\u201cWoman, here is your son.\u201d Then he said to his disciple, \u201cHere is your mother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus hangs on the cross. Crowds of people stand around watching the spectacle\u2014some watching in horror, others with indifference, still others with a sense of triumph. \u201cThat annoying and dangerous prophet is in the last throes of death, thank God,\u201d they may be thinking. There had been cries of \u201cCrucify!\u201d and \u201cGive us Barabbas!\u201d There was the disgraceful set-up of a trial\u2014lies, sarcasm, physical and emotional abuse, and a question, \u201cWhat is truth?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Connected to Jesus all the time by the strong bonds of love and finally standing beneath the cross is the mother. It must have been an absolutely sickening sight. Human beings nailed or tied to cross-beams like animal carcasses. Blood, gore, sweat, the bodies twitching in agony\u2014life being torn out of bodies that shouldn\u2019t have been dying. Jesus and the two thieves weren\u2019t sick. Jesus at least we know was still young. Human beings were deliberately ripping life out of other human beings, and for what? The other two are called \u201cthieves.\u201d They must have stolen something\u2014we don\u2019t know what. But Jesus? Jesus was only a troublemaker. Jesus dared to challenge God\u2019s people about their lack of faith\u2014their carelessness about living Torah. Jesus cared about the poor. He healed the sick, preached, taught, ate with the marginalized, forgave sinners. Does that deserve this kind of death? Did the thieves deserve death? Who ever deserves to have life deliberately taken away?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mary stands at the foot of the cross. The disciple John stands with her. Can you imagine what these two are thinking? Can you imagine the crushing pain of a mother watching her son die? Die\u2014not because he had done anything wrong, die because he loved so much. That\u2019s the puzzlement of this whole scene. Jesus loved everyone. He paid attention even to people who tried to trick him with their unanswerable questions\u2014or so they thought. He took them on every time, but never in a cruel or imperious way. He was always to the point, but thoughtful and kind, even when challenging. He was a teacher who had one basic lesson: love. So, for this he\u2019s on the cross and his mother stands and watches him die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a terribly quiet day. It\u2019s embarrassing to hear the crowd yell, \u201cCrucify him!\u201d It wouldn\u2019t be if this were just a story in history. It\u2019s embarrassing because today brings us face to face with our own sin, and we might wonder how we still crucify other human beings. Once again, we don\u2019t seem to have learned the lesson Jesus worked so hard to teach. The embarrassment makes us want to blame someone else. \u201cThe Jews killed Jesus, or maybe the Romans, but certainly not me.\u201d But saying that creates another problem. People who have bought into that thinking have reacted throughout history with things like the Inquisition, the Crusades, Nazism, and intolerance of many different types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so we\u2019re quiet. Our liturgy has a sense of stillness, and yet there is movement. On Holy Thursday, we moved from the upper room, where Jesus washed the disciples\u2019 feet before sharing the bread and wine, into the garden. Today we retell the story of the arrest, trial, suffering, and death of Jesus. We venerate the cross in word, action, and hymn. We see the mother stand beneath the cross and picture her receiving his dead body into her arms. No mother should have to see her child die. We want to turn our eyes away, but we can\u2019t. If we don\u2019t look at the cross and understand that Jesus is dead, his life taken cruelly and yet given freely out of love, if we don\u2019t see ourselves in the heart of his mother willing to be there with him even if it\u2019s dangerous, then we might not really understand the true power of the resurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God gives all so that we might begin\u2014just begin\u2014to understand unconditional love. Once we understand, we realize we\u2019re asked to do the same in many different and varied ways, some easier than others\u2014some, like this death on a cross, a total gift of self for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWoman, behold your son.\u201d Then he said to his disciple, \u201cHere is your mother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are in the hearts of both mother and disciple. We\u2019re given to each other by God to care for each other, to give support and love without reserve, to be willing to give our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We leave this place in silence. We\u2019ve heard our story once again. We\u2019ve looked at the cross and imagined what it means to us. And now we wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWoman, here is your son.\u201d Then he said to his disciple, \u201cHere is your mother.\u201d Jesus hangs on the cross. Crowds of people stand around watching the spectacle\u2014some watching in horror, others with indifference, still others with a sense of triumph. \u201cThat annoying and dangerous prophet is in the last throes of death, thank God,\u201d…<\/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-511819","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\/511819","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":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":951530,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511819\/revisions\/951530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}