Abstract
25th March: Fifth Sunday in Lent
[Give each person a piece of paper and a pen before the service begins. The sung sanctus is at CH4 769.]
Prayer of Adoration and Confession
Sung response
Holy, different, unique;
perfect love, absolute goodness, undiluted beauty, unadulterated truth;
divinity in all its glory and all its power.
High above the earth, yet present in every person.
Wandering where you will,
yet setting up home in the hearts of those who know you.
Dying in your humanity, living in your divinity:
the God we worship;
the God who is Love;
the God who is holy.
Sung response
Infant voices sing your song
in the first cry of their birth from the womb.
Those on their death beds seek you and sense you
as they struggle to draw their last breath.
And in between countless millions say your name,
for you are God of them all, and God of us too:
heaven’s presence on earth.
Sung response
And now is the time, and here is the place
when we can come close to you.
We will confess our regrets.
We will share with you our fears.
We will speak to you of our dreams,
and you will listen,
and you will be gentle in your response.
So God of each and all,
whatever our agenda,
whatever our fear or disappointment,
lavish your forgiveness on us now,
and be generous with your acceptance of who and what we are.
A TIME OF QUIET FOR PERSONAL REFLECTION
You have forgiven, and you have encouraged.
You have affirmed and you have rebuked.
You have cautioned and you have kindled enthusiasm.
Then in response, our hearts and lips are glad to praise you,
for you are holy, Lord.
Sung response
Amen.
Reflection Part 1 Death is in the air
Death is in the air for Jesus and well he knows it. News about him has spread, and droves of folk have come flocking to hear what he has to say. But that’s dangerous: very dangerous. He’s proving to be a hugely popular alternative to established religious tradition, and the priests don’t like it one little bit. The people are listening to him, and not paying attention to what they have to say. Something will have to be done.
The occupying Roman authorities are twitchy as well. For them, large gatherings of people are bad news because they know that big crowds can be unpredictable and fickle. Who knows what might happen if this guy takes it into his head to whip-up these half-witted peasants into an uncontrollable, hysterical frenzy? Something will have to be done.
But it’s not only his own kind (Jews) who are attracted to what he’s saying. If rumours are to be believed, now there are Gentiles who are actively seeking him out. They want to hear more of this subversive nonsense he’s spouting to anybody who’ll listen. This man is a corrosive and corrupting influence on the common herd. He’s telling them they’re important, insisting they have rights, encouraging them to believe they’re entitled to justice. Something will definitely have to be done: it can’t be allowed to continue. Death is in the air for Jesus, and he knows this very well.
Now at this point, any reasonable person in his position would have shut up and melted into the background so as not to attract any further attention. Any wise person would have hurried himself out of Jerusalem and beyond the reaches of those who had marked his card. But Jesus doesn’t do that. Instead, he adds fuel to the fire by coming out with something he knew would rankle them even more. He suggests that being dead is somehow better than being alive.
Reading John 12.20-33
Reflection Part 2 A new take on death
Traditional Jewish understanding had no real notion of life after death. Sheol wasn’t the hell that some might talk about now. There was no torment in Sheol, but neither was there any satisfaction or pleasure. Sheol was a grey and gloomy twilight place of nothingness where the dead were completely cut off from God.
So we can see how controversial Jesus’ statement is when he contradicts their ideas about death, and says something positive about it for a change: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains no more than a single grain. But when it does fall to the ground and die, it bears much fruit.”
Of course, he’s referring to his own immanent death, and the fruit he talks about is the Movement, the Way, Christianity, the Church which will grow out of his death when it finally comes. But that’s Jesus. What about us? What are the fruits that will follow our own death?
Have you ever given any thought to what they’ll say about you when you’ve gone? What mark will you have left on this world, and what will your particular fruit be when the seed eventually falls to the ground, as fall it most certainly will? Have you thought about sitting down to write your own obituary? It’s not necessarily a morbid or depressive thing to do. But what would you write?
She was a crabbit auld besom!
He was a grumpy auld goat!
She tried to make this world a better place.
He always lived his life for other people.
Writing Your Own Obituary
What will they say about you when you’ve gone? What will the fruit of your living and dying on this earth actually be? I’d like to invite you to take some time now, in the quietness of this place, to think about what might be said about you, and then write down the most significant or most striking thoughts that come into your head. And then take the paper home with you, and look at it now and again. Use it to reflect on who you are, and what you are, or even what you might yet still become.
A TIME FOR REFLECTION AND WRITING DOWN
Song
Today I live, one day shall come my death (CH4 725)
Why did you have to die?
Voice 1
Why did you have to die like that?
