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St. Andrew's Church
An Anglican Church • Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
Preached by
Stuart Pike
Rector
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Good Friday
St. Andrew's Church
14 April 2006 - The Passion of Christ: John 18:1 - 19:42
It's about a journey. And, like any journey, there are highs and lows, there are exciting parts and dull parts. But, like any journey you must press on to complete it.
Our lives are like that too. Sometimes we get to control where our lives are going (or at least we like to think we are in control) and then there are the times when we know we are completely out of control. Ask anyone who's had a serious illness or accident, or who has lost a friend or a loved one. Our lives have truly wonderful moments, exciting moments, sometimes we have even years at a time which are mostly pleasant. For some reason those years seem to rush by at a break neck speed. Then there are the years which I like to call dog years. They creep along. Some people here today have lived through some of the darkest times imaginable. That is part of life's journey too.
The most important thing to understand is that Jesus went through all of that too. In fact, Jesus is there on the journey with us. Today is that part of the journey which we would most rather not go through.
It is hard to know what to say after hearing the passion of our Lord Jesus. The story itself is its most powerful witness. The story brings us to the lowest point of the Christian year when we remember the suffering and death of Jesus. Today's part of the journey doesn't give us a happy ending, but leaves us at the tomb. Jesus is dead.
Some years we have done a different type of service on Good Friday. We have done what is called the stations of the Cross. Some of you have experienced that with us. Today we follow those same stations of the cross in listening to the Gospel story and it is an essential part of the journey of faith. Jesus isn't a fair-weather friend, he is with us through thick and thin. We need to follow him through the worst as well.
I think of how it must have felt to have been one of the disciples and to see my friend and master be taken in that dark night in the garden. What would it have been like to be Peter, and to realize that I have denied my Lord three times? Or to be one of the others who ran away in fear and hid until it was all over? What would it have been like to be one of the women who saw him stumble and fall on his death-march? What would it have been like to be John or Mary and to hear Jesus' words from the cross and to see him take his final breath?
At the beginning of Lent I invited parishioners to begin a journey of faith. The tradition in the Anglican Church is to keep lent holy by taking on a discipline of Prayer, Fasting, Reading of Scriptures and inspection of the interior self. Those are the stepping stones of a journey of faith.
Today, unbelievably, that journey leads us to the cross and the tomb and desolation. And here we must stay, and consider the ways in which we have participated in Christ's death.
It is here, in the depths of despair at the tomb that a miracle will happen, just as it is often at the darkest parts of our journey of life that our faith is strengthened. But that will only happen after the vigil we keep at the tomb.
Here, let us stop and stay and be disconsolate. For today our Lord has been taken from us. Amen.
