Good Friday-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

Good Friday 2022

April 15, 2022

 

        There’s a tradition in the Christian church of meditating or reflecting on the 7 last phrases of Jesus taken from the 4 different gospels.  You may have heard of this; it’s often referred to as the 7 last words of Christ.  I read a blog post this week that helped me think differently about one of these phrases that we encounter in our gospel reading for today.  As Jesus hangs dying on the cross, he looks down and sees his mother and the disciple whom he loved keeping watch at the foot of the cross with other women.  Jesus tells his mother, “Woman, here is your son.”  And he tells the beloved disciple, “Here is your mother.”  John’s narrator tells us that “from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.” 

        I’ve never really paid much attention to this part of the passion gospel, probably just assuming that Jesus is trying to make sure his mother is cared for after his death.  But the blog I read this week suggests a deeper meaning to these last words of Jesus.  The author suggests that in these words-- “Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.”— “Jesus entrusts his beloved disciple and his mother to one another’s care as the first members of his church.  This is the beginning of the family God longs to create, drawing the two of them and all of us in love, to love and to be loved.”[i]

        Jesus’s act of dying on the cross is the gift of God’s love, utterly poured out, holding nothing back, a willingness to be completely empty of self in relationship with God and with others.  Theologian Cynthia Bourgeault writes of this:  “[Jesus] left us a method for practicing this path ourselves, the method he himself modeled to perfection in the garden of Gethsemane. When surrounded by fear, contradiction, betrayal; when the “fight or flight” alarm bells are going off in your head and everything inside you wants to brace and defend itself, the infallible way to extricate yourself and reclaim your home in that sheltering kingdom is simply to freely release whatever you are holding onto—including, if it comes to this, life itself. The method of full, voluntary self-donation reconnects you instantly to the wellspring; in fact, it is the wellspring. The most daring gamble of Jesus’ trajectory of pure love may just be to show us that self-emptying is not the means to something else; the act is itself the full expression of its meaning and instantly brings into being ‘a new creation’: the integral wholeness of Love manifested in the particularity of a human heart.”[ii]

        By commending his disciple and his mother to each other’s care and creating the first Christian community, Jesus is inviting them and those who follow after them to practice this self-emptying, this pure love, not just with each other or those who live or worship together in community, but the invitation even extends to practicing this self-emptying, pure love, with the whole world.  In Jesus’s gift of self-emptying love, he has redefined the terms of unity; he has changed the very fabric of existence.  His death on the cross invites and brings about not just private healing but healing that embraces all of our relationships.[iii]

        “The question, then, is this: Are we prepared to participate in that healing?  Are we willing to set aside petty differences, the secret satisfaction that comes with self-righteous indignation, the defining moments we find in conflict with others, and the comradery that we nurture with those in our tribe?”[iv]

        Our proper liturgy for Good Friday invites us to participate in that unity that Christ offers in the portion known as the solemn collects—when we pray for the needs of the whole world.  And it’s as good a place as any to start in emulating this self-emptying love of Jesus. 

As we pray for the church—for its unity in witness and service—may we empty ourselves of what we think that means, of what we think that would even look like, and commend and release that to God.  As we pray for all the nations of the world and their peoples and those in authority, may we release our judgements about the people of our nation, our leaders, the people of other nations and their leaders, and may we all see ourselves as the one united family of God.  As we pray for all who suffer, may we release our fear of our own suffering, the fear that blocks us from seeing the humanity in others who suffer.  And as we pray for all those who struggle with their faith, including even enemies of the cross of Christ, may we be humbled by the awareness that our beloved Jesus Christ died not just for all of us but all of creation. 

        In closing, I’d like to offer a passage from C.S. Lewis written about these last words of Jesus.  It is a fitting prayer for all of us, the family of God, on this day.

 

“Woman, behold your son.

Son, behold your mother.”

With those words

You mend our broken relationships,

Inviting us to embrace a world

Forever changed by your sacrifice.”[v]

       

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[i] The Last Seven Words of Jesus: “Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.” | Frederick Schmidt (patheos.com)

[ii] Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening (Lanham, MD: Cowley Publications, 2004), 86–87. 

[iii] Part of this section has been paraphrased from the Patheos article referenced above.

[iv] The Last Seven Words of Jesus: “Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.” | Frederick Schmidt (patheos.com)

[v] C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Harper Collins, 1996): 6f.