Seven Words of love from the Cross

by Rev. Lisa Stewart

9:30 a.m. Combined Service at Wesley - 21 March, 2008 - Good Friday, Year A

Reading 1 Mark 15: 25-26, 33-34 25It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”  33When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  (NRSV)

Reflection 1
As we stand here at the foot of the cross on this Good Friday, we witness Jesus’ final moments through the testimonies of the writers of the gospels: of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each of them trying to wrestle, in their own unique way, with what must have seemed to them, as to us, this darkest moment in our shared history. They bring diverse perspectives, each remembers slightly differently these final moments, yet in all their differences they understand that what happens here on the cross is not some dark tragedy – but the highest expression of love – human and divine.

For Matthew and Mark, the sheer depths of that love is revealed in Jesus cry: ‘My God ,my God, why have you abandoned me? It is a cry that at some stage or other we will find ourselves echoing in our own lives, a cry we hear ringing out too often in the life of our broken world. It is a very human cry – the cry from the depths, the very extreme of our existence.

But from this day, this Good Friday, it is no longer a cry to an absent God, but to the God who has journeyed right to the very edge with us, for us.
There is no place in life, or in death, that can take us from the infinite love of God that reaches out to us, even from the cross, especially from the cross, to show us the way through to new life.

Reading 2 Luke 32:33-34, 39-46a 33When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 39One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”  42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” 44It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (NRSV)

Reflection 2
As Jesus lies dying on the cross, betrayed by his friends, cast out from his community, beaten and battered by the inhumanity that we are all only to capable of, we should expect judgement, we should find ourselves cast out from the hope and promise of the new life, the new kingdom that he had preached, had promised.

As Jesus blood flows, so do these words wash over us, making us clean, whole again: Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.’

‘Forgive them’, forgive us - we are not cast out, we are not left behind – unbelievably, despite all of our failures of character, of courage, of moral fibre, our betrayals, our criminal acts, our ethical omissions – we are all, still, incredibly, embraced in the hope, the promise of the new life, the paradise that Jesus has brought so near, so close.

We still have or place at the table, at his table – unworthy guests we may be.
But then this is a man whose life has been fuelled by the spirit, the spirit of love, the spirit that forgives, includes, welcomes and renews. The spirit that Jesus shows us comes from the Father, his Father, his God, the God he shows us finally to be the God who is love – into whose hands he, we can, commend, entrust ourselves and those we love.

Reading 3 John 25b-30 Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. 28After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), “I am thirsty.” 29A 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. 30When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (NRSV)

Reflection 3
To be part of a family, to be part of a community, a people, a society, is - in the language of the bible, to be ‘born of a woman’. There is no other way for us into the world.

As Jesus life flows out of him, his final act of love in John’s gospel, is to secure the life of the small fragile community he has gathered around him, to continues to grow, to flourish.
That is what lies behind those strange words to his mother and his most loved disciple – ‘Women, here is your son’, ‘Here is your mother’. In the language of the bible Jesus is saying – my life, that I received from this women, is now your life. You stand now in my place - I live through you.

The community of disciples that have gathered around Jesus during his life, are, in this extraordinary act of love, made more than followers, more than friends – now his family – his brothers and sisters, gathered once again and now irrevocably, to be his people, to live his life, to walk his way in the world.

As he hands over his way of life to them, the life that brings to flesh and blood God’s own life, Jesus says the words that signal that, at last the whole promise of the scriptures, the whole history of the people of God and the promise of God’s new kingdom is fulfilled: ‘I am thirsty’.

Only then can he say, finally – it is finished. Not ‘it is over’, not ‘the end’ – but it is ‘completed’, ‘accomplished’, not the end but a whole new beginning.

Jesus breathes his last, but soon we will feel the winds of his spirit breathing new life at last into us and our waiting world.

Thanks be to the great love of God.

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