What We Need to Know on Good Friday

 

Some of you will perhaps have watched the recent installation of Sarah Mullally as the new Archbishop of Canterbury.  Or, to use her full title, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dame Sarah Mullally, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and 106th Archbishop of Canterbury.

I was amused at the time of her installation when one journalist said she was the first woman Archbishop in 1400 years, as if before that there had been other women archbishops.   Another journalist didn’t mention her by name, but mentioned the name of her husband, as if if it was enough to describe her as a wife and a woman.  

In fact, the new Archbishop is supremely accomplished.  Before she was ordained in 2001, she was the government’s Chief Nursing Officer for England, and she was the first woman to be the Bishop of London, in which role she was quite successful.  But, on March 25th, during her installation service, none of this mattered.

At the start of the service, when she performed the ritual knocking on the outside door of the cathedral with her crozier, she was received by a group of schoolchildren.  The ceremony began with them asking 

“Who are you and why do you request entry?”

The Archbishop says

“I am Sarah, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one seeking the grace of God, to travel with you in his service together.

The Children say

“Why have you been sent to us?”

The Archbishop says “I am sent as Archbishop to serve you, to proclaim the love of Christ and with you to worship and love him with heart and soul, mind and strength.”

The Children say “How do you come among us and with what confidence?”

The Archbishop says “I come knowing nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified, and in weakness and fear and in much trembling.”

Our own Bishop Andrew, who was there, said recently that there was no mention of her resume or of her earthly knowledge or achievements.   In that moment, what mattered was that she was Sarah, a servant of Christ and of his church, and all that she needs to know and profess is Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Those words are the same words that Paul used when he presents his credentials to the church in Corinth.  In his first letter to that church, Paul writes that “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified”.  For Paul the message of the cross was all that mattered.   In a world which worshipped power and wisdom, the message of the cross spoke of abundant love poured out for all.    Likewise the work of the Spirit, the gift to all who keep the cross in their hearts, is a gift which gives us access to what Paul calls “the mind of Christ”, the infinite reservoir of love and humility which allowed the lord of the starfields to become the servant of our sinful humanity.

My friends, today we come to see and to cherish Jesus Christ and him crucified.    We come to the cross at a time when so many in our world are attracted to visions of arrogance, power, and cruelty.   We come to the cross amidst calls for detentions,  deportations, deprivations of status and citizenship.   

We come to the cross to see the powers and lies of the world exposed as the vain and threadbare things they are.  Where some would worship golden statues and surging markets and  planet-eating technology, we come to a God who breaks them by means of the offering of his broken body, given for all humanity.

The man on the cross, that rejected messiah, that beaten prisoner, that suffering servant, takes the powers of the world and exposes them as the dead and deadly things they are, and in doing so, he ushers in a second creation, one of freedom, love, and dignity for all the beloved children of God.

Beloved, this place we have to come to may be as bleak as its name, Golgotha, the place of the Skull, but it is the cradle of a new world.  Today we learn all that we need to know, Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Choosing the Darkness: A Homily for Maundy Thursday

 Preached Thursday, April 2, at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto.

Lections:  Exodus 12:1-14, Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17,31b-35

You may think you’re here by choice.  Maybe you volunteered to assist in worship tonight, maybe you’re here because choir practice follows our service, or maybe you’re here because you are one of those rare people who enjoy all the mystery and richness of Holy Week.   Well, those are all good reasons for you to be here, but, my friends, let’s be clear that none of us are here by choice.  We’re here because Jesus wants us to be here (I am indebted to Fleming Rutledge for this idea - see her The Undoing of Death, 2002 pp 69-77).

“You did not choose me but I chose you.”   So says Jesus to the disciples in John’s gospel, after he has washed their feet in the upper room.  We can imagine that by the time he says these things, the disciples are already somewhat dazed by what has happened.   Their teacher has done the work of a servant by washing their feet.   One of their number, Judas, has left after Jesus accused him of treachery, a stark reminder that Jesus will soon be taken and killed.  Jesus has given them a new commandment, that they “love one another” (Jn 13.34), and he has promised that his Father will send them the Holy Spirit.  

In other words, Jesus promises the disciples that they are chosen because they are God’s beloved friends, and will never be left alone, no matter what happens.

  

Jesus says and does all of these things as he prepares to go into darkness.   He lays down his robe as he will lay down his life.  The lord of the universe accepts the humiliating role of the servant as he will accept the humiliation of the cross.  As he cleanses their feet, he cleanses their sins.   As the beginning of the gospel reading tonight says, “he loved them to the end”.  Jesus goes into the darkness because he loves his friends, because he loves us. 

Tonight, as our worship ends,  the church will be stripped of its finery.  We will leave in silence and darkness, a reminder that our lord has chosen the silence and darkness of death for our sakes.   Our lord Jesus has chosen to go into darkness.  We know he will return in glorious light, and all will be well, but tonight, let us hold onto this moment.   Let us hold onto this awful and wonderful knowledge, that our lord has chosen the darkness because he has chosen us.   

