Archive for the ‘Good Friday’ Category

God is dead – Good Friday

April 19, 2025

God is dead – Good Friday 2025

Marian Free

In the name of God who, in Jesus, identified with humanity to the point of death.  Amen.

“Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” A core component of Christian faith is that Jesus actually dies. Taken to a literal end point, God dies with Jesus on the cross. From three in the afternoon on Friday to sometime during the night on Saturday evening there is an absence – an absence felt physically by Jesus’ friends and disciples. An absence that I believe we are meant to feel in our hearts and in our bones. From that moment on Good Friday when the gospel is read until that moment on Sunday morning when we declare: “Christ is risen”, we are confronted with the harsh reality that Jesus, God among us, was put to death and that for something like 36 hours, Jesus’ lifeless body lay in a tomb. Jesus/God was truly dead.

As we wait – in this time of emptiness – we have an opportunity to experience the absence of God –  in Gaza, in Ukraine, in the prisons where people are tortured and killed because they challenged the authority of the state, in the favelas of Brazil, the townships of South Africa and the slums of Mumbai and in the Congo and the countless other places in which war, civil strife, injustice and poverty shout out that God is dead, that God is impotent to bring about lasting change.

In the dramatization of the gospel on Good Friday we acknowledge our complicity in the death of Jesus. We take the part of the crowd demanding: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” In so doing, we acknowledge our complicity in the death of Jesus/God in the world today. Our collective unwillingness to pay the cost of change that would lead to peace, equity and justice makes us uncomfortable with “revolutionaries” like Jesus, such that we join the cry for their removal – condemning Jesus to his death. Our collective belief that somehow we can solve the dilemmas of the world, pushes God to margins, denies God the ability to act – sends Jesus to the cross. Our focus on our own needs and our belief that collectively we have the tools to solves the world’s problems proclaims that we do not need God – keeps Jesus in the tomb.

During the time between our Good Friday observances and our Easter Day celebrations, we acknowledge that God is powerless in the face of human greed, greed that leads to a desire for power and control, greed that demands an unfair share of the world’s resources, greed that ensures one’s own well-being before the needs of others. We recognise our complicity in the state of the world today and we grieve the ways in which we have disempowered and marginalised God through our action (or more likely through our inaction).

If God is dead, it is because we put God to death. It is a burden we need to carry especially today.

Thank God we know the end of the story. 

May we commit ourselves to resurrection life – ours and that of others – that God’s power and love may be effective in the world and God’s presence shine light into the darkness.

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If Friday is “Good” do we need the resurrection?

March 30, 2024

Easter Day – 2024

Matthew 28:1-18

Marian Free

In the name of God, who in Jesus shows us how to be truly free – of our fears, our anxieties and our insecurities. Amen.

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

If Friday is Good, if on the cross Jesus defeated evil and death and deprived them of their power why did he need to rise? What can the resurrection do that the cross has not done?  

If you have been a part of our liturgical celebrations over the past few days, you will know that they are of one piece. During the Last Supper, Jesus turned convention on its head and demonstrated that there was another way to do things. He showed that powerlessness was not weakness, that service was not enslavement and that death, and the powers of this world were not to be feared.

On the cross, Jesus exposed the ineffectiveness of worldly power and authority. By submitting to a wrongful arrest, false accusations and an unjust punishment, Jesus denied them their ability to coerce and deprived them of their ability to force him to their will. By refusing to fear death, Jesus rendered death incapable of exerting power over him.

But there was still more to do. If Jesus’ death on the cross signalled the defeat of evil and death, then the resurrection provided proof positive that the refusal to engage with the powers of this world renders them impotent, and that when we hold fast to the values of the kingdom, instead of being seduced by the false values of this world we open the doorway to a different ending to the story,  a story in which evil and death do not have the final say and do not determine our response to life’s circumstances. Jesus’ resurrection is evidence that in the final analysis love will triumph over hatred, that vulnerability freely chosen is stronger than force, that meeting violence with non-violence strips violence of its power and that true freedom is won when one seeks not one’s own well-being but the well-being of all people.

