Some Good Friday reflections
Good Friday: 6th April, 2007
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
"...and because the tomb was near at hand, they laid him there."
With the words of the Passion ringing in our ears, some short reflections.
When I gaze upon the cross, I find myself powerfully moved. Sometimes it is simply the story of the Passion that evokes such strong emotions. Other times it is from remembering that God is not indifferent to human suffering, having experienced it. Sometimes it is from being reminded that I cannot be indifferent either. Recalling the suffering of those who are around me when before the cross leads to heartfelt intercessory prayer.
Fr Jake.
We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ's death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself...
C S Lewis
The cross, then, is not about Jesus reconciling an angry God to us; it's almost the opposite. It's about a totally loving God, incarnate in Christ, reconciling us to him. On the cross Jesus dies for our sins; the price of our sin is paid; but it is not paid to God but by God. As St Paul says, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Because he is Love, God does what Love does: He unites himself with the beloved. He enters his own creation and goes to the bottom line for us. Not sending a substitute to vent his punishment on, but going himself to the bitter end, sharing in the worst of suffering and grief that life can throw at us, and finally sharing our death, so that he can bring us through death to life in him...
Dean Jeffrey John of St Alban's Abbey
Holy Week day by day has offered us the cumulative unfolding spiritual narrative, in word and song and action. For our brothers and sisters in the faith for some 16 centuries, this has been the case. The liturgies we offer and share in can readily be traced at least back to Jerusalem in the fourth century. And still they can be exciting and fresh, each time we join in them.
For this is truly the story of God meeting us where we are. This is the story of pain and evil and suffering being met head on. This is the story of love and of loyalty, of commitment and hope. All these are in the usual context of failure and betrayal, of weakness and despair, and death and grief. But our Easter journey does not allow these ultimately to prevail. It is however a genuine battle. More than once it is not all that clear how things will go. There are times when we can only watch and pray.
Our own Melbourne City Churches Way of the Cross already just starting on its way towards us is something very different again. This year will be the seventh year this has happened. I will never forget the first time I found myself part of such a large crowd very quietly and slowly walking down Collins Street, gently singly the lovely Taize chant "Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom". And that has happened each time since, even in heavy rain one year. Moving as part of such a large but reverent crowd is a wonderful experience. We have the chance to join here at St Peter's, by gathering at our own station, outside under the elm tree, right after this liturgy this morning. We watch and wait and pray there, waiting for the swelling crowd of our brothers and sisters from all the churches of central Melbourne to fill our grounds to overflowing.
So today, Good Friday, is a day of processions and crowds and prayers, and maybe even tears. Our God is with us as we go.
Amen.
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