Compassion and Strength: A Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent

 Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, on 22 March, 2026, the Fifth Sunday of Lent.  Readings for this Sunday:  Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45

43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

One of the abiding memories I have of my hospital training before my ordination was of visiting a couple after their child was stillborn.   I will never forget the scene.  The father was a large bear of a man, and he as holding a little wrapped bundle and sobbing uncontrollably.    The mother on the other hand was surprisingly serene.  She had her arm around the man and was gently comforting him.   I have never before or since witnessed such raw grief and such compassion.   

Compassion is the only human answer to grief, I think, but compassion can be hard.  One of the greatest tests of love and friendship is to come alongside someone in their moments of deep grief.   It can take courage, because death and grief are terribly, shatteringly real.  It’s harder when the person grieving is also angry.    We wonder what we can say, or how we can explain tragedy.     Real compassion refuses trite words like “This is all part of God’s plan”.   Real compassion just holds your hand, sits with you, and makes the coffee, because that’s about all that we can do in the face of grief.

Today’s gospel fully acknowledges the reality of death.   Lazarus, Jesus’ friend, is dead.  He is entombed in a cave, the entrance sealed by a stone.   Decay has settled in.  The body stinks.  Furthermore, death lurks round about as menacing potential.  Jesus has already attracted much negative attention from the authorities, and Bethany is near Jerusalem, the seat of power.   The disciples warn Jesus that he could be killed if he gpes to Lazarus, and when Jesus does go, they seem to accept that they may be killed with him.  So we need to acknowledge the reality of death in this story, as Jesus does.

Jesus in the story experiences both compassion and grief.  He makes the decision to go be with his friends, even though he knows the risks involved (we’ll leave aside for the moment why he delays the trip).  He goes because “[he] loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (11.5).   He faces their grief, but he also faces their anger, for when they both say “Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died” (11.21, 32).  What both sister’s mean, clearly, is “but you weren’t here”.  Sometimes being with the grieving means bearing the brunt of their anger. So Jesus does what a compassionate friend would do, but he is also grieving himself.

It’s sometimes quoted humoursly that the shortest verse in all of scripture is “Jesus wept” (Jn 11.35) but we need to dig past our complacency to really appreciate those two words.   John has already twice told us that Jesus loved Lazarus, and many of those watching take this as a sign of love.   And just before this, when Jesus sees Mary and others weeping for Lazarus, Jogn tells us that “he was greatly disturbed in spirit (KJV uses the word “groaning”) and deeply moved” (Jn 11.33).  

How do we imagine Jesus’ tears?   Do you see him dabbing a few drops from his eyes?  Do you see him with his face in his hands, struggling for composure?  Do you see him having what we call an “ugly cry”, face contorted, wracking groans from his throat, eyes and nose streaming?  I cried like that once in my life, the day my wife Kay was cremated, and part of me wants to think that Jesus had a ugly cry, because it means I can connect my God with my experience.   Can we dare to say that Jesus’ tears were for the whole human condition?

I know I would want to say that, because, otherwise, what was the point of his trip to Bethany?  We can get hung up on Jesus’ decision to delay this trip until Lazarus is dead, so that the miracle is greater (“so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” 11.4),, but that’s part of John’s focus on Jesus performing a series of signs to show his identity and God’s glory.  Surely the point of the story is that Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and that he does so, not as a theological display, but out of sympathy and love.  And of course, this story, situated just before Jesus enters Jerusalem for the last time in John’s gospel, and situated in time for us just two weeks before Easter, is to show that Jesus has, and will, overcome death for our sakes.

So this is a story about Jesus’ compassion, but it’s also about his power.  I said early on that death in this story is real, and surely that is the  point.  Death is real, and it’s the enemy in this story, as it’s the enemy of our human condition.   And Jesus brings more than compassion, be brings power, the power that brought creation into being and he brings the glory of the Father.   This is a fight that Jesus accepts, and it’s a fight that he wins for all of us.   Because when Lazarus shuffles out of the tomb, and Jesus says “unbind him”, I think he’s unbinding all of us, freeing us from all the things that oppress us.

Last week I talked with a man who said he had had a good life but he had recently been diagnosed with a very aggressive type of cancer and his prognosis was bleak.    He told me that he was willing to talk to God, maybe even ask for help, but he didn’t want to commit to any particular idea of God, and he didn’t think he could accept the Jesus of the Nicene Creed, and he didn’t believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus.  I didn’t try to correct him or tell him that he was wrong, but I did ask him, since you know that your cancer is real, wouldn’t you want a God who is just as real?

Personally, I love Jesus as a teacher, but what seals the deal for me is that Jesus can fight death and win.   I’m not really interested unless that part of his story is true, and I think that’s the point of the Lazarus story.  I want a Jesus who can call us all to come out of our tombs.  I want a Jesus who can bring the stillborn to life, like the one I saw all those years ago, or the one lost at birth last week to parents I know.  

I want a Jesus who can stir the ashes, who can knit the bones together and give all the dead breath and life.   So I put my faith in the Jesus who raised Lazarus, the Jesus who has the compassion to stand with us in our times of sorrow, who has the power to raise us and unbind us.   And, since the Lazarus story continues in John’s gospel with a party, I put my faith in the Jesus who will sit with us and laugh with us, because he is, after all, our loving friend.