Conversely, the resurrection demonstrates the futility of using force to kill love, the foolishness of using the law to suppress goodness, and the uselessness of relying on oppression to quench the thirst for freedom or the desire for justice. The resurrection makes it clear that ultimately love cannot be extinguished, that freedom will not be denied and that in the end good will triumph over evil. 

Jesus’ resurrection is proof positive that we can choose not to be consumed by worldly values, a desire for wealth and power, the need for external recognition or the protection of our personal safety and comfort. Jesus’ resurrection informs that we, and therefore the world, will only be truly free when we, like Jesus, refuse to be bound and limited by hatred, greed, bitterness, resentment, anger and unhealthy relationships. Jesus’ resurrection is a reminder that if we resist the urge for external affirmation or gratification and if we rise above the pettiness of human existence then we, like Jesus, will be truly free and the powers of this world will have no power over us. We with him will be raised from the sordidness of competition, ambition and desire, freed to be truly ourselves – created in the image of God.

The resurrection means that we are:

free to truly live – unconstrained by all those things that bind and limit;

free to embrace our own divinity – unfettered by those things that threaten to overwhelm our true nature;

free to step into the future – released from all those things that would threaten to hold us to the past; and

free to love selflessly and unconditionally – unencumbered by all those things that separate us from each other.

Friday is Good, because death and sin are defeated and the resurrection is proof that the only power they have over us is the power that we give them. 

So let us claim the victory of the cross and live in the power of the resurrection.

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

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Why is this Friday “Good”?

March 30, 2024

Good Friday

John 18:1-19:42

Marian Free

In the name of God who exposes the values of this world for what they are. Amen.

I am often asked why today is called Good Friday, when it is a day filled with horror and death. 

It is good, not because of what happened OR because of what will happen. It is good because of what it tells us. 

By going willingly to the cross, by refusing to engage with a process that was blatantly unjust, and by resisting the temptation to save himself, Jesus exposed all that is wrong with this world – the grasping for and holding on to power, the desire to increase one’s wealth (albeit at the expense of others), the marginalisation and stereotyping of those who are different, the limits placed on freedom of expression, freedom of movement, and the attempts to control the narrative.  By submitting to and not fighting the powers of this world, Jesus exposes their powerlessness – to control, to limit, to label or to frighten. Jesus reveals that it is possible to play by a different set of rules – that one does not have to be bound by fear, hatred, greed or by a hunger for power or seduced by the desire for self-preservation or. control. By refusing to give evil power over him, by refusing to compromise to secure his own comfort and safety, Jesus takes power into his own hands, stripping evil of its power to intimidate, coerce or subjugate. 

Jesus overpowered evil and death by refusing to let them control his story. By facing the forces of this world head on, Jesus deprived them of their power over him.

Today is called “Good” because on this day Jesus showed that by standing apart from the world and refusing to be bound by worldly desires and conventions, and by resisting the. temptation to engage in the grasping for power, recognition and possessions Jesus stripped them of their power over him, and ultimately over us.   

It is Good Friday because the victory has been won and with our cooperation can become the reality for all people. 

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A Good Friday

April 6, 2023

Good Friday – 2023
John 18:1-19:42
Marian Free

In the name of God, who shares our joys and triumphs, our sorrows and defeats. Amen.

Several decades ago, in a Bloor Street United Church in Toronto, Canada, a sculpture of a woman arms outstretched as if crucified, was hung below the cross in the chapel.  (Almuth Lutkenhaus’s sculpture Crucified Woman.) 

https://maryloudriedger2.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/crucified-woman-photo-by-ivana-dizdar.png
On seeing it, a woman who had experienced sexual abuse as a child wrote the following poem.

This poem, by an anonymous author, was included in a magazine published in conjunction with the Ecumenical Decade 1988-1998, Churches in Solidarity with women: Prayers and Poems, Songs and Stories.

Women in a Changing World, January 1988, no 25, a publication of the World Council of Churches, 150, route de Ferney, 1211 Geneva 20/Switzerland.)

By his wounds you are healed
1 Peter 2:24

O God,
through the image of a woman
crucified on the cross
I understand at last.

For over half my life
I have been ashamed
of the scars I bear.
These scars tell an ugly story,
a common story,
about a girl who is the victim
when a man acts out his fantasies.

