Sermon preached by The Rev'd Richard Tombaugh

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

Good Friday – March 21, 2008

Some years ago I had a powerful dream. In the dream I was alone and drifting out into the darkness of space. The only lights were the minuscule stars so very far away. As I continued to drift, I became smaller and the stars began to disappear. Finally, I was only a tiny dot against the blackness of space. The darkness surrounded me and the silence was overwhelming. I felt I was coming to an end and I had to struggle to the surface of wakefulness to save myself. It was a frightening dream that communicated profound loneliness.

Tonight we stand close to an event with that kind of power. It is the type of power that brings to the surface the fearful side of our souls. We stand at the foot of the cross in a cold and barren church and read together the story of the passion of Jesus at the Place of the Skull which in Hebrew is called Golgatha. To stand at the foot of the cross on Good Friday is to stand in the presence of the most powerful forces in our sinful and broken world. We are confronted with death. The deadliness of this crucifixion surrounds us like a shroud. And rather than offer some kind of sanitized protection from all that would threaten to undo us, the Christian faith calls us to encounter what we most fear.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross after all her work with dying patients has said that somewhere deep down inside of us there is the conviction, perhaps a remnant of childhood, that we really are immortal. She goes on to say that a confrontation with the possibility of our own death can be a shattering experience. We can pretend for only so long that death is what happens to “the other guy.” When it sinks in that we ourselves will die, the response is often denial and isolation, anger and depression. The fear of death leads to a withdrawal from life. I have known people who started that process at a very early age. Death comes to us, invading our dreams of immortality and no new cosmetic and no glib “God talk” can help us avoid the inexorable course of our lives. It is as if we are moving into the darkness and the stars are beginning to fade. When that encounter comes, we are in Jerusalem at Golgatha.

On a less dramatic level, we have all experienced the little “deaths” that each day brings when we move into situations that seem too big or too demanding and that leaves us feeling small and inadequate. We have all experienced those times when decisions are called for and we must make them alone. In these experiences we know about denial and avoidance, and depression as we find ourselves saying, “Surely it is not up to me,” or “I don’t want to have to go through this.” We have all experienced the paralysis of indecision which only perpetuates a bad situation rather than bring resolution. None of us likes to suffer and hurt, and yet, it seems that living decisively in a broken world implies pain. In the moments, when we are alone with decisions that must be made, the silence can be deafening. And we are in Jerusalem at Golgatha.

The Christian faith does not lift us out of the dilemma of being human. Good Friday is no easy panacea for those who would avoid suffering, pain and death. Instead, the frightenly simple yet wondrously mysterious message of the Gospel is that there is one who stand with us in the midst of all that life would bring. Jesus willingly enters Jerusalem and in so doing enters all the Jerusalems of our lives. He has gone before us into those dark places and calls us to follow him without fear. There is nothing particularly heroic about what he does. Not even the gospel writers can paint angels hovering around the cross or halos replacing the crown of thorns. They paint him as he was: a man who entered so fully into life that he was broken by it; a man who was faithful to giving himself in love even though it meant dying on the cross.

The Christian faith affirms; it does not deny, that life leads us into many Jerusalems, to many little crosses and to the Cross itself. It is only when we engage that life fully and follow Our Lord into the darkness that we have the possibility of seeing the light. We are not called to be heroic. We are called to be faithful. We are called to move forward, making those decisions that life brings us: decisions to go on loving when love seems to fade; decisions to forgive when forgiveness seems impossible; decisions to change when change is laid upon us; decisions to stay faithful when we are tempted to be faithless.

Jesus moves forward into Jerusalem and there, at Golgatha, he meets his end. But it is precisely there, at The Place of the Skull, that we begin to discover the powerful reason for his going forward into the dark. Somewhere, at the end of it all, self-giving love is the answer to living in a broken and sinful world. It is in the loving embrace of whatever comes that meaning is to be found. We are called to love our way though all the little deaths that confront us so that we may share in the wondrous knowledge that beyond it all, death has been swallowed up in victory.

Jesus gives himself over to that which calls him. “…carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgatha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.” His mortal life drifts into the darkness of space, stars flicker and fade, and death has its way with him. There is a moment when we hear him gasp for breath. Then he is still and there is silence. At the end of the day, night comes –black night with no stars. To enter this moment with Jesus is to enter into our own “dark nights,” our own nightmares of meaningless and fears of impotence in the face of greater odds.

Only in the darkness can we begin to perceive dimly the penetration of light. Only after suffering the night can we rejoice as dawn gently sweeps it away. After the darkness of night comes the light of dawn and with it the music of the birds. At this moment a new beginning invades what we believed to be the end.

Learning to live means learning to move on into the darkness of our own Jerusalems, knowing that, if we are afraid he is with us and, if we weep the one who wept in Gethsemane is standing near and, if we hurt, the one on the Cross bears our sufferings.

A few years ago one the popular songs of day went like this:

It’s the heart afraid of breaking

That never learns to dance.

It’s the dream afraid of waking

That never takes the chance.

It’s the one who won’t be taken

Who cannot seem to give.

And the soul afraid of dying

That never learns to live.

Perhaps the most wondrous words from the cross were never actually spoken from the cross but yet heard again and again by the countless followers of Jesus. “Fear not for I am with you.”