Voice 2
Why did you voluntarily arrange your own suicide?
Voice 1
Couldn’t you have found another way to make your point?
Voice 2
Why did your story have to end
with the pain of nails through your flesh
and death by slow suffocation?
Voice 1
“A glorious death.” some of them say.
But I’m certain you didn’t think so at the time.
Voice 2
“To redeem the humanity that you love.”
is what they tell me,
but surely you didn’t have to go to such an extreme.
Voice 1
“To win victory over evil.” is the popular rumour.
But others have taken a stand for what is good and what is right,
yet they didn’t end up on a cross of nails.
Voice 2
“In response to the Devil’s demands.” is another theory.
But if the Devil could insist on your life,
then doesn’t that makes him more powerful
than the God of all heaven and earth?
Voice 1
Jesus, why did you have to die like that?
What was your bright idea and purpose
when you volunteered to end it all
by drawing your last painful gasp of breath?
Voice 2
Could it be you were trying to show
the extent of your love for us?
Voice 1
Could it be that you wanted to demonstrate
the lengths to which you were prepared to go for us?
Voice 2
Could it be that, in the end, you chose to forget yourself:
to forget yourself for us;
to forget yourself for all;
to forget yourself for me?
Voice 1
What wond’rous love is this,
o my soul, o my soul?
What wond’rous love is this
that in my humanity I am struggling to understand?
Voice 2
Jesus, I’ll never be able to understand you.
Voice 1
I’ll never be able to come to terms with who you are.
Voice 2
In the face of your love,
my words are futile and inadequate,
so in the face of such love,
perhaps my silence is the best way to respond.
A TIME OF QUIETNESS
Voice 2
Inscribed upon the cross,
we see in shining letters: God is love.
Voice 1
For being who you are and for loving me to death,
blessing and honour and glory and power be unto you.
Amen.
Good Friday
Symbolic Actions for Good Friday
[Each worshipper is given a large nail as they come into church. A cross needs to be placed on the chancel or communion table. Oil (eg lavender oil) is required for anointing.
Why should I feel guilty?
Sung response
(Wild Goose Songs, Volume 2, page 135)
Voice 1
Why should I feel guilty? He had it coming to him. You can’t traipse around the country accompanied by a dozen vagrants - losers the lot of them - ignorant peasants, some of whom couldn’t even read or write, and expect to be believed or taken seriously. His so-called friends were common, unreliable, distasteful types. And what about all those ridiculous stories he told about lost coins and wayward sons and women with questionable morals whom he claimed merited the unconditional forgiveness of heaven? People wanted a real Messiah, not some unlettered tradesman. And if he pretended to be one, and not the other, what else could he expect? So why should I feel guilty? He brought all of this on himself.
Sung response
Voice 2
Why should I feel guilty? He had it coming to him! There’s a time for playing the village idiot, and a time for poking fun at what is serious in politics and religion, but there is a borderline surrounding frivolous jesting and outspoken indiscretion, and that’s something this madman neither realised nor recognised. He was not self-aware. He had no understanding of the impact he was making on simple, gullible folk who were ready to believe everything he decided to tell them. I mean, I ask you! Water into wine… making leprosy disappear… telling the wind and the waves to stop, and they do! So why should I feel guilty? He brought all of this on himself.
Sung response
Voice 3
Why should I feel guilty? He brought it all on himself. Riding on a donkey is all very well.
Performing for your starry-eyed friends who are willing to throw the shirts off their backs in front of you - that’s one thing. But pretending to be something you’re not, acting as if you’re royalty, making pronouncements as if you are none other than God Almighty himself - that might be OK for a laugh at a party, but don’t tell me this is appropriate behaviour in the bright light of day. And it’s certainly not something to be tolerated during this most sacred week of the year. He choose to do all that therefore he must be prepared accept the consequences. So why should I feel guilty? He brought all of this on himself.
Sung response
Voice 1
Why should I feel guilty? He had it coming to him. The thought police clocked what he was up to. And he never tried to hide what he was doing from the holy men and priests. He lapped it up when folk stood there and cheered him, and relished every bit of publicity he was able to get. “This temple is a house of prayer” he said. And who would disagree?
But if he really believed it, why scatter pigeons and pound coins all over the place? If that’s not sacrilegious, then what is? Why should I feel guilty?
Voice 2
Why should I feel guilty? If it was recognition through sensationalism he was after, he certainly went about it the right way. You can say people are more important than sparrows, but if you knock over the cages of expensive doves and deliberately let them loose to fly away you’ll soon discover what really is sacred and what is not. Why should I feel guilty?
