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Good Friday 2017

Bearing with us

(The Procession to Calvary by Pieter Bruegel c1525-1569)

INTRODUCTION

Pieter Bruegel the Elder sets the scene for us in a painting reflecting back on his work, the census at

Bethlehem in which Joseph and Mary bearing the Word of life, arrive unnoticed in the town,

mundane life going on all around them. Here, the Word staggers under the cross, close up, a cartoon

like helplessness on his face. Hardly anyone notices as they fight, argue, make deals, and go about

their workaday, chancy lives. There, in the distance, an ominous circle of people around three

empty crosses. They will not notice the Word, but make a curiosity of the strange man’s suffering; a

little fascination, thrill, queasiness to tell them they’re awake . That the scene is Dutch says it could

have been anywhere. As it was, it was Jerusalem, to which we now make our way. We sit for

readings, prayers, reflections and silence. We receive the reserved sacrament in silence. We stand

to sing.

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I His own clothes (John 18:28-end)

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning.

They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be

able to eat the Passover. So Pilate went out to them and said, ‘What accusation do you

bring against this man?’ They answered, ‘If this man were not a criminal, we would not

have handed him over to you.’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him

according to your law.’ The Jews replied, ‘We are not permitted to put anyone to

death.’ (This was to fulfil what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.)

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you

the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you

about me?’ Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests

have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not

from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to

keep me from being handed over to the authorities. But as it is, my kingdom is not from

here.’ Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For

this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate asked him, ‘What is truth?’

After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, ‘I find no case against

him. But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want

me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ They shouted in reply, ‘Not this man, but

Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas was a bandit.

The Word became flesh; flesh that felt the weight of cloth, the fibrous weaving, the flapping of a

sleeve in the breeze. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We could be suspicious of his

presence, like some alien spy in disguise, looking human but really getting one over on us. But the

Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. Here he stands, at ease in this own

skin, and so at ease in the tunic sitting easily on him, his movements, like his words, all seemingly

meant to be. It is a kind of confidence and it offends. Around him the priests wear their regalia,

fringed cloaks and tell-tale head gear that can part a crowd. The weight of office borne in their

robes is heavy on some who know their unworthiness. They stoop slightly when they wear them.

Some put them on and swell into the role. Nicodemus, ah, he understands the absurdity of role and

unworthiness which makes it all right, and used to wear his council robes with kindly ease, but now

he’s met Jesus he knows he is redundant and the clothes sit uncomfortably, like an embarrassing rash. He is not here yet.

Pilate’s insignia gleam with confident passive aggressive statement of who and what is behind him if

you think you can mess with him. The purple of his billowing paludamentum cloak points to Rome.

His guards’ weapons point threateningly through civilian togas, their lack of Roman armour

somehow accentuating their violence. So he has the power. But why the flitting to and fro? The

priests have come up with nothing during the night, yet as they reach Pilate’s headquarters to ask a

violent favour they stop and swell, asserting a priestly principle about cleanness, refusing to go in.

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They couldn’t eat the Passover if they went in to Pilate’s headquarters, and yet they can eat it after

they have plotted with Pilate to kill an innocent man. The big man from Rome has to come out to

them. The clamour of Passover must be threatening in some way because he does. The more they

insist Pilate must do something, yet give no reason, the more ridiculous their robes look. Asked

what the charge is all they can say is “If he weren’t a criminal, we wouldn’t have brought him…”

Then they reveal they’ve decided the sentence “We are not permitted to put anyone to death” –

such a principled accusation of Rome who forbade it, while grateful others will do the dirty work.

They have settle on a sentence, an outcome towards which they must work, but have not worked

out how to get there. The robes now look sinister more than absurd.

Pilate insists on taking Jesus inside, to interrogate in comfort, but the batting back and forth of

responsibility “Take him yourself…I am not a Jew am I….what is truth?” is matched by his comic toing

and froing, all flapping purple, irritably powerless in his own house. The ones with the law, the

insignia, the signs of office are at sea, pathetic self-deceiving humanity desperately clinging on to

influence in such strenuous ways as to look absurdly needy. What energy must be spent holding the contradiction together, and supressing the knowledge that this is really jealousy.

