we commence our walk through Holy Week, a time of remembrance and appreciation of Jesus’ passion and death for us.  In these days, let us see him lifted up as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.  Let us pay close attention to the ways we inflict violence on others, and realize that such violence is inflicted on him.  Let us identify with him in our own suffering.  Let us indeed die with him to the cruelty of our ego-centric and violent ways, join together with all the dispersed children of God, and be ready to share in his resurrection, delivering us to the freedom and love of eternal life, next Sunday.

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Good Friday Tenebrae Liturgy 2018

Good Friday Tenebrae

March 30, 2018

Prelude:

Psalm

    

Save me, O God, 

   for the waters have come up to my neck. 

I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; 

   I have come into deep waters, 

   and the flood sweeps over me. 

I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. 

   My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.  

More in number than the hairs of my head 

   are those who hate me without cause; 

many are those who would destroy me, 

   my enemies who accuse me falsely. 

What I did not steal must I now restore? 

It is for your sake that I have borne reproach, 

  that shame has covered my face.

I have become a stranger to my kindred, 

  an alien to my mother's children. 

It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; 

  the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

When I humbled my soul with fasting, 

  they insulted me for doing so.  

When I made sackcloth my clothing, 

  I became a byword to them.  

I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate, 

  and the drunkards make songs about me. 

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD. 

At an acceptable time, O God, 

   in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me. 

With your faithful help rescue me from sinking in the mire; 

   let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.  

Do not let the flood sweep over me, 

   or the deep swallow me up, 

   or the Pit close its mouth over me. 

Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good; 

   according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. 

For the LORD hears the needy, 

   and does not despise his own that are in bonds. 

Let heaven and earth praise him, 

   the seas and everything that moves in them. 

For God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah; 

   and his servants shall live there and possess it; 

   the children of his servants shall inherit it, 

   and those who love his name shall live in it.      From Psalm 69

Anthem, 

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.  Isaiah 53:7

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

*Hymn: “Lamb of God”

We extinguish candles during the hymn.

Hebrew Scriptures and Gospel Reading

Narrator

The soldiers

Pilate

The Jews, chief priests, police

Jesus

He was despised and rejected by others;
   a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
   he was despised, and we held him of no account. 

Surely he has borne our infirmities
   and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
   struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
   crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
   and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
   we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him   

   the iniquity of us all. 

Isaiah 53:3-6

Hymn: #93, “Ah, Holy Jesus”

We extinguish candles during the hymn.

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters.  It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover.  So Pilate went out to them and said, 

‘What accusation do you bring against this man?’ 

They answered, 

‘If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.’ 

Pilate said to them, 

‘Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.’ 

The Jews replied, 

‘We are not permitted to put anyone to death.’ 

(This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.)  Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, 

‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ 

Jesus answered, 

‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ 

Pilate replied, 

‘I am not a Jew, am I?  Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me.  What have you done?’ 

Jesus answered, 

‘My kingdom is not from this world.  If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ 

Pilate asked him, 

‘So you are a king?’ 

Jesus answered, 

‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ 

Pilate asked him, 

‘What is truth?’

After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, 

‘I find no case against him.  But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover.  Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ 

They shouted in reply, 

‘Not this man, but Barabbas!’ 

Now Barabbas was a bandit.       John 18:28-40

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By a perversion of justice he was taken away.   

Isaiah 53:7-8a

Hymn: #92, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus”

We extinguish candles during the hymn.

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.  And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe.  They kept coming up to him, saying, 

‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ 

and striking him on the face.  Pilate went out again and said to them, 

‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.’ 

So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.  Pilate said to them, 

‘Here is the man!’ 

When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, 

‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ 

Pilate said to them, 

‘Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.’ 

The Jews answered him, 

‘We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.’

Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever.  He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, 

‘Where are you from?’ 

But Jesus gave him no answer.  Pilate therefore said to him, 

‘Do you refuse to speak to me?  Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?’ 

Jesus answered him, 

‘You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’ 

From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, 

‘If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor.  Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.’

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha.  Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon.  He said to the Jews, 

‘Here is your King!’ 

They cried out, 

‘Away with him!  Away with him!  Crucify him!’ 

Pilate asked them, 

‘Shall I crucify your King?’ 

The chief priests answered, 

‘We have no king but the emperor.’ 

Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.     John 19:1-16

Hymn: #168, “Lord, Why Have You Forsaken Me?”     Psalm 22

We extinguish candles during the hymn.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
When you make his life an offering for sin,

he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities. 

Isaiah 53:10-11

So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.  There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.  Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross.  It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’  Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.  Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, 

‘Do not write, “The King of the Jews”, but, “This man said, I am King of the Jews.” ’ 

Pilate answered, 

‘What I have written I have written.’ 

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier.  They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top.  So they said to one another, 

‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ 

This was to fulfill what the scripture says,

‘They divided my clothes among themselves,

   and for my clothing they cast lots.’ 

And that is what the soldiers did.

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.  When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, 

‘Woman, here is your son.’ 

Then he said to the disciple, 

‘Here is your mother.’ 

And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.  After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), 

‘I am thirsty.’ 

A jar full of sour wine was standing there.  So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.  When Jesus had received the wine, he said, 

‘It is finished.’ 

Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.     John 19:16b-30

*Hymn: #102, “Were You There?”    

We extinguish candles during the hymn.

See, my servant shall… 

be exalted and lifted up.   

Isaiah 52:13

Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
   and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
   and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
   and made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53:12

Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity.  So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed.  Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him.        John 19:31-32

Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
   stricken for the transgression of my people.
They made his grave with the wicked
   and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
   and there was no deceit in his mouth. 