Voice 3
Why should I feel guilty? A place of worship is not some kind of laboratory where experiments are carried out. It’s not a place for pushing your luck to see how far you can go. Good people go there to be reassured and also to be comforted. They go to listen to God’s voice of approval and receive the blessing of heaven. So what else could he expect if he disturbed all that, and upset decent folk with delicate ears by talking about scabby skin, and twisted limbs, and broken minds? That’s not what worship’s about. So tell me, why should I feel guilty at all?
Sung response
Voice 1
Why should I feel guilty? He smiled at soldiers, joked with heathens and gentiles, gave them his word that each of them were loved by heaven.
Voice 2
Why should I feel guilty? This God-crazed religious freak should have refrained, restrained, behaved himself.
Voice 3
Why should I feel guilty? This so-called Son of God should have had the sense to keep his big mouth shut.
Reflection: Father, Forgive Them
“Why should I feel guilty? He brought it on himself after all.” Each of us here might want to ask the same question because we weren’t there, we weren’t involved and we didn’t do it. This crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years ago had nothing whatsoever to do with us.
Our Holy Week hymns are full of it: Jesus’ death was my fault; your fault; our fault. And the majority of Holy Week songs actively encourage us to take on - and absorb - the weight of this guilt. They insist we should take the wrap for Jesus’ death. “Holy God, have mercy upon us” for what we’ve done. “There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin.” – my sin. “Mine is the sin, but thine the righteousness; mine is the guilt, but thine the cleansing blood.”
It’s a fact that the Church has always been very, very good at making people feel guilty, and at services like this all over the world tonight, guilt will be the focus of many a sermon being preached. But if guilt is all Good Friday means to us; if guilt is our principal preoccupation when we leave here tonight, then we will have done a great injustice to this man Jesus, and missed completely the point and purpose of his death which we mark here together like this.
For it is a death which, first and foremost, spells out forgiveness: the once and for all forgiveness of Jesus; the once and for all forgiveness of heaven; the once and for all forgiveness of God Almighty himself whatever the fault, whatever the action, whatever the so-called crime. So why do we keep beating ourselves up about it? “He died - that we might be forgiven.” says another of our hymns. In other words, his death, the purpose of his death, is that humanity might receive forgiveness which is total and complete. “He died so that we might be forgiven.”
Good Friday is good because it screams out forgiveness, and it was words of forgiveness which were among the last to be spoken by him as he hung on his cross: “Father, forgive them. Forgive them, because they just don’t know what they are doing.” There’s a sense in which those words sum up the entirety of the Gospel, for they bring us to the very heart of God, and God’s forgiving nature. Here, in his situation of worst agony, Jesus looks around at those who had publicly ridiculed him, deserted him, physically tortured him, and then consigned him to this most hellish kind of slow death by inches. And what does he do? In words shot through with tenderness, and understanding, and compassion, he implores the Spirit of Heaven’s love to forgive the injustice and unfairness of his own situation.
Right to the very end, typically, Jesus does the most unpredictable and unusual thing. Right to the end, he acts totally contrary to the method and way of humanity. Right to the end he comes out with the completely unexpected, because he is determined to convince us that divinity is bigger and broader and wider, and light years away from the way in which humanity just loves to point its fingers and delights in apportioning blame.
“Father, forgive them. Forgive them because they haven’t got a clue what they are doing or what they’re about.” For us, these must be words of release from the guilt they tell us we should feel. They’re about liberation, second chance, slates wiped clean. For the forgiveness of God is always total and always complete even though, even when, even if, the ultimate happens: even when stupid, idiotic humanity takes it into its head to murder its very own God.
This is hard for us to get our heads round, because for us, the idea of forgiveness can be hugely problematic. How many times have we heard it said before?: “I just can’t forgive her for what she’s done.” “I’ll never speak to him ever again.” “The hurt goes too deep; the damage too extensive; the sense of unfairness too painful.” And then, of course, there’s the whole mega-issue of those folk who are unwilling or unable to forgive themselves. But while that’s how human beings might think, it is not where our God who is forgiveness and understanding is coming from. And all we need to benefit from this is to acknowledge our mistakes, regret the wrong we’ve done, – but not dwell on it, or wallow in it, or even sometimes perversely enjoy it.
But, in this particular instance, it wasn’t me. I was in no way involved. I wasn’t even there. The crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth had nothing to do with me. Unless, of course, something of the continuing living Spirit of this man somehow still resides in the people who surround me today. Unless, of course…. it is true what they say, and he is in a very real sense still alive. Unless, of course…. that means he suffers even more pain when I damage and injure my neighbours, rape this planet, ignore the hurting of his people. Unless, of course…. this dreadful crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth is indeed repeated again and again and again.