In the warmth, peace and sunlight of your presence
I was able to uncurl the tightly clenched fists.
For the first time
I felt your suffering presence with me
in that event.
I have known you as a vulnerable baby,
as a brother, and as a father.
Now I know you as a woman.
You were there with me.
as the violated girl
caught in hopeless suffering.

The chains of shame and fear
no longer bind my heart and body.
A slow fire of compassion and forgiveness
is kindled.
My tears fall now for man as well as woman.

You, God,
can make our violated bodies
vessels of love and comfort
to such a desperate man.
I am honoured to carry this womanly power
within my body and soul.

You were not ashamed of your wounds.
You showed them to Thomas
as marks of your ordeal and death.
I will no longer hide these wounds of mine.
I will bear them gracefully,
They tell a resurrection story.

In the body of a crucified woman, this woman saw the story of her own suffering. She understood in that moment that she was not alone, that God in Jesus had suffered and was suffering with her. So powerful was her experience that, in a verse that I was tempted to omit, she even gives value to that suffering.

On the cross, Jesus showed once for all that the God in whom we believe does not stand aloof, remote, and indifferent to our suffering, but is intimately connected to and directly engaged with all humanity. God in Jesus endured betrayal, abandonment, and denial; he experienced a sham trial, humiliation, brutality and finally the cruellest of deaths.

On the cross, Jesus demonstrated that God stands in solidarity with all who have been violated, abused, and oppressed, with all who have been tortured, falsely accused, and wrongly executed, with all who have been colonised, neglected, overlooked, and abandoned. In the crucified Christ, all who suffer trauma, indignity, or humiliation, see someone who identifies with and shares their pain.

Only a God who fully identifies with our sufferings, can reassure us that God knows what we are going through. Only a God who suffers as we suffer can help us to endure (and even overcome) our own suffering. Only a God who fully enters the human condition can reassure us that God truly knows what it is to be human.

God does know – and that is what makes this Friday “Good”.

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Taking God from the cross

April 14, 2022

Good Friday – 2022
Marian Free

In the name of our vulnerable God. Amen.

About thirty years ago a young woman was abducted at knife point, taken to some bushland, violently raped and stabbed and left for dead. Fortunately, she survived and somehow made it to the nearby road where she was able to flag down a passing motorist. It is impossible to imagine her terror, her desperation, her humiliation, and her utter vulnerability as she stood, naked and bleeding by the side of the road.

Likewise, it is impossible to put ourselves into the mind of Jesus as his naked, bruised and bleeding body hung on the cross – stared at and jeered at by complete strangers. Nakedness is a tool used in a variety of circumstances to humiliate and denigrate another. Our clothing (however insubstantial) provides some sort of protection against the world. It gives us a sense that our inner most being is guarded from the gaze of the world. It allows us to feel that we are somehow in control of our lives and our bodies.

Jesus has not been in control since his arrest in the garden. He has been spat on, whipped, ridiculed. He has been forced to endure the shame of carrying his own cross from Pilate’s court to the place of execution and now he has been stripped naked before being lifted up in front of those who take ghoulish delight in the suffering of others. Not only has Jesus suffered the mortification of the trial, but he has also had to endure Judas’ treachery, the abandonment by his disciples, Peter’s denial and the crowds baying for his blood.

There are so many ways to think of Good Friday, so many lessons to learn. This year, I challenge you to remember that the Jesus who was so brutally slaughtered was not immune to suffering but was, like us – fully human. For him the pain – both physical and emotional was all too real. The lashes and the thorns tore his skin, the nails pierced his flesh and his bone and the struggle to draw breath was excruciating agony. (For it to be otherwise would be to make a mockery of the Incarnation.)

And yet Jesus, fully human, was also fully God. It was God on that cross – God completely naked, exposed, vulnerable and totally out of control.

God does not stand idly by as members of humankind debase and dehumanise those who are different. God does not turn a blind eye when some of God’s creation shore up their power by suppressing, imprisoning, and torturing those who show signs of opposition. God does not ignore the attempts (wittingly or unwittingly) of some to increase their wealth at the expense of others. God is not absent when acts of cruelty, sadism and indifference are perpetrated against the weak and vulnerable. God is there in their suffering – experiencing their pain, their helplessness, and their degradation. The God who hangs on the cross enters fully into the agony and the powerless of all who suffer.

