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Friday March 25, 2005 - Good Friday, Year A

Today is a strange day. Not just because it is Good Friday, but because this year, Good Friday falls on March 25th. And March 25, nine months to the day before Christmas, is the traditional celebration of the Annunciation, the announcement to Mary that she would have a child. According to church rules, what we do when two things conflict, is that the less important one, in this case the Annunciation, gets put off until the next free day — in this case, April 4. But it seems to me that while it's not really appropriate to have a big celebration of the Annunciation on the day we remember Christ's death, the two are closely connected. Because at his death,
there are pointers back to his birth, and at his birth,
foretastes of his death.

And we are reminded of his birth, this day of his death,
by his mother, Mary, who stands the foot of the cross
watching
her child die.
All around her are soldiers, laughing and mocking,
and crowds, anxious to see the spectacle.
If his welcome into Jerusalem just five days earlier were anything to go by, she would have expected to see friendly faces as well, the ones who had broken branches and thrown their cloaks onto the road to honor him,
but they were gone, no longer caught up in the excitement of his arrival but instead driven into hiding,
so that only a few remained, scattered among the crowd,
his closest friends come to be with him as he died.
And her friends too, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene, standing close beside her as if afraid that she would collapse in her grief.
No mother
should watch her child die.

And yet, deep down, she had always known it might come to this, always feared. Because it was
such as strange birth, full of portents and signs.

Keeping watch
by the cross, her mind goes back
to the day the angel first appeared to her, unexpected and unwanted,
intruding into her well ordered life with the promise of a child. He was to be named Jesus, the Son of the Most High, to reign over a kingdom without end.
It hardly seemed possible, the child of a teenage girl, not even married — and what husband would want her now? — of no important family or fame,
how could this child be a king. But she had waited, and she had hoped.

Those words are a cruel irony now, as she waits, looking up at the son
she held so close those early years, now with a crown of thorns biting deep into his skin so that blood drips down his face, a sign over his head in four languages, "the King of the Jews."

Keeping watch
by the cross, she remembers the angel's words to Joseph, Jsoseph, her husband, who had not abandoned here to the scorn of her community but married her anyway and provided a home
for this changeling child,
words to Joseph
about a son who would save his people from their sins. She'd never understood
how a human being could save anyone from their sins. But perhaps this one
would be a leader like Moses, a man of faith like Abraham, a wise sage like Solomon.
Instead he hangs dying on a cross, condemned by the secular government and religious leaders alike.
How can he save anyone
when he can't even
save himself?

And keeping watch
by the cross, Mary's mind goes back
to that day in the temple
when, so small, just six weeks old,
she took her baby to dedicate him to God as the law required,
and feared she would lose him.
And the words of blessing from the mouth of old Simeon,
blessing, they were, but warning too.
Now those words come back...
"This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel,
and to be a sign to be opposed
so that the inner thoughts of many
will be revealed -
and a sword will pierce your own soul, too."
This child
would be no ordinary child. A bringer of conflict, tearing people apart, brother from brother and father from child, were the words he himself had spoken on those strange journeys of preaching and teaching and healing,
and so the hatred that surrounded him as he died
should perhaps not be unexpected,
a cruel death
not come unanticipated.
But no matter whether his death was inevitable,
it was still a death
that tore her to her very core.
Now, the time of the sword.
Piercing her soul as it pierced his body.

Keeping watch by the cross, it seems
that birth and death
are inextricably entwined. This child
was born to die.

Born to die
for our sakes.
Because what Mary doesn't know
as she stands there, remembering,
wishing
that she could hold him as she did
when first she gave birth,
safe and secure,
with milk to suck on instead of sour vinegar,
arms bound by strips of cloth
instead of nails,
what Mary doesn't quite know
is that this
is the fulfillment of all those promises, all those prophecies.
Keeping watch by the cross, it seems that darkness is all around, swallowing up hope, swallowing up life.
But the cross is not the sign of a failed life
and a cursed death.
Instead, it is the sign
of a promise kept.
This Good Friday, what the Annunciation reminds us
is that this was no failure. This was what Christ
was born to do. This is the fulfilment of God's promise
to send someone to be the savior, the deliverer, the messiah.
The suffering servant, despised and rejected,
sent by God for the sake of the world.

Here is Jesus, king eternal, who by his death
saves us from our sins
and brings us forgiveness, healing
and life
everlasting.

 

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2005