Dave's Good Friday Sermon

Introduction

Today is a day set aside for reflection. The whole of our liturgy is solemn. The altar is bare. There are no flowers. We are quiet. Today we are invited to enter into the tomb and stay there. It is not a nice place to be. Because we know that Christ rose from the dead, we are looking forward to Sunday, for Easter. - However, to reach Sunday we need to also experience Good Friday. And what we do here today is, in many ways, reflected in our own lives.

What does it mean to enter into the tomb?

Suffering in all its forms is part and parcel of our existence. Many of us are still grieving at the death of friends, relatives and members of our congregation. We have only to turn on our television to hear the cries and the anguish of parents as the children they love turn to drugs and violence. Some of us will have walked with others as they experienced breakdowns in their marriage relationships or as they have faced serious sickness. We have witnessed the cruel effects of war and the disquiet that uncertainty brings on all of us, particularly with the possibility of terrorist acts. Over the above all this is the fear of our own death. This is all part of entering into the tomb. No wonder we do not want to even think about such issues. It is not pleasant. We would rather bury them away in the background . The very thought of them can make us fearful and afraid. The famous Russian writer Solzhenitsyn often repeated these words. "The man who has no fear is no hero. The person who faces and overcomes fear is the hero." In Christ we are able to overcome those fears.

The great news is that Good Friday affirms that we are not alone in the tomb. Jesus is there. In the Letter to the Hebrews, the author says, "We have not a God that is incapable of feeling our weaknesses with us, but we have one who has been tempted in every way that we are." (Heb 4:14-16) For us who believe, the Crucified Christ is not a sign of shame, of defeat, or hopelessness, but "is the wisdom and the power of God" (1Cor 2:24).

The Apostle Paul understood this quite well. One of his famous phases is "when I am weak, then I am strong". This is one of the great paradoxes of Christianity. It seems to me that there is a bit of a contradiction here. You cannot be weak and strong at the same time. You can either be weak or strong. Paul would reply, that during his times of anxiety and fear, he would feel weak and he would have been ready to give up. However, he always remembered that in the midst of his difficulties, Jesus is always present. Relying on Him rather than on what was going within him or around him, Paul would rally forward with renewed strength and commitment.

God has no favourites and the same thing happens to us. When we face and walk in the midst of our difficulties with Jesus Christ on our side, then we also become strong. Suffering enables us to become more discerning and we tend to seek values that are life-giving rather than follow the most recent opinion polls. Suffering can make us more sensitive and open to other people's hurts and needs. We tend to become more appreciative of what we have and who we are. We become more appreciative of our life. We take less for granted those who are dear to us. In short we take stock of who we are and move on with greater wisdom, maturity, understanding and openness.

Moreover, we become strong because we come to an understanding that ultimately we depend totally on God. As humans, we are limited. We are not perfect. We do not know everything. We do not have the answer for every question. Certainly confronted with suffering we understand how poor in spirit we really are. This is the time when we throw ourselves in the arms of this God who is there with us in the tomb.

Good Friday is the day when Jesus is reminding us that he is constantly putting his arms around us when we are physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually in pain, and saying, "I know you are hurting, I know you are puzzled. I know that you feel like panicking. Courage, you are not alone. Do not give up. You will grow through this. Come on let us keep going. I am with you and I will not leave you".

Conclusion

So, on this Good Friday we are reminded of the tomb. We are reminded of the suffering of our Saviour. We think too of our own suffering and the suffering of the world.

But on this Good Friday we know that there will be an Easter Sunday, that the suffering of the tomb will turn to resurrection and triumph. We are partakers of the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead that Easter Morn.

Read Romans 8:11-17