Sermon: Friday, March 25, 2016: Good Friday
Texts: Isaiah 52:13--53:12 + Psalm 22 + Hebrews 10:16-25 + John 18:1--19:42This sermon was preached by LSTC Seminarian Evan Mayhew at St. Luke's Lutheran Church of Logan Square on Good Friday (03/25/2016).Choice. We are living in a time and place where we have more "choice" than we have ever had before. We can choose how we communicate with others. We can choose which phone to buy and what apps to install. We can choose what news to listen to and which shows to watch on Netflix. We can customize our lives to the point where we don't even have to choose what we experience anymore. We can receive only the news we want to hear and "swipe left" on everything we don't want to deal with....But that's not right, is it? No matter how many choices we make, as humans we cannot escape that which looms over us... death, loss, sin, consequences, mortality. We can choose to ignore it, but it always seems to return like an unwanted advertisement.Yet, here we are, gathered in a small storefront church in Chicago, gathered as a community of faith, staring death directly in the face. We chose to be here. Why? Why not choose to have a quiet Friday night at home?This year, more than ever, I have been wrestling with what exactly this day is... If we are Easter people, why do we choose to walk through the valley of Good Friday? Sure, it makes dramatic sense to tell the entire story as it is told to us in the Bible, but the ancient church used to tell the whole story in one service! Why spend an entire day on one half of the story?
As a theatre student who took a few acting classes, I was taught to look for choices when preparing to act out a script. For example: "If the character is angry, why does he choose to stay?" That background was in my head as I converted today's text from John into a dramatic reading, and because of that, I found myself getting caught up on a detail that I have never paid attention to before.Having just witnessed Jesus' arrest, Peter and another disciple follow the soldiers and police to the courtyard of the high priest. The other disciple was known to the high priest, so he had no worries following beyond that point... but Peter stopped outside the gate until the other disciple came back, spoke to the woman guarding the gate, and let him come in. It's a detail so small that I have never encountered it before, but it strikes me as significant.It raises questions for me. Would the woman have stopped Peter if he tried to enter? Was Peter too afraid to come in because of the ramifications of being a follower of Jesus and the risk of arrest? The other disciple was apparently known by the woman to be a disciple of Jesus because of how she phrases her question to Peter (You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?), but yet, that disciple went into the courtyard without hesitation... Why would the other disciple go in and then come back to let Peter in? ...I don't know, but this moment pointed me to a bigger discovery...Peter chose to stand at the gate, a gate literally symbolizing the border between his assured freedom and likely endangerment, when he could have just as easily left and waited until the next day to find out what happened to his Rabbi. He was teetering on the edge of a choice: do I follow my messiah into the lion's den to see what fate befalls him? Do I leave now and save my own skin? Or do I stand here at the gate and do nothing?Other characters in the story make difficult choices: Pilate deciding whether or not to commit a man he cannot find fault with to die... The Chief Priests committing themselves to the plan that Caiaphas has devised... Joseph of Arimathea facing his fear of the authorities by asking for Jesus' body... These are all choices of conscience, choices of faith.We make these choices all the time as people of faith. We as a congregation made a choice of faith last Sunday when we chose to break the law to draw attention to the plight of those who are affected by gentrification. When Erik and Liz entered that police transport, so did we, as people baptized in this community. And we as a congregation also struggle with these choices together. We hear it all the time in testimonies on Sunday. Peter Wilhelm touched on this a few Sundays ago when he spoke about his journey on the question of how to respond to people asking for money on the street and what that means for his faith life. These choices of faith are always with us.But Peter's choice is closest to what we are doing here today. Peter was deciding whether he should choose to stay and watch what he knew would be hard to watch. It would be easy to wait until the crucifixion; it would have been even easier to pay his respects at the tomb. But he had called this man so many names: Rabbi, Messiah, Christ, The Holy One of God... Who was this man? What was Peter witnessing? There was more to Jesus than Peter could ever name, and now this man that he devoted his life to was marching toward certain death. How could it come to this? So, he stayed there at the gate and waited... and watched.That is what we are doing here on this Good Friday. We are standing at the gate between an easy world of avoiding loss and death, and the reality of Jesus' journey to, and death on the cross. Maybe you're feeling like you'd rather be at home. Maybe you would tear down any barrier to be with Jesus. Maybe you're not sure how you feel, and would rather stay and observe from a distance. Maybe it is a combination of all three. I imagine all three of those feelings were in Peter's heart as he stood there. That's what it is to be human.It's so easy to get caught up in these choices and the inevitable consequences. I cannot count the number of times I have stood in a church service and felt bad that my heart was not in the words I spoke. I cannot count the number of times I have passed by someone on the street who was asking for money and immediately regretted it. I see these choices every day, and sometimes it feels like there's no escape from the bed I have made for myself. The pressure of choices can bring us to our knees.But the thing is... Peter's choice wasn't the point. Whether he wrestled his way past the guard, hid himself away, or continued to stand there... it wouldn't have made a difference. It was Christ's choice that truly mattered.Jesus had many choices in this story. There were many times when he could have turned back. When the soldiers marched up to the garden, he could have run, or have let his disciples fight for him. When the authorities questioned him, he could have played along. When Pilate tried to offer him freedom, he could have taken it. But he didn't.God could have looked at creation, and decided differently. Why forgive a world that, especially in these days when hate, division, and prejudice fill our streets and headlines, seems like a lost cause. A world that often takes the message of love given by God and twists it into a sword with which to subjugate and exclude. A world that would, and often does choose anything but God. It would have been easy to imagine the final judgment on this world as "beyond saving". Yet, even in the face of all this, Jesus died to save that world, to save us, so that we may not die but have eternal life.But those words are not enough. We say them so often that we forget that this act of love is beyond description, beyond platitudes, beyond theological formulation... God has turned the world upside down, and the laws of choice and consequence have changed forever. No matter how eloquent the phrase, no matter how majestic a name we give to our Savior... nothing can describe what has been done. The world has changed forever.And tonight, on this Good Friday, gathered as one in a small storefront church in Chicago, we are like Peter, standing at the gate, bearing witness to a God doing something beyond our comprehension. We may not know how to respond, but our response does not change what has happened, what is happening. And God, much like the other disciple that comes back for Peter, comes to us now as we stand at the gate, and guides us in to watch and listen; not scolding us for waiting at the gate, but rather finding us where we are.And just like Peter, who despite being let in to get closer to Jesus, effectively standing among those who could condemn him, still denied him three times... we will still make choices. We still might choose to run away and deny, we still might choose to follow, we still we still might choose to do nothing... Our choices will always be filled with uncertainty and doubt, and our faith will always fluctuate with every step. And it will always be easy to get caught up in the consequences of our actions, and we most certainly will again come before God like Peter, full of shame and regret for our sins.But God has made the ultimate choice: to save us from the consequences of the choices we make, in order that we might be free. Free from self-loathing, free from death. The good news is that God chose us, even when we chose, didn't choose, or hesitated to choose God. Because even as we think we're standing at the gate, God has already let us in.