There is a love holding us. There is a love holding all that we love. And tonight, on this most solemn of days, we celebrate that Love which holds and redeems us all through the person of Jesus Christ.
As he hung on the cross on this night, Jesus spoke aloud seven times. Seven simple phrases, but they provide a powerful meditation for us today.
The first words he spoke, recorded in Luke 23:34; “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do.” Even in agonal suffering, forgiveness. Forgiveness for the soldiers who mocked and scourged him. Forgiveness for the friends and followers who had denied or abandoned him. Forgiveness for the crowds who had turned on him, and the political and religious system that condemned him. Forgiveness for all of us who were yet to come. At the height of his physical suffering his love prevails and he asks his Father to Forgive, and by his death all are forgiven.
A few moments later, he spoke again. Luke 23:43 tells us the thief hanging beside him on the right said, in all humility, we are receiving what we deserve but “this man has done nothing wrong.” The thief was speaking for all of us- every perfectly imperfect human who ever has been or will be. Every one of us who falls short of perfection by our very nature as a human being. And Jesus’ response? "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
Forgiveness. Love. Mercy. We may not be able to get there ourselves but there is one who has gone before us to make a way and through him all doors are open and all may be reconciled to God through that grace.
John 19:26-27 says that as Jesus hung dying he looked down, and he saw his mother, Mary beside the foot of the cross. She was with his beloved disciple John and others. When Jesus saw her, he spoke for the third time and he said "Woman, this is your son." Then he said to the disciple: "This is your mother."
Take one another as family
Love one another. Care for one another. Human love is important; it is the reflection of the Love of God. It holds us all in a community of support. What we do for one another we do for the God of Love who redeems us all.
Both Matthew and Mark record the forth phrase Jesus spoke. Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34
say that around 3 o’clock, in the ninth hour of suffering, and after three hours of darkness, Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Our first inclination is to come to a screeching halt and to say why? Why would Jesus, the perfect follower of God’s will, fear that he had been forsaken? I mean, if God will forsake him, the son with whom he was well pleased, what about me? I can never be that perfect?
But you have to understand, those words are not Jesus’ words. They are from the first verse of Psalm 22, the prayer of a righteous sufferer, tormented by evil men. In his words, Jesus reminded listeners that he was fulfilling the 1,000-year-old prophecy of Psalm 22. And why?
Isaiah 53 answers that question.
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned–every one–to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
We couldn’t do this part. God let his Son experience the sense of distance from God so that he could become us, and we, live through him. We are welcomed eternally into grace because he was willing to feel, for a moment, a separation from God which he had never known before. And through that moment of separation, we earned God’s promise.
“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
John 19:28 says that, nearing the end of his endurance, Jesus spoke a fifth time, and said simply “I thirst.” A human frailty. A moment that reminds us that loving ourselves matters too. Just as we hunger and thirst for the Word of God, our bodies require loving care. We cannot serve in the world, we cannot drink eternal life, if we refuse to drink water too. Sometimes the Love holding me reminds me to treat myself with care.
The sixth-time Jesus spoke is revealed in John 19:29-30. After he drank, he knew that he had fulfilled all that he had been sent to fulfill and he raised his head and said “It is finished.” John wrote in Greek and in Greek “it is finished” is one word- tetelestai (pronounced te-tel-es-sty).
This wasn’t sacred language- this is what people of the time said when a job was finished to the best of their ability. This is what they said when they had done a job well despite everything the world threw in their way. Tetelestai. It is finished. The Hebrew version of this is what the priest said when an offering was brought to the temple and found to be perfect. Tetelestai. It is finished. It couldn’t be any more perfect. It has been paid in full and the obligation is satisfied.
All debts are cancelled. The price has been paid. Everything promised during Jesus’ earthly life has been fulfilled, and nothing can or should be added to this perfect sacrifice
And there, at the end, he spoke for the seventh and last time.
In the words of Luke 23:46, “Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."” This is a rephrasing of Psalm 31:5 - "Into thy hands I commend my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God."
The bridge between humanity and God has been restored. We are reconciled to that Great Love, the space between us healed and made whole. Sin no longer had the power to condemn us and we have been redeemed for all time.
Today is Good Friday because it is the day that Love made us whole. It is the day that Love redeemed us from sin and death. The day that Love endured the ultimate pain in order to guarantee us redeeming grace. And we can never forget that there is such a Love holding us, that there is such a Love holding all that we Love.
Tetelestai.
Amen.
-Rev. Amy Petrie Shaw
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