my good friday sermon

Pieta
Originally uploaded by gwbrark.

In the name of the + Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

It is finished.

The Lord of Life hangs lifeless on the cross. He who made all has himself been unmade for our sakes. He who gave man breath has this day heard that breath used to curse him. He who made man from the dust of the earth has this day suffered his own creatures to drive nails into his flesh. He who called his disciples by name has this day been forsaken by all of them.

When I first began to take my obligations as a Christian seriously, I would cook up ludicrous schemes for Lent. I would resolve to fast for forty days and forty nights, or to attend mass every day, or something else heroic and ascetical. Every year I would fail. And every year, remembering the previous year’s failure, my Lenten commitment would get smaller in the hope that I might once actually be able to carry through with it. By now, my Lenten commitments have become quite manageable. This year I resolved to pray the Angelus every day and to abstain from eating flesh meat on Fridays. The Angelus is a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and it only takes about a minute or two to pray, and I know it by heart, so I thought that this year maybe Lenten success would be finally within reach. Alas, it was not to be. This year was as big a failure as any, and I have to content myself with having only intermittently prayed the Angelus.

It is a source of shame to me that the easy terms of my religiosity – the daily praying of this little, tiny prayer – is too much for me to offer my Lord and King, Jesus who forsook everything that was his (and everything was his) so that I would not suffer condemnation; Jesus who hung on the cross for three hours so that I would live and be free. And I count his love so little that I cannot offer him the smallest token in return. When we read these stories in the gospel, our tendency is to find our counterparts in disciples like Peter, James, John, Martha, the Mary’s. But truth be told, I think that we are more often most like Judas, who counted the cost of the presence and friendship of God almighty, and found it trifling.

Today we are confronted with the cost of our disobedience and sin. Because we are petty and foolish and acquisitive, God sent his Son. And when Jesus ran up against our sin, it broke him. When our vanity and lust and pride and self-seeking and disdain were laid on him, he began to bleed and to suffocate. And after three hours of bleeding and suffocation, he died with the words “It is finished.”

In Latin the words are “consumatum est.” It is consummated; and that is somehow more fitting. For what we see in the dead visage of our crucified God is the full physical expression of his love for us. Jesus loved us intensely, and that love found carnal expression in an utterly gratuitous outpouring on the cross.

George Herbert was a great priest and poet who lived in Stuart England. In his poem “The Sacrifice,” we are asked to consider our Lord as Man of Sorrows. The poem has many poignant moments. One of the most striking, for me, is when it is observed that the cross represents life to everyone except Jesus. For our Lord was the Lord of Life. All life was his from the beginning. And the Lord of Life dies, so that we, the heirs of death from Adam, might live. Listen to the words of Herbert’s poem in which Jesus speaks:

The soldiers also spit upon that face
Which Angels did desire to have the grace,
And Prophets once to see, but found no place:
Was ever grief like mine?

Thus trimmed, forth they bring me to the rout,
Who Crucify him, cry with one strong shout.
God holds his peace at man, and man cries out:
Was ever grief like mine?

They lead me in once more, and putting then
Mine own clothes on, they lead me out again.
Whom devils fly, thus is he toss'd of men:
Was ever grief like mine?

And now weary of sport, glad to engross
All spite in one, counting my life their loss,
They carry me to my most bitter cross:
Was ever grief like mine?

My cross I bear myself, until I faint:
Then Simon bears it for me by constraint,
The decreed burden of each mortal Saint:
Was ever grief like mine?

O all ye who pass by, behold and see:
Man stole the fruit, but I must climb the tree;
The tree of life to all, but only me:
Was ever grief like mine?

Lo, here I hang, charged with a world of sin,
The greater world o' the two; for that came in
By words, but this by sorrow I must win:
Was ever grief like mine?

Such sorrow, as if sinful man could feel,
Or feel his part, he would not cease to kneel,
Till all were melted, though he were all steel.
Was ever grief like mine?

But, O my God, my God! why leavest thou me,
The Son, in whom thou dost delight to be?
My God, my God
Never was grief like mine.

Shame tears my soul, my body many a wound;
Sharp nails pierce this, but sharper that confound;
Reproaches, which are free, while I am bound:
Was ever grief like mine?

Now heal thyself, Physician; now come down.
Alas! I do so, when I left my crown
And Father's smile for you, to feel his frown:
Was ever grief like mine?

In healing not myself, there doth consist
All that salvation, which ye now resist;
Your safety in my sickness doth subsist:
Was ever grief like mine?

Betwixt two thieves I spend my utmost breath,
As he that for some robbery suffereth.
Alas! what have I stolen from you? [Only] death:
Was ever grief like mine?

A king my title is, prefix'd on high;
Yet by my subjects I'm condemn'd to die
A servile death in servile company:
Was ever grief like mine?

They gave me vinegar mingled with gall,
But more with malice: yet, when they did call,
With Manna, Angels' food, I fed them all:
Was ever grief like mine?

They part my garments, and by lot dispose
My coat, the type of love, which once cured those
Who sought for help, never malicious foes:
Was ever grief like mine?

Nay, after death their spite shall further go;
For they will pierce my side, I full well know;
That as sin came, so Sacraments might flow:
Was ever grief like mine?

But now I die; now all is finished.
My woe, man's weal: and now I bow my head:
Only let others say, when I am dead,
Never was grief like mine.