Good Friday 2025 The Wood of the Manger
I think many of us can relate to the Psalmist who begins
Psalm 69:
“Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck.
I am sinking in deep mire, and there is no firm ground
for my feet.
I have come into deep waters, and the torrent washes over me.”
We’ve all been there. I recall being on Vinal Haven, an island off the coast of Maine, to play music at an outdoor festival. It had been raining for hours, and some folks who knew what I do when not playing music urged me to pray for the sun to emerge and the rain to stop. I scoured the Book of Common Prayer, but there are only prayers for rain in times of drought. Then I remembered Psalm 69. I took to the stage, which had a hastily built cover over it, addressed the crowd wearing garbage bags as ponchos and began to read Psalm 69. About the time I got to “For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own who are in bonds,” (I think I substituted “his own who are standing in the rain”), it happened. Just like in the movies. The clouds parted, a shaft of sunlight came streaming down, with gulls circling like doves of peace, the rain stopped and the show went on.
We live in times in which the word “unprecedented” is simply getting worn out. New individuals and classes of people discover they need to live in fear of disappearing at any moment. Institutions of higher learning are being threatened by the Federal Government. And there are the everyday problems of friends nearing the end of life, friends or family diagnosed with cancer. There are endless parts of the world mired in warfare, others in starvation, and still others fighting epidemics of disease and death. And of course, actual massive wind and rain storms the likes of which have never been seen arriving with such sudden regularity. We feel as if all is sinking into deep mire. The ground is constantly shifting, no longer firm. And we cry out, “Enough is enough, Lord. Enough is enough!”
As we read John’s account of The Passion, it is evident that Jesus, his disciples, Pilate, and even the Passover crowds in the streets are having such a really bad day that eventually ends up on the hard wood of the cross. We call it Good Friday, despite nothing about it seems particularly good. Until I was out running Maundy Thursday morning when a song came on my MP3 player that reminded me that indeed, the hard wood of the cross is the hard wood of the manger. Both cross and manger tell us that the very heart and core of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God is that in a dark and overwhelming time in the life of God’s people, Jesus, the Word that is God, came to dwell among us as one of us from beginning to end. And of course, Good Friday is good because we know for certain that the hard wood of the cross is not the end of the story, but just the beginning of a new chapter for the whole world.
The song, That’s The Mystery, suddenly feels apt for this day we call Good Friday. A word about its inception. While rector at St. Peter’s, Ellicott City, one Advent we decided to deliver, by hand, invitations into the mailboxes of people in the surrounding neighborhood, to stop by one evening to see the inside of our historic church, to meet us, join in some snacks and beverages, and perhaps decide to join us on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. As St. Peter’s has an historic Anglo-Catholic tradition, I thought I would light up some incense ahead of time to give the sanctuary a hint of what it might be like on Christmas. As I dropped a few grains of incense on the coals, the vapor began to rise, and a small voice behind me said, “That’s the mystery!” ‘I turned to see our youngest daughter Cerny, about three or four at the time, telling a friend what I was doing. The mystery became a song which essentially was my sermon that year. And seems appropriate somehow for this Good Friday. It goes like this…..
A few grains of incense
Scattered on the coals
Smoke begins to rise
The little girl standing there
Opens wide her eyes
That’s the mystery, she says!
That’s the mystery!
That’s the mystery she says!
That’s the mystery!
See that star up in the sky
Shining on the place
Where the tiny child lies
Lighting up his face
Can you see the angels there
Up there in the light
Singing songs for all the world
Singing through the night
Hear those angels flying by
Calling out his name
Telling us He’ll change the world
Nothing will be the same
That’s the mystery she say
That’s the mystery!
Jesus lying in the manger
Listen to him cry
He already seems to know
That he was born to die
To die to hate
To die to greed
To die to power and sin
To die to everything that blocks
The God who lives within
Within our hearts
Within our souls
Within our minds and hands
The God who is Emmanuel
Breathes his Spirit through all the
lands
That’s the mystery, she says!