So maybe, despite what I’ve said, I am guilty after all. Maybe I have no right to plead that it wasn’t me. Maybe they way that I live, and the things that I do continue to drive nails into the body of Christ: his people. And maybe that’s what those theologians mean when they claim this crucifixion is still going on.
“Father forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” But is it true to say we don’t know what we are doing today? And is it true that all we do is done in innocence or ignorance? As we grasp for more of this earth’s resources, in the full knowledge that this results in others having less. Is that a kind of crucifixion? As we make our strident demands for fairness and justice and equality for ourselves, while at the same time doing little or nothing about the fact that millions do not enjoy fairness and justice. Is that a crucifixion too? As we gorge ourselves to the point of obesity and unhealthiness, and then without a qualm, throw out the surplus when there are so many others with hungry, empty bellies. Yet another crucifixion? Do we really not know what we are doing as we continue to hammer in more and more nails?
But the good news of Good Friday is this. Where acknowledgement of guilt is honest, where regret is truthful and sincere, where repentance and change of heart is genuine, where change in approach and amendment of practical activity is the result, then forgiveness is ours, and it is available to us simply for the asking. And with it comes freedom: freedom from the guilt, release from ourselves. And so our humanity becomes all the richer, all the fuller, and much more complete.
He died that we might be forgiven, he died to make us good: that we might go at last to heaven saved by his precious blood. For the love - and the forgiveness - of God is broader than the grasp of mortal mind, and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind. Thanks be to God for Good Friday, for all that it symbolises; for all that it means; for all that it does for you and for me. Amen.
A Litany of Forgiveness
As individuals, one of the most meaningful ways we can honour this death of Jesus of Nazareth is to attempt to practise in our own lives the same kind of forgiveness he did. Of course, we know that, in our humanity, we will never match him, nor ever hope to achieve that completely. But that doesn’t necessarily prevent us from attempting to aim for forgiveness within the parameters of our own abilities.
As you came into the church tonight, you received a nail. Can I ask you to take it into your hands now, and during these next few minutes, I want to invite you to press the sharp point into your palm. You can apply as little or as much pressure as you feel is appropriate to yourself.
Let the discomfort (or the pain) stand for the discomfort or pain you may have caused others in your lifetime: the wounding or the damage you have done - either intentionally, because it was quite deliberate and you meant it, or unintentionally because you just didn’t know what you were doing. And in the silence now, in your honest regret, ask the one who is always ready to forgive you help you to let that guilt go, to lay it down, to leave it in the past. For what is done can not now be undone. Tomorrow will come and it still must be lived.
Time for Reflection
Those wounding words you spoke which went straight to somebody’s heart…. that deliberate action you took which you knew fine well would make someone uncomfortable, or even suffer or hurt…. the withdrawal of your support…. your refusal to be generous…. that time you minded your own business, and refused to become involved, when the right thing would have been to engage, for you could have made a difference.
Time for Reflection
The misuse of this planet because of your unnecessary over-consumption of its resources…. the way you waste things…. the endless chucking out…. how you treat valuable commodities as if they were worthless and didn’t count….the injustice and unfairness you create because your habit is to demand and demand and demand, which causes little people somewhere far away to sweat even harder.
Time for Reflection
Your “me first and last” approach…. the time you turned a blind eye instead of confronting unfairness…. all the pretending you do, and the hiding of your true self, when confrontation and protest would be the right and fair thing to do.
Time for Reflection
And there are other things you know fine well you need to be forgiven for. But they are personal, and they are very secret, and nobody else knows. They’re too embarrassing to mention, too humiliating to ever speak about, matters that you will take with you to the grave.
“Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.” Then accept that forgiveness now, for it is yours, and yours by right. It is yours through the crucifixion and death of Christ the Son.
Time for Reflection
Symbolic Actions
In the forgiveness of heaven there is healing. In the healing of heaven there is mending. In the mending of heaven there is generosity. In the generosity of heaven there is peace.
For the one who longs to make us whole is waiting to embrace our broken lives so we can know the power of healing grace.
I invite you now to acknowledge your acceptance of God’s forgiveness by bringing your nail and laying it at the foot of the cross. Or take it home with you if, at this point, you have not been able to bring yourself to accept heaven’s forgiveness, or if you have not been able to forgive yourself.
And then will you come and kneel at the front, so that I may anoint you with the sacred oil of own God’s healing. Let me place the sign of the cross, on which Jesus died, on the brow of your head.
And then after that, on this Good Friday, having worshipped the one who died that we might be forgiven, will you leave this place in silence, and will you leave this place in peace?