As unspeakable horrors unfold in Ukraine, in Yemen and elsewhere, as refugees are vilified and imprisoned, as millions around the starve or are trafficked into slavery, it is easy to ask: “Where is God?”

God is wounded, bleeding and suffocating on the cross. And on the cross God will remain until we find the will to end our hunger for power, our desire to be in control, and our willingness to demonise those who do not conform to our expectations.

We, by our indifference and failure to act, put God on the cross. Do we have the will to do what it takes to bring God down?

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Good Friday – 2020

April 9, 2020

Good Friday 2020

Service of the Passion
and
Recognition of the Cross

2009_good-friday

 

 

Hymn: 345 Were you there?

Greeting:
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.

Let us pray:

God of life and death,
we come before you with all our complexities –
the good and bad in ourselves,
our certainties and our anxieties,
the joys and sorrows in our lives,
our triumphs and our failures.
Open us to the possibilities that life offers,
give us strength for life’s journey
and draw us always into your presence. Amen

Collect:

God who shares our suffering,
give us courage to face abandonment, loss and insecurity.
Remind us that you walk beside us on the way, sharing our pain and holding us fast.
Help us to live through this and other adversities
so that we with Christ might rise to newness of life
in the present and for eternity.
We ask this through Jesus our Saviour
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

Poem: Sheila Cassidy – “Starting over – fighting back”

Sheila Cassidy, who quotes this poem, was an Australian born English doctor who was practicing in Chile when she was arrested, held without trial and tortured for 59 days . This verse seems to fit our times.
We without a future,
Safe, defined, delivered
Now salute You God,
Know that nothing is safe,
Secure, inviolable here.
Except You,
And even that eludes our minds
at times.

Reflection

“My God, my God why?”
a God who is absent,
who allows suffering
can confuse, disappoint and dismay.
We have to hold on through the darkness, however bleak
confident of coming to the resurrection morn.

Ministry of the Word

Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12

Psalm 22

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me:
why are you so far from helping me
and from the words of my groaning?
My God, I cry to you by day, but you do not answer:
and by night also I take no rest.
But you continue holy;
you that are the praise of Israel.
In you our forebears trusted:
they trusted and you delivered them.
To you they cried and they were saved:
they put their trust in you and were not confounded.
But as for me, I am a worm and no man:
the scorn of all and despised by the people.

Those that see me laugh me to scorn:
they shoot out their lips at me
and wag their heads, saying,
“He trusted in the Lord – let him deliver him:
let him deliver him, if he delights in him.”
But you are he that took me out of the womb:
that brought me to lie at peace on my mother’s breast.
On you have I been cast since my birth:
you are my God, even from my mother’s womb.
O go not from me, for trouble is hard at hand:
and there is none to help.
Many oxen surround me:
fat bulls of Bashan close me in on every side.
They gape wide their mouths at me:
like lions that roar and rend.
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint:
my heart within my breast is like melting wax.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd:
and my tongue clings to my gums.
My hands and my feet are withered:
and you lay me in the dust of death.
For many dogs are come about me:
and a band of evildoers hem me in.
I can count all my bones:
they stand staring and gazing upon me.
They part my garments among them:
and cast lots for my clothing.
O Lord, do not stand far off:
you are my helper, hasten to my aid.
Deliver my body from the sword:
my life from the power of the dogs;
O save me from the lion’s mouth:
and my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen.
I will tell of your name to my companions:
in the midst of the congregation will I praise you.
O praise the Lord, all you that fear him:
hold him in honour, O seed of Jacob,
and let the seed of Israel stand in awe of him.
For he has not despised nor abhorred
the poor man in his misery:
nor did he hide his face from him,
but heard him when he cried.
The meek shall eat of the sacrifice and be satisfied:
and those who seek the Lord shall praise him –
may their hearts rejoice forever!
Let all the ends of the earth remember
and turn to the Lord:
and let all the families of the nations worship before him.
For the kingdom is the Lord’s:
and he shall be ruler over the nations.
How can those who sleep in the earth do him homage:
or those that descend to the dust bow down before him?
But he has saved my life for himself:
and my posterity shall serve him.
This shall be told of my Lord to a future generation:
and his righteousness declared to a people yet unborn,
that he has done it.

