Homily for Good Friday 2014

My brothers and sisters, we have just heard proclaimed in our midst Luke’s account of Jesus suffering and death. Words are often insufficient to truly parse the meaning of what we have just received into our minds and hearts, so I will, out of respect for the gravity of today’s readings, speak to you in my own words, and with a few borrowed words, only briefly…

What you are about to hear might, on some level, challenge the way you think about our Lord’s Passion and Death. I offer these words to you, not because what you may already hold in your heart and spirit concerning Jesus’ death is wrong, but because if you have not fully comprehended the depth and dimension of what we solemnly commemorate here today, then you are missing the point.

Today’s observance brings to our mind, and rightly so, extremely painful thoughts. Thorns… whips… nails… blood… death… All this is part and parcel of the Good Friday experience.

But if we focus on the thorns, whips, nails, blood… if we focus on the death, and that is the end of our experience, then we have totally missed the point.

The point is not the suffering.

It's the love that was willing to endure such suffering.

It's important to remember this.

Remember.

Today, we will behold the cross and, through ritual, express our connection to the love that gives the cross meaning, the sacrificial love that was willing to expend itself that we might have life.

We will receive that same blood, together with the body from which it was spilled, as we partake of the Eucharist.

We do this because of the selfless, sacrificial love of Jesus.

It's important to remember this.

Remember.

Note: The words in italics in the preceding manuscript are drawn, with permission, from a Facebook post by the Reverend Peter Pearson. He has graciously granted permission for his profound and meaningful words to be used in this Homily.