Good Friday sermon 2011

Good Friday sermon
April 22, 2011

“Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”
After everyone else had abandoned him, why were these women still there? Why are we here this day? What do we hope to gain from this sad observance?
One of my commentaries wrote of the Good Friday observance: “Everybody sings ‘O Come all Ye Faithful.’ Only the faithful sing ‘ O Sacred Head Sore Wounded’ or ‘At the cross her vigil keeping, stood the mournful mother weeping…’ This week, for better and worse, we are pretty much on our own. That is the cultural difference between Christmas and Holy Week—but why do the faithful, and to be honest, the wondering and questioning, and not-really-sure-at-all, come to a Good Friday service?”
Why are the women standing at the foot of the cross? Why do we stand here as well?
As Jesus’s mother stands at the foot of the cross with a small remnant of people, she must be weeping, grieving not only for the horrible suffering and death of her innocent son. She is also grieving for the loss of her hope, the loss of dreams for her own future and for her son; she is mourning the loss of her joyful expectations.
While not all of us have experience the profound grief of the loss of a child, all of us know something of this other loss. We too have lost hope; we too have had to bury our joyful expectation; we too have grieved the loss of our dreams for how life is supposed to turn out.
So why do we come here today? Is it to be a funeral for our lost hopes and dreams and expectations? That would hardly be Good Friday!
Today, the writer from the letter to the Hebrews reminds us that we are here to “hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,” “to approach the throne of grace with boldness that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need…” We know the end of the story, the great surprise of Easter, and even on this sad day, we can focus on the hope that is the gift of the resurrection.
And the gift of the cross this day is an invitation. We are invited to take all that we have lost, all for which we still mourn, and to lay it all at the foot of the cross, where it will no longer be lost, dead, gone. At the foot of the cross, all our lost hope can and will be redeemed. And that is why we are here this day.

In just a few moments, after the solemn collects, we will have what is known as the “veneration of the cross.” As we sit in silence and then sing about Mary’s grief and profound loss at the foot of the cross, you are invited to come forward to the cross or to kneel or sit in your pew, and to imagine that you are gathering up your loss, your grief, your frustrated expectations, your hopelessness, and that you are laying them down at the foot of the cross where they will be redeemed and given new life, new hope in the resurrection.