That’s the mystery!
A child looks and sees the scene
Eats the bread and drinks the wine
Seems to know what all this means
For now and for all time
Can we see him
Can we hear him
Can he make us all his own
If he came down here right now
Would he recognize this as home
Whenever there are two or three
Gathered in my name
You’ll see the brokenhearted and
the poor
The blind, the sick, the lame
Being welcomed, being served
Given dignity and love
Giving thanks for all good gifts
That come down from above
That’s the mystery, she says!
That’s the mystery
See the baby
See his mother
See the bread and wine
See the angels
See the stars
See that everything is fine
He lives in us
He gives us breath
He call us to be his own
He calls us to the manger stall
To make that place our home
Then he rises on the clouds
To wake us from our sleep
As we gather to see him one more
time
In the darkness that is so deep
That’s the mystery, she says!
That’s the mystery!
The angels and the stars
The shepherds and the light
The incense and the bread and wine
All call us to this night
To enter deeper into the tale
Of how God came to Earth
To sing the mystery of love come
down
The mystery of his birth
A few grains of incense
Scattered on the coals
Smoke begins to rise
The little girl standing there
Opens wide her eyes
That’s the mystery, she says!
That’s the mystery!
That’s the mystery, she says
That’s the mystery!
The story we hear this day describes a few scenes of what
was happening in Jerusalem just days after Jesus and his friends and supporters
had entered the city. We may note, despite the kind of attention it gets in
books, movies and tv shows, the actual crucifixion only takes up one brief
sentence in John’s account: “There they crucified him, and with him two
others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.” That’s it. No brutal
details of hammers and nails to distract us. Just the rather matter of fact,
metaphysical, bare-bones account. He was
crucified and left to die. On to the
next scene. It’s rather comforting in a way to know he had company on either
side of him. At least he was not alone, as so many people seem to be these
days.
Good Friday, therefore, means to remind us that Christmas is one of the reasons Good Friday is Good. Receiving a sentence of capital punishment and being executed all in one day does not stir up visions of sugar plums or anything else good in our little Christmas saturated heads. Good Friday is Good because of Christmas – because Jesus Christ the human being means that God entered our reality, allowing that we may, and even should, be human beings like him. Being created in God’s image carries some responsibilities after all, and being human like Jesus is as good a place to start as any.
Just because it is Good Friday does not mean that we or the world are frozen in time and place. Christ has been raised from the dead. Resurrection and new life has already commenced in the midst of a tired old world with its wars and tumults of wars, famine, poverty, cancer, depression, hunger, and all manner of chaos and suffering.
Incarnation, cross and resurrection become clear in their unity and in their differences. They make up a kind of mosaic of life in Christ – we cannot survive with just one dimension of God in Christ. We need all three at all times and in all places. As the World War II Martyr and theologian Deitrich Bonhoffer once observed: “Christian Life means being human by virtue of the Incarnation. It means being judged and pardoned by virtue of the cross, and it means to live a new life in the power of resurrection. None of these becomes real without the others.” [i]
The hard wood of the manger is the hard wood of the cross. The Biblical story begins with a tree in a garden, and begins again on a tree outside of Jerusalem. Good Friday is good when we take the time to reflect on just where we stand in the midst of these three dimensions of life in Christ – Incarnation, Cross and Resurrection. That’s the mystery! Where we find ourselves and where we can see ourselves makes all the difference in the world and for the world. Even in times as chaotic and disruptive as was at noon on the Day of Preparation for the Passover; as chaotic and disruptive as it may be today as we prepare to celebrate the Resurrection of the one we call Lord, the Christ; we come to stand before his cross to prepare ourselves to be fully incorporated into the Lfe of Christ as the Body of Christ, here and now.
The wood of the manger is the wood of the cross. That is what makes this day good. It is very good, indeed. Amen.
[i]
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Meditations on the Cross (Westminster John Knox, Louisville:1996)
p.78.
No comments:
Post a Comment