Sermon – Time
and Action
Good Friday’s sermon is contained
in the BC strip above. It pretty
much covers the meaning of Good Friday.
For God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3.16
Good
Friday
Good Friday was the day in which
Jesus was tried by the Jews, tried by Pilate, condemned, crucified, died and
was buried[1]. Except in hindsight, this was not a
Good Friday at all.
In the early hours before sunup,
Jesus is betrayed by the “Judas Kiss” and arrested. At sunrise, he is disowned
by Peter thrice before the cock croweth. When brought before Caiaphas, the
Jewish High Priest, and his Council, he is condemned. He says that he will rise
from death after three days.
They hand him over to the Roman
authority, Pontius Pilate, who sends him to Herod (Antipas, the son of Herod
the Great). Then Pilate asks the crowd who he is to pardon: a murderer, or
Jesus? The crowd chooses Barabas and Jesus is sentenced to death. Pilate’s
actions made famous the line, “I wash my hands of this.” While he might have attempted to wash
the guilt for the murder of the world’s one truly innocent man on to the Jews,
he remains the one who condemned him to death. Pilate was nothing if not a politician and bureaucrat. The condemnation was to him the
simplest solution to the problem of a Jewish hierarchy’s manufactured crowd’s
anger. What was the death of one
Jew to him? Yet he was worried
enough to attempt to wash his hands of the guilt.
Jesus is brought to Calvary,
where on the “third hour” (9 am) he is crucified. He is mocked as he hangs
between the Bad Thief and the Good Thief, whom he blesses. On the “sixth hour”
(noon), darkness covers the land. Jesus cries out “My God, My God, hast Thou
forsaken Me? ”
After drinking wine, he commits
his spirit to his Father and dies. Matthew reports an earthquake that destroys
the Temple. Many understand now that Jesus was the Son of God. His body is
taken down and anointed. He is buried in a new tomb donated by Joseph of
Arimethea. This is the first day of death.
The Epistle for Good Friday comes
from the Tenth Chapter of Saint Paul’s letter to the Hebrews beginning at the
First Verse.
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HE law having a shadow of good
things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those
sacrifices, which they offered year by year continually, make the comers
thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because
that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.
But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away
sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering
thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: in burnt-offerings and
sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the
volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Above when he
said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt-offerings and offering for sin thou
wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God: he taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth
daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never
take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for
ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from hence-forth expecting till his
enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever
them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for
after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in
their minds will I write them; then saith he, And their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more
offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the
holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath
consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an
high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and
our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith
without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one
another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of
ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so
much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
Much like the Gospel for Palm
Sunday, if you imagine yourself there it will make the hair on the back of your
neck stand up at points. The
Gospel came from the Nineteenth Chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John
beginning at the First Verse:
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ILATE therefore took Jesus, and
scourged him. And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his
head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, Hail, King of the Jews! and
they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith
unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no
fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the
purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! When the chief priests
therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify
him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault
in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because
he made himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was
the more afraid; and went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus,
Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto him,
Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee,
and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at
all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that
delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. And from thenceforth Pilate sought
to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou
art not Cæsar’s friend: whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against
Cæsar. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat
down in the judgment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the
Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the
sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out,
Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I
crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Cæsar. Then
delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and
led him away. And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place
of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: where they crucified him,
and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate
wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH
THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place
where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city; and it was written in Hebrew,
and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write
not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate
answered, What I have written I have written. Then the soldiers, when they had
crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every sol-dier a
part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top
throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast
lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which
saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast
lots. These things therefore the soldiers did. Now there stood by the cross of
Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary
Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by,
whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he
to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her
unto his own home. After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now
accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there
was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and
put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received
the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the
ghost. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies
should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was
an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they
might be taken away. Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first,
and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and
saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: but one of the soldiers
with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.
And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he
saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the
scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again
another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.
[1]
The tomb was a new one
which had been hewn for Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph, a native of Arimathea, was apparently a man of
wealth, and probably a member of the Sanhedrin an "honourable counsellor,
who waited (or "was searching") for the kingdom of God",
according to John, he was secretly a disciple of Jesus. As soon as he heard the
news of Jesus' death, he "went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body
of Jesus." Pilate, reassured by a centurion that the death had really
taken place, allowed Joseph's request. Joseph immediately purchased fine linen
and went to Golgotha to take the body down from the cross. There, assisted by
Nicodemus, he took the body and wrapped it in the fine linen, sprinkling it
with the myrrh and aloes that Nicodemus had brought. The body was then conveyed
to the new tomb in rock in his garden nearby. There they laid it, in the
presence of Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and other women, and
rolled a great stone to the entrance, and departed. This was done speedily,
"for the Sabbath was drawing on". Joseph of Arimathea appears in some
early New Testament apocrypha.
Although there are no written records until the
fifth century, tradition holds Joseph of Arimethea, who provided the tomb for
the burial of Jesus Christ, brought Christianity and the Holy Grail to England
in 37 AD and built a church in Glastonbury in Somerset.
