My Good Friday sermon
Mar. 15th, 2008 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrishansenhomeI'm pretty sure that no one reading this blog will be at St. John's Walworth next Friday, so I'm going to print my Good Friday sermon here, in case it's interesting to anyone. As the Gospel for Good Friday is long, the sermon is short.
March 21, 2008 Good Friday
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 1:30pm.
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.
Everyone’s wondered at some time or other why today is called “Good Friday”. After all, death is not something we usually commemorate as being “good”. The name “Good Friday” was originally “God’s Friday,” and we remember the death of Jesus, God’s Son and himself God today.
Crucifixion wasn’t the easiest death around. There is a reason why non-Romans like Jesus were crucified and Romans like St. Paul were beheaded. Crucifixion was and is a nasty way to go.
As we see it from our earthly perspective, death is the end. The body, once animated, breathing, talking, moving, is now still, silent, and wooden. We fear death as being the end of our existence here on earth—we sometimes do all that we can to slow down the aging process so that the inevitable end of our existence is postponed. We often quote Scripture when out on the town, having a good time: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”
Those of you who are my age or older may remember the American theologican Harvey Cox and his assertion that “God is Dead!” from the 1960’s. His theory was that our original ideas about God were now no longer useful in the modern world, and some new ones needed to be found. While Cox’s theological speculation is now as dead as the god of whom he spoke, today, for us Christians God is really and truly dead.
You may have heard Good Friday sermons on the Seven Last Words of Christ in the past: they tend to be long 3-hour affairs, and Father John would be quite cross if I went on to speak for 3 hours. The death of God however, is a theological statement that could be chewed over for centuries, and has been. The theologians who have been chewing it over are much smarter than I am and have much more exciting and learned discussions about it than you and I can have this afternoon.
The fact that I want to bring out is a unique one. Unless someone here is 95 years old or older, they will not have personal experience of this. And I can say confidently that for around 200 years, no one else will. So I’ll leave you with that fact, and ask that you think about it, and take something cheerful away from our somber and solemn observance this afternoon. It is a sign of hope amidst the sorrow of death, a sign of rebirth after the silence of death, a sign of love in the midst of hate and violence.
This year Good Friday is the first full day of Spring. AMEN.
March 21, 2008 Good Friday
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 1:30pm.
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.
Everyone’s wondered at some time or other why today is called “Good Friday”. After all, death is not something we usually commemorate as being “good”. The name “Good Friday” was originally “God’s Friday,” and we remember the death of Jesus, God’s Son and himself God today.
Crucifixion wasn’t the easiest death around. There is a reason why non-Romans like Jesus were crucified and Romans like St. Paul were beheaded. Crucifixion was and is a nasty way to go.
As we see it from our earthly perspective, death is the end. The body, once animated, breathing, talking, moving, is now still, silent, and wooden. We fear death as being the end of our existence here on earth—we sometimes do all that we can to slow down the aging process so that the inevitable end of our existence is postponed. We often quote Scripture when out on the town, having a good time: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”
Those of you who are my age or older may remember the American theologican Harvey Cox and his assertion that “God is Dead!” from the 1960’s. His theory was that our original ideas about God were now no longer useful in the modern world, and some new ones needed to be found. While Cox’s theological speculation is now as dead as the god of whom he spoke, today, for us Christians God is really and truly dead.
You may have heard Good Friday sermons on the Seven Last Words of Christ in the past: they tend to be long 3-hour affairs, and Father John would be quite cross if I went on to speak for 3 hours. The death of God however, is a theological statement that could be chewed over for centuries, and has been. The theologians who have been chewing it over are much smarter than I am and have much more exciting and learned discussions about it than you and I can have this afternoon.
The fact that I want to bring out is a unique one. Unless someone here is 95 years old or older, they will not have personal experience of this. And I can say confidently that for around 200 years, no one else will. So I’ll leave you with that fact, and ask that you think about it, and take something cheerful away from our somber and solemn observance this afternoon. It is a sign of hope amidst the sorrow of death, a sign of rebirth after the silence of death, a sign of love in the midst of hate and violence.
This year Good Friday is the first full day of Spring. AMEN.