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

For the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Hymn: 342 When I survey

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John Chapter 18 beginning
at verse 1.
Glory to you Lord Jesus Christ.

For the Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

Intercessions:

Let us pray for the world and for the church (please add your own prayers here).

Response: Loving God, hold our hands when we weep.
And give us strength to continue.

Lord’s Prayer: Accept our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who taught us to pray:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil,
for the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and forever. Amen.

Confession:

Though the world might be confusing and hard to control, God never abandons us. God comes to us in human form, sharing our experiences and revealing a depth of understanding and sympathy for our condition.
Let us then have confidence to admit our weaknesses, the ways in which we have failed God and ourselves.

Crucified Saviour,
with your disciples we abandon you
and the world for which you suffered,
seeking our own safety and
meeting our own desires.
Through our selfishness and greed
we inflict needless suffering on others
and wreak destruction on the planet.
Forgive us.
Give us grace to look beyond ourselves
and a willingness to be part of the solution and not the problem. Amen.

Absolution:

God who formed you and who suffered for you,
loves you unconditionally and forgives your sins.
Be set free to change and to grow. Amen.

Recognition of the cross:
Hymn: 341 My song is love unknown.
(Recognition of the cross. At this time you might like to reflect on the cross and Jesus’ willingness to suffer. Ask yourself if you are prepared to sit with pain to see what it has to teach you.)

Blessing:

Hymn: 351 Lift high the cross.

Copyright. Marian Free, 2020

From Richard Rohr

All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. Creation has a pattern of wisdom; and we dare not shield ourselves from it, or we literally will lose our soul. We can obey commandments, believe doctrines, and attend church services all our lives and still daily lose our souls if we run from the necessary cycle of loss and renewal. Death and resurrection are lived out at every level of the cosmos, but only one species thinks it can avoid it—the human species.
I am afraid that many of us with privilege have been able to become very naïve about pain and suffering in the United States and the Western world. We simply don’t have time for it. However, by trying to handle all suffering through willpower, denial, medication, or even therapy, we have forgotten something that should be obvious: we do not handle suffering; suffering handles us— in deep and mysterious ways that become the very matrix of life and especially new life. Only suffering and certain kinds of awe lead us into genuinely new experiences. All the rest is merely the confirmation of old experience.
It is amazing to me that the cross or crucifix became the central Christian logo, when its rather obvious message of inevitable suffering is aggressively disbelieved in most Christian countries, individuals, and churches. We are clearly into ascent, achievement, and accumulation. The cross became a mere totem, a piece of jewellery. We made the Jesus symbol into a mechanical and distant substitutionary atonement theory instead of a very personal and intense at-one-ment process, the very reality of love’s unfolding. We missed out on the positive and redemptive meaning of our own pain and suffering. It was something Jesus did for us (substitutionary), but not something that revealed and invited us into the same pattern. We are not punished for our sins, we are punished by our sins (such as blindness, egocentricity, illusions, or pride).
It seems that nothing less than some kind of pain will force us to release our grip on our small explanations and our self-serving illusions. Resurrection will always take care of itself, whenever death is trusted. It is the cross, the journey into the necessary night, of which we must be convinced, and then resurrection is offered as a gift.
In this time of suffering we have to ask ourselves, what are we going to do with our pain? Are we going to blame others for it? Are we going to try to fix it? No one lives on this earth without it. It is the great teacher, although none of us want to admit it. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it in some form. How can we be sure not to transmit our pain onto others? (Daily meditation, March 30, 2020. Sign up for daily emails from the Centre for action and spirituality)

EASTER CELEBRATIONS

We will live-stream a service on Easter Day at 8:30am.

ANZAC DAY

There will be no service to commemorate Anzac Day – a candle will be lit and the names of those for whom we’ve been asked to pray will be read out at 8:00am.

(If there is anyone for whom you would like us to pray,
Please call Marian or the office.)