Isaiah 53:8b-9

*Hymn: #101, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”

We extinguish candles during the hymn.

Solemn Reproaches of the Cross

O my people, 

O my church, 

What have I done to you, 

or in what have I offended you?

O my people:

I breathed my life into you

and gave you power and wisdom.

I placed you secure in a magnificent garden,

and woke you to its surpassing beauty.

Yet we prefer to remain asleep

in our wishful thinking

and content with easy answers.

We cherish our comfortable routines,

and, placating others,

remain unconscious and silent

to the needs of the world.

Doing nothing while injustice reigns is not “peacemaking.”

Where were you when my people were being loaded into boxcars?

When will you turn

and be the blessing I created you to be?

Holy God, 

Holy and mighty, 

Holy immortal One, 

have mercy upon us.

O my people,

I gave you my authority

and made you the agent of my love.

I called you to protect my creation

and look out for the powerless.

But we are addicted to our own anger.

To get what we want

we employ violent words and actions

as our first response.

We advocate vengeance and retribution.

We harden our hearts against others

in a selfish craving 

to acquire, own, and control.

Your “leadership” is murdering my creation.

Who can survive under your bombs and missiles?

When will you turn

and be the blessing I created you to be?

Holy God, 

Holy and mighty, 

Holy immortal One, 

have mercy upon us.

O my people:

I gifted you with my compassion,

gave you gentleness and forgiveness.

I placed you in a perfect world

and opened your heart to wonder and grace

that you may enjoy the beauty and goodness

all around you.

But we dreamed up impossible standards,

withholding love to those who fail to meet them.

We find fault everywhere 

and live in perpetual disappointment and rage.

We judge others

and drive for order, efficiency, 

and a counterfeit perfection.

My creation bleeds from your “reforms.”

Who can tolerate being squeezed into your patterns? 

When will you turn

and be the blessing I created you to be?

Holy God, 

Holy and mighty, 

Holy immortal One, 

have mercy upon us.

O my people:

I crowned you with immeasurable and intrinsic value

placing a good and blessed heart within you.

I made you able to share in my love

in communion with others

without fear or shame.

But we look for affirmation elsewhere

and sell our souls for attention.

We gleefully trample others in our striving to be the best.

We adopt grandiose expectations for ourselves,

don masks to avoid responsibility,

and exist in terror of being found out.

The people you trample in your drive for “excellence” cry out to me.

Who can endure your grades, assessments, reviews, and evaluations?

When will you turn

and be the blessing I created you to be?

Holy God, 

Holy and mighty, 

Holy immortal One, 

have mercy upon us.

O my people:

I molded you in love 

and made you able to give and receive love

in infinite measure.

I filled your heart with joy.

But we turn your love into a scarce commodity

for exchange and compensation.

We become possessive of others

and connive to force them to need us.

We stew over our own perceived rejections.

You have given “love” a bad name and left many in sorrow.

Who can grow with you attached to them,

sucking out life and weighing them down?

When will you turn

and be the blessing I created you to be?

Holy God, 

Holy and mighty, 

Holy immortal One, 

have mercy upon us.

O my people:

I made you a channel, a vessel,

through which my goodness and blessing

may flow into the world.

I gave you my own creativity.

But we hate ourselves and despair of the future.

We withdraw into our precious individuality,

demanding to be treated as unique and special,

getting in the way of your goodness

and blocking your light.

Your negativity brings nightmares to my people,

poisoning their imagination.

Who can see the truth 

through the dense fog of despair you are blowing?

When will you turn

and be the blessing I created you to be?

Holy God, 

Holy and mighty, 

Holy immortal One, 

have mercy upon us.

O my people:

I created you secure and capable,

in kinship and communion with every living being.

I gave you my courage and authority

to live with integrity and goodness.

But we fail to trust you.

We are suspicious of others

and fearful of the world.

We exaggerate our problems

and blame others for them.

We react in cowardly violence,

creating a world of pain.

Your “security” is dividing my people against each other.

Your paranoia scapegoats the innocent,

inspiring surveillance, informants,

and lynch-mobs like the one that crucified me?

When will you turn

and be the blessing I created you to be?

Holy God, 

Holy and mighty, 

Holy immortal One, 

have mercy upon us.

O my people:

I breathed into being an abundant creation

overflowing with good things for all.

I gave you more than enough time

and resources to live in joy and plenty.

But we convince ourselves that we do not have enough.

We become addicted to consumption,

demand constant excitement,

and leave a trail of waste behind us,

killing what you made simply to enjoy.

You fill yourselves and leave others hungry.

Who can grow in the economy of gluttony you spawn? 

When will you turn

and be the blessing I created you to be?

Holy God, 

Holy and mighty, 

Holy immortal One, 

have mercy upon us.

O my people:

I poured into you inventiveness and wonder,

compassion and strength.

I made you real and loved you

beyond reason.

But we hoard goods and knowledge,

hiding our light out of irrational fear,

antagonizing those who get close to us,

and escaping into dark fantasies.

We lose ourselves in superiority and alienation. 

Your absent-minded analysis

leaves my creation depleted.

Who can breathe in the vacuum left by your hoarding? 

When will you turn

and be the blessing I created you to be?

Holy God, 

Holy and mighty, 

Holy immortal One, 

have mercy upon us.

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.  Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.  (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe.  His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.)  These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘None of his bones shall be broken.’  And again another passage of scripture says, ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced.’       John 19:33-37

Reflection, “Blood and Water”

After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body.  Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.  They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews.  Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid.  And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.       John 19:38-42

Hymn: “Lamb of God”  (refrain, slower & quieter)

The last candles are extinguished.

All depart in silence.