And yet they are not merely to be patronised. For all our status anxiety is played out there. A glance

along the High Street and we see how few of us are comfortable in our own skin and how many of us

wear our clothes as disguise, how many as armour, how many over-assert difference and how many

want to disappear. A man walks by with spectacular tattoos all over his face and neck so it is hard to

see his emotion. Is the artwork concealing or highlighting? It is both. He is magnifying what we all

attempt to do: to be unnoticeably noticeable. We resent others’ status and power, but aren’t sure

what we’d do with it if we had it. Those with everything still need affirmation. Many with little prefer the identity of resentment to the identity of responsibility.

The seamlessness of Jesus’ tunic is a gentle metaphor. There is seamless union of purpose,

character, demeanour, speech, action, divinity, humanity: a perfect integrity. Unembarrassed either

by the simplicity of his tunic nor the grandeur of the title King, the threat of violence seems not to

ruffle him. He bears his clothes, his self, as one who knows he is meant to be there, even though we

watching the ugly drama unfold see the raging injustice that he should not. He seems moved, but

not blown about by others’ expectations. Before they take his own clothes off him, we feel the

provocation of their simplicity. The spiral of jealousy reaches a new pitch as the principled

emblazoned priest shout “We prefer a bandit.”

Can we reach the point where it is neither intimidating, nor humiliating to be in his presence? Can

we enjoy his integrity without it melting our confidence and exposing the cracks in the thin crust of our identity?

We’d better pray.

PRAYER

We rejected you at Passover, yet you are the one who has come to part the sea of jealousy and deliver us from slavery to pride.

Help us to read insignia and costume, badges of office and signs of power wisely. Open us to the

comedy of postured principle. Open our eyes to the quiet ones who live the truth while others

shout deceit. Teach us the difference between power and authority. Accept, Lord, we need some

defences, but give us courage at least to lower them with you, so we can find the self you came for, hidden within. Amen

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II Bearing crown of thorns and purple robe (John 19:1-26)

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and

put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him,

saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said

to them, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against

him.’ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to

them, ‘Here is the man!’ When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted,

‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find

no case against him. ’The religious leaders answered him, ‘We have a law, and according

to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.’

Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters

again and asked Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate

therefore said to him, ‘Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power

to release you, and power to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no power

over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over

to you is guilty of a greater sin.’ From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the leaders

cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims

to be a king sets himself against the emperor.’

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at

a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the day of

Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the teachers and priests,

‘Here is your King!’ They cried out, ‘Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!’ Pilate

asked them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘ We have no king but

the emperor.’ Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

So now we’re on the level. A moment ago, how they all hated that tunic he wore. The soldiers were

there, in their uniform. The priests in their formal garb. Pilate, in the purple robe of authority.

Each man an office, a position, not a person. Each man kept in his place, however ‘high’ or ‘low’.

He was the only one amongst them in the ordinary clothes of every day life . He wore a meaningless tunic that said, ‘I am who I am’.

And so he challenged these offices with what you were. He took the divine power of human dignity

and with it, showed it to the brutal power of organisation. Could he not feel their jealousy? Their

anger? Because he was the only one in this arena who was free to be himself – it’s a freedom they

craved again when they saw him. When they saw what he was, they saw what they were not. It

was a kind of invitation: you can be like me. It was a kind of judgement: do you have the courage?

It was a kind of direction: here, still, is the Kingdom of God, if only you will step into it.

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Easier for them to deny him, than to accept themselves. So here he is now, in something much finer. The robes of a king, and a crown.

The soldiers are relieved; they are delighted. Men trammelled every moment of their day by

authority, can for a moment enjoy mocking authority.

The priests must be delighted: they know that when a man is dressed against his will, his moment is

gone. Their noise is the same as the noise of the crowd: the one who proclaims the great I AM has

let us down with this unrealistic promise of humanity. If it were really true, he would send angels

down to rescue the human self.

Whether Pilate is delighted or not, I cannot say. He may not wish to see a man dressed in robes of

authority meet this fate. He may not care to see how the soldiers’ anger is suddenly liberated by

mocking a man they’ve dressed in a purple robe. He may not like seeing the beautiful divine, and

realising, with all his power and authority, that ‘even’ he cannot, will not, take that simple step into humanity.