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Life and death are one

April 20, 2019

Good Friday – 2019

On Death
Kahlil Gibran
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

The poet recognises, as we sometimes do not, that death is a part of life. Death is a daily reality, albeit one that more often than not we tend to ignore. Because we ignore our ultimate death, we fail to recognise that death is all around us – in the negativity that eats away at us and through us eats away at the world, in the caution that limits our growth and restricts our experience, in the self-centredness that holds us apart from others and makes us seek what is not our own, in the griefs that bind us to the past and in the gradual deterioration of our physical bodies.

If we fail to understand that life and death are one, we will resist the transformative deaths that are part of our every day existence  – the little deaths that lead to growth – the death of self that leads to an openness to others and to the world, the sloughing off of the baggage (resentment, sorrow, anger) that we have carried for too long, the death of longing that leads to dissatisfaction, the death of ambition that causes us to compare ourselves with those around us and the signs of ageing that urge us to slow down and to become more contemplative, more aware of the world around us. All these little deaths prepare us for that final death which frees us from all the restraints of our human condition so that we might live forever.

When we fail to recognise that life and death are one, we separate death from life and we give to death the power to terrify, enthral and enslave us.

Life and death are one.
Jesus defied death’s power and challenged death’s powerful grip over life. Jesus’ victory over death is our victory over death. When death no longer has a hold on us we can accept, even welcome, our daily deaths knowing that they set us free to really live and that they prepare us for a life that endures forever.

Life giving God, when life seems bleak and empty
Let us trust that you will make all things right.

Liberating God, breathe your love and goodness into a world of death and destruction, terror and desperation, aggression and greed. Give hope to the hopeless, courage to the fearful and comfort to those who despair. Help us to build a world in which peace and justice reign, in which all have enough to eat, access to adequate health care and education and freedom to achieve their true potential.

Living God, pour out your blessing on your church throughout the world, especially in such places where her existence is threatened and in which the safety of worshipers cannot be assured.

God of love, be with all those who are marginalized by virtue of their race, their gender or their sexuality, all those who are made or feel that they do not belong because they do not fit what we define as the norm.

God who shared our human existence, stand with the sick and the suffering that they may find assurance in your presence and trust you with their future.

Jesus who conquered the power of death, help us to find life in death and death in life and through all our little deaths to be transformed into your image and worthy of your eternal kingdom.

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Life and Death – two sides of one coin

March 31, 2018

For the Good Friday Liturgy, go to that page.

Kahlil Gibran – On Death

You would know the secret of death.

But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?

The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;

and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Reflection

It is easy to think that Good Friday is all about dying and indeed we do focus on Jesus’ gruesome death and the events that led up to it. Today is a sombre and sobering day when we are forced to face our own role in the death of Jesus – our daily betrayals, our luke warm faith and our love of all things worldly. It is also the day when we are brought face-to-face with the potential consequences of standing with the oppressed and the marginalised, of challenging unjust structures and of confronting the love of power.

It is also a day of contradiction – the cross revealing in stark relief the ignorance and foolishness of humankind in regard to all things Godly. We begin to understand that life and death go hand in hand – they are two sides of the one coin. Without life there is no death, without death we do not really know life. Death throws life into perspective, helps us to appreciate the gift that it is, challenges us to value and to use the life that we have, encourages us to make the most of every minute.

Life that acknowledges death tries to make the most of every moment – to grasp with both hands the good and the bad, to embrace the future rather than to hold on to the past, to have half an eye on eternity rather than being bound to this earthly existence.

Life and death are aspects of daily existence. Every moment we can choose life or death – we can choose to behave in ways that are life-enhancing or life destroying. We can choose to hold on to those things that are familiar and comforting but which are stultifying and limiting, or we can let go and embrace a future that is uncertain and full of potential and opportunity.

Do you fear death? Are you afraid of letting go of those things that are familiar and comforting?

As the poem suggests, death and life go hand in hand. Through our daily deaths (to fear, anxiety, greed and hate) we free ourselves to embrace life more fully.

All our little deaths, free us to live more fully, more authentically,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Placing our life into the hand of God

April 13, 2017

Good Friday – 2017

Marian Free

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.

The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,

The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy

Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony

Of death and birth.

