\u201cFor 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.\u201d
Pilate asked him, \u201cWhat is truth?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Good Friday comes every year with its unique burden of grief. We know the story, we have heard it, felt it, wept over it. But every year it comes to us with renewed regret and sorrow, even though, for the Christian, the outcome of the story does not remain in tragedy but emerges in triumph. Yet the pain of it never diminishes. When we hear the words of John, so simple and so utterly heartbreaking, we allow our hearts to be wounded anew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What strikes the listener and participant in this drama is the injustice of it all\u2014the actions that bring the prophecy of Isaiah to its startling reality: the one who lived in total obedience to God is being made an object of scorn. The one who loved so thoroughly and so completely is being left alone, spat upon, and rejected\u2014a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Despite all the affliction and suffering Jesus, willingly, without resistance, \u201cpoured out himself to death\u201d; he who was without sin \u201cwas numbered with transgressors,\u201d as it says in Isaiah, \u201cbore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We know that all this came to pass. Sometimes we watch, and like many passersby on the Via Dolorosa, feel only curiosity: in a violent world like ours, meeting death without responding in revenge is so odd that we cannot comprehend it. At other times we feel the terrible injustice of that Friday and are angry. But anger is not allowed: Jesus tells the angry Peter, \u201cAm I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?\u201d Something else is happening here, as alien to our world as it was to the Roman and Hebrew authorities in the first century. We still don\u2019t comprehend this kind of total obedience to the divine will. We don\u2019t understand what he is telling Pilate any more than that unfortunate procurator understood him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pilate is trying to buy time. Filled with fear of what the emperor would say if he made another serious mistake with the Jews (for Pilate had a history of bad mistakes with the religiosity of the Jews), he is trying to find a way out of this dilemma so he will not be demoted by Tiberius once again. Fascinated by this silent prisoner who has the bearing of a king because of his innate peace and authority, Pilate asks him, \u201cAre you a king?\u201d Jesus had spent his short years of ministry proclaiming a new kingdom, something so removed from Pilate\u2019s understanding of power that Jesus does not really answer that question; he knows that Pilate will not understand. But he gives to Pilate, and to all of us, something much more important to think about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI came to testify to the truth,\u201d he declares, and adds something so utterly surprising that if Pilate and all the people around that drama had listened, they might have died in hope, when their time came. Jesus adds, \u201cEveryone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.\u201d Can you imagine what it means to belong to the truth? It implies a state of being. Truth is no longer an abstract concept but a concrete reality. The only way for us to understand truth, as used by Jesus here, is to grasp that Truth is God. It is in the nature of God, it emanates from God, we can belong to it. When we belong to Truth, we belong to God, and we are able to hear Jesus\u2019 voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What a wonderfully comforting statement this is. Not just for us who have heard the good news, who have believed in God as revealed in Jesus, but also for the whole world\u2014for all who seek the truth, as our Book of Common Prayer says. Once again on this Good Friday we feel the universal embrace of God\u2019s love, we hear the universal call to all whom God has created. He who poured out himself to death for us assures us on this night that all who belong to the Truth hear his voice. Instead of separating us Jesus, in his death, brings us together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May we wait for resurrection in the same spirit of love. After weeping bitterly with Peter for all that is past, let us wait with the women at the tomb, ready to serve the one who poured out himself for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sermon was written by Katerina Katsarka Whitley<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cFor 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.\u201dPilate asked him, \u201cWhat is truth?\u201d Good Friday comes every year with its unique burden of grief. We know the story, we have heard it, felt it, wept…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[36,43,52,3],"tags":[137],"class_list":["post-511007","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-week","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-good-friday"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":36,"label":"Holy Week"},{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":137,"label":"Good Friday"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3478378,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511007\/revisions\/3478378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}