And so we pray.

For all who say ‘I couldn’t; those whose imagination can’t see the human you created in them. Lord have mercy.

For those who say ‘I can’t’; those who are too scared to be what you invited them to be. Christ have mercy.

For those who say, ‘I will never’; those who are to scarred and angry to be what you long for them to

be. Lord have mercy.

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III Bearing cross and nails (John 19:17-25a)

So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus

between them. Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ Many people read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Then the chief priests said to Pilate, ‘Do not write, “The King of the Jews”, but, “This man said, I am King of the Jews.” ’Pilate answered, ‘What I have written I have

written.’ When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ This was to fulfil what the scripture says, ‘They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.’ And that is what the soldiers

did.

Through him all things were made. The Word knew about wood from inside. The Word

knew the essence of “Woodness.” The word became flesh so it, he, could feel the grain of

wood with fingertips, smell its shavings and feel it cup him, a boat for sleeping, or preaching

to crowds on the shore. The one who’s will forged mountains, molten movement freezing

minerals from space into rock, waiting until, ingeniously extracted, iron could be forged into

nails, saw, armour and sword. The word became flesh so it could be pierced by knife at

circumcision, by splinter in the workshop, by nails pinning hopes to a beam.

He knows the feel of wood, but now it’s against the back of his hands.

Even if he is safely nailed in place, the defensive bickering goes on, to and fro, Pilate’s wit

clashing with their delicate nuanced political sensibilities. Having got what they asked for,

they still look ridiculous. How ironic the wood bears his weight now as he, the creator wills

its existence and bears the structures of the cosmic realm, its tensions, spaces, hardness and

quantum energies. Here for these few hours we see the millennia of strain as he bears the

heavier weight, the straining contradictions of human structures, forces and hierarchies; the

love-hate, the child-adult, the yes-no, the be there for me – leave me alone of humankind.

The four professionally violent men who carried out the routine execution are please to

display their aesthetic principle, refusing to cut the seamless tunic. And yet they have

casually torn his flesh. In postured fairness it’s one piece each, and decide with dice for the

best, when the vacuous trial has been anything but fair.

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We are aghast at this dysfunctional lack of proportion. But we care with liberal western

superiority, coming carefully to critique the Christian narrative, intellectual nails to hold him firmly in place where he cannot touch us. But we are not so far removed.

The principled anger about terrorism while our nuclear weapons silently stalk the

seas.

Breathy sincerity about how terrible chemical weapons are, while dropping the

Mother of All Bombs to fry uncountable Afghans and crush the homes and chests of

who knows how many in the area surrounding the explosion. Saying “no child of

God should suffer,” then killing four children in the airbase retaliation.

needling each other until there’s an ugly reaction then saying “I told you so.”

The retired oil executive taking a principled stand defending his Cotswold village

from industrial development.

The angry older sibling belittling their brother for his mistakes, not seeing how the

belittling is hurting their parents even more.

The grand assertion of God’s love while humiliating the love between men, between

women, that so strangely unsettles the church.

The man feeling betrayed by his partner who’s fallen for someone else, bellowing

from moral high ground from where he cannot see his demeaning treatment of her

down the years.

Perhaps we should pray.

PRAYER

Bloodied God, as you bear the cross and are pierced, raped, by our sophisticated

technology, judge our snobberies and intellectual distancing; judge our hiding behind

accusations. As you enter so deeply the consequences of our dysfunction, judge our

complacency. We need your fleshly presence, your embodied wisdom, to break our spirals

of self-justifying aggression. Show how our contradictions pierce and weigh on you until we

long to become part of your solution, not part of the problem. Amen.

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IV Bearing sour wine (John 19:25b-37)

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the

disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple

took her into his own home.

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge

full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received

the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Yesterday he drank good wine in an upper room. Today, he drinks sour, up on a cross.

Yesterday he lifted the cup in his hands. Today his arms are pinned like a butterfly’s wings. A sponge balanced on a stick, looms out of the agony, and presses wine against his face.