 

You say I am repeating

Something I have said before. I shall say it again,

Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,

You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.

In order to arrive at what you do not know

You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.

In order to possess what you do not possess

You must go by the way of dispossession.

In order to arrive at what you are not

You must go through the way in which you are not.

And what you do not know is the only thing you know

And what you own is what you do not own

And where you are is where you are not.

T.S. Eliot, East Coker

Good Friday – 2017

Marian Free

In the name of God who is our all in all. Amen.

“Wait without hope for hope would be hope for the wrong thing.”

At first glance, Elliot’s poem expresses a view of life that is bleak, desperate and hopeless. “Hope is hope for the wrong thing, love is love for the wrong thing. You must go by the way wherein there is no ecstasy, by the way of ignorance, the way of dispossession.” The poem expresses sentiments that are completely at odds with message of the culture of today. In popular culture, in our magazines and on our televisions we are bombarded by stories of people who insist that anyone can achieve anything as long as they set their minds to it. Popular culture gives the impression that a person’s future is entirely in their own hands – they just have to have a positive attitude, believe in themselves or work hard enough.

Elliot, a Christian, knows that the reality is very different. The poem expresses an understanding that ultimately we have very little power to determine the course of the future. All of us, rich and poor, powerful and vulnerable are subject to the instability of the planet, the frailty of our bodies, the ever-present threat of disease, the carelessness of others, the cynicism of politicians and the greed of those who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of others. In reality each of us has very little control over every aspect of our lives. The only certainly, the only still point in a world that is beyond our ability to direct is God. God alone knows how the future will turn out, God alone can see us through whatever this temporary, unpredictable life has to offer.

Ironically, the only way to achieve anything meaningful and eternal is to surrender control, to cede all power to God, to allow God to determine and direct our path, to trust that God will bring us through to wherever it is that we are meant to be. Only by surrendering ourselves completely to God will we discover the direction in which we are intended to travel. Only when we give ourselves completely to God will we be sure that we are hoping for the right thing, loving the right thing. Only a life totally aligned with God can be a life that is truly godly.

These are the truths that Jesus’ life reveals. As the Son of God, Jesus could have done anything, been anyone. Jesus could have ruled the world, sought glory, riches and power. Instead Jesus chose to surrender himself completely to God, to do only those things that he believed were of God. So completely did Jesus trust in God’s direction that he endured the shame of arrest and trial, the indignity of flogging, the torment and pain of the cross, the emptiness of death and the uncertainty of where it would all end.

Only complete and total surrender “to the way wherein there is no ecstasy”, brought Jesus to where he was truly meant to be. Jesus’ surrender of himself led to his victory over death – not only for himself but for each one of us. The horror of the cross was transformed to the joy and triumph of the resurrection.

We cannot know what lies ahead. We do know that we can trust God.

Let us, with Jesus, surrender control, step into the unknown and place our lives completely and utterly into the hand of God.

 

Intercessions

God whose Son surrendered himself entirely into your hands, open the eyes of all who “hope for the wrong thing” – those whose desire for power and control, for wealth and security disempowers and impoverishes others. Help us and all humankind to surrender ourselves entirely to your will so that the world might become a place in which all people live in freedom and peace and in which all have an opportunity to reach their full potential.

God in whom we trust. Hear our prayer.

God who turns despair to hope, defeat to victory, death to life, give to your church such confidence in you that it will not fear for its future or seek to protect its position in the world, but to understand “that the faith and the love and the hope are in the waiting”. May we surrender our desire for certainty to the knowledge that all things are in your hands.

God in whom we trust. Hear our prayer.

God whose love for us knows no bounds, give us the skills we need to be bearers of that love to others – especially to those who betray and abandon us, who hurt us and let us down. May the dispossessed and powerless experience the life-giving power of your love.

God in whom we trust. Hear our prayer.

Jesus who became vulnerable even to death, support and uphold all whose lives are beset by illness and strife, give courage to the dying and hope and confidence to the living.

God in whom we trust. Hear our prayer.

Jesus who took “the way in which there is no ecstasy”, give us the courage and confidence to surrender ourselves wholly to you, that we with you might pass from death to life eternal.

Accept our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord who taught us to pray:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…

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