Sermon for
Good Friday
March 21, 2008
Isaiah 52:13—53:12
Psalm 22
Hebrews 10:16–25
John 18:1—19:42
Year A
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)
How utterly countercultural we are to face the cross tonight.
To say that our outlook is cross-shaped, is formed by the horrors of an execution, is bordering on the absurd.
We are much more likely to get somewhere in our current society if we recognize things like
Everybody likes a winner
Might makes right
The one with the most toys wins
What if the truth is that we are all hopelessly lost?
We are all simpering fools?
We are not satisfied with surrounding ourselves with things?
What if the truth is, that in order to be known, in order to be loved, in order to be saved,
God must recognize the insides of humanity, and the undersides, and the ugly sides?
What if we were to name the wrongs in the world, and the wrongs in our community, and the wrongs in our own lives--would God care?
What if we were to confess our deepest fears, our deepest longings, our deepest needs--would God care?
What if we were to seek God in precisely the same places where we know Christ went—to the poor, the hated, and the outsiders--would we find God?
What if everything, the way we see, the way we talk, our innermost thoughts, the news of the day, our relationships, this very community, were all framed by the cross?
Would Christ receive war?
A union strike?
A fractured marriage?
A lonely woman?
A person with AIDS?
Someone sitting in a pew, looking for a place to belong, a chance to breathe fresh air, ready to leave behind the things that make him feel damned to hell?
Tonight we are invited to leave our messes, within and without, at the cross. Christ receives the cries of the needy, our laments, our woes, our sins, and our deaths.
Jesus brings us to a new place with God and with those who daily bear the cross.
We who stand by, who worship, and who walk by faither are recipients of reconciliation, atonement, and in an irony captured by the Biblical witness we carry forward tonight: glorification, victory, triumph,
in suffering, and dying, at the cross.
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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