And yet he drinks. Even as the strings that hold him together are snapping inside, he knows his

thirst. And he drinks, wine ending the ministry that wine began; a momentary journey from a wedding at Cana to a cross on Golgotha.

And so his final act is to receive.

Everything about him has been receipt. He received life from the spirit and from Mary and lived it.

He received scripture from his people Israel and read it afresh. He received the spirit at his baptism

and let it transform him. He received the care of those who came to him as shepherd and taught

them. He received the hungry flocks and fed them. He received the children, the sick and the

tormented; the women and the men who knew sin; the Samaritan and the stranger; the scoundrel

and the weak and the betrayer. He received the foreign soldiers whose boots stood on his people’s

lands. He received those who came in the night with secret fears and questions. He received those

who wanted to celebrate him and those who wanted him dead. He received the mantle of glory on

the mountain with Moses and Elijah and wore it. He received the call to Jerusalem and followed it. He received the cup of suffering and drank it.

And here and now, the only, one human need the gospels record comes right at the end: ‘I am

thirsty’. And so he receives from human hands the tiniest consolation, the most fragmentary of

thanks, the thinnest of connections. All things come through you and of your own do we give you.

Sour wine, for a dying saviour. This is the best that we can do at this moment. And the best that he can do. Once more, he receives.

Lord, you saved the best wine until last. We give you sour wine at your end. Lord have mercy.

Christ, you offered us life, we gave you death. Christ have mercy.

Lord, your work is your glory. It is finished. Lord have mercy.

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V They bear him away (John 19:31-4 2)

Since it was the day of Preparation, the religious authorities did not want the bodies left on the cross during the Sabbath, especially because that Sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with

him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.) These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘None of his bones shall be broken.’ And again another passage of scripture says, ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced.’

After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred

pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

His body does not feel the gravity working on him as they take him down, head lolling, and arms falling, the stretcher bobbing along to a rhythm of forlorn footsteps. He does not feel the weight of cloth heavy with scented ointments. The Word made flesh who submits to the blind physical forces that spun from a tiny fiery dot at his command now provokes ten thousand Pieta, our craving for pathos a sign that, for all our defensive pride, we do know roughly where our heart is. When we feel pathos at least we know we’re alive. Seeing him draped grey among his huddled friends we feel our pitiable dependence on an absurd unmanageable reality: the ridiculous fact of our being alive. Our fear of nothingness rises in the throat but is curiously dimmed when we realise, the Word became flesh and stopped breathing so where we most fear to go he has gone. What we most fear to be - victimised, mocked, buried - he is there before us. He is manipulated into grave clothes by loving regretful hands. You were manipulated, they think, by crowds and priests and governors. Yet even in your stillness, there is something of a proclamation of freedom for us. As we watch Nicodemus’ and Joseph’s public commitment, too late, you give us a chance to name the regret we live with and lance and let out its pointless poison.

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Looking at your pathetic figure, we wonder how much we have manipulated you into doctrine and bound you into our favourite social ethics. And it is not entirely bleak. The Word is so present, so still, there and not there. In your complete submission to friends’ belated care, you put centre stage our human capacity for tenderness. Maybe you even honour it.

five thousand police officers defy terrorism, silent, white gloved police lining the streets for a colleague;

a pepper pig story is lovingly read at a child’s funeral; a Muslim girl defies EDL hate, offering those imprisoned by resentment a way to release

with a fearless smile; Knowing she is dying anyway, a surgeon stays in a Syrian operating theatre as bombs destroy

the hospital because he simply can’t leave her to die alone. Israeli Doctors operate, unpaid, unsung, on Syrian child refugees brought hurriedly across

the border; Egyptian Muslims accompany Christian neighbours to church to protect them after the

bombings; a little family takes a picnic to the park in Raqqa during a ceasefire, and so many people, God, gutted by loss, still turn to you in prayer.

PRAYER

Word, become flesh, you have come so we might find this embattled and hidden but tender part of us. You are silent in death so we can hear it. You have borne all these things in your flesh so we might find a way to be at ease in our own skin. Amen.