Good Friday

Today we recount the story of the passion. – In our religious imagination, we relive the death of Jesus on the cross as the twelve experienced it. As disciples of Christ, let us explore the saving event recounted in the gospel of St John. (Jn 18:1—19:42.)

hymn 295 “let all mortal flesh keep silence”

Let us take these words of St Paul as our guide through this hour at the foot of the Cross –

Christ became obedient to the point of death, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name.

Let us pray for the patience and resilience to participate in the gospel today.

With that intention, let us begin recounting the passion of our Lord.

Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ They answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus replied, ‘I am he.’ Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he’, they stepped back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ And they said, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus answered, ‘I told you that I am he. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.’ This was to fulfil the word that he had spoken, ‘I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.’ Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?’

Here in the Garden, in the midst of frantic searchers, soldiers, temple police, men armed with weapons, lighting the area with lanterns and torches, Jesus calmly asks what the anxious search is trying to discover.

We have to remember that everything was to happen in order to fulfil prophecy. In spite of the terror and anger amongst all the people in the garden, Jesus is still calm and asking a reasonable question – ‘Whom do you seek?’ And he replies to them, ‘I am he.’ ‘Put away your swords. My father has given me the chalice from which I must drink’, words implying that we eventually will accept that cup for Jesus and also eventually ourselves.

But no one is listening to this mild reasonableness, are they? Even today we are staggered by simplicity and honesty – and still we do not listen to that moderation, but would rather pursue our obsessions.

In Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, the crowd of the revolutionaries shows exactly this behaviour. The baying for blood, the unreasonable demands and the frantic expression of obsession are what the crowd craves to satisfy.

So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him. First they took him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people.

So the calm and collected Jesus was arrested in the garden. He was bound by those frenzied searchers and he was dragged away to Annas the father-in-law of Caiaphas.

Caiaphas was the high priest that year. He advised the council that the needs of the many are greater than the needs of the few, so whatever was to be decided about this one man should be for the benefit of all. This is a very political judgement, isn’t it? A judgement we still make today, but perhaps one that is being made less and less as the selfish gene of social media gains sway.

Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter was standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. The woman said to Peter, ‘You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing round it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself.

Don’t we all know someone who will do us a favour? One of the disciples knew someone and that acquaintance let him into the courtyard, the garden inside the walls of Annas’ house. The disciple wangles Peter in by speaking to the woman gatekeeper. – Imagine that, a woman keeping people out of this private place, well not so unusual if we have ever heard of gatekeepers in our contemporary society (let’s think on that archetypal person another time). – Now this gatekeeper was pretty sharp: she recognised Peter as one of the disciples, but Peter denied it – Peter denied his own acclamation of Jesus. Didn’t he once say, “You are the Christ!”? And here in the courtyard he joined the crowd around the charcoal fire, slaves and police all of whom had nothing to do with Christ and truth.

Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered, ‘I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.’ When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, ‘Is that how you answer the high priest?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?’ Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

As the crowd warmed itself by the fire, the priest questioned Jesus. Jesus was still his calm self over against the authority of the world. He speaks only about his public discourses, that he never was a guerilla, planning in secret to sabotage the power of the state. His words were heard by many and he was happy that those witnesses of his public declarations be interrogated.

Such arrogance in the face of the high priest was punished with a blow. The palace soldier was asking with that cuffing of Jesus, “How can anyone question the assumptions of the high priest? How could any Jew gainsay the authority of the priesthood?” These questions are still being asked publicly today by political leaders and the crowd.

Jesus stood firmly by his public ministry to the people of God. Was it right that the authorities denied the truth which he preached? Was it right that the authorities would deny any expression of that message, especially as it was not wrong?

Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, ‘You are not also one of his disciples, are you?’ He denied it and said, ‘I am not.’ One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, ‘Did I not see you in the garden with him?’ Again Peter denied it …

Peter was not as innocent as Jesus, was he? He had acted in the same manner as the authorities. After all, he had taken up a sword and cut off an ear. Such a terrible act had been witnessed and remembered. And Peter was recognised as being one of those people in that garden outside the city, that place where betrayal began – when a kiss of loving greeting became the start of the rot, which culminated in the denial of being a believer of a public ministry in which there was no deceit, a denial of one’s true self.

“And at that moment the cock crowed.”

What are we to understand by that statement? We should remember what was said openly for our benefit. We should remember where we stood when we heard the words of eternal life. We are to mind the call of conscience issued by our friend who becomes our saviour. That call may only be the crow of a cock, but we should stand in the sweet innocence of Jesus when he said to the authorities, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong.” Do Jesus’ words here now accuse us – as they do Peter – of mendacity and self-serving behaviour? The cock calls to mind the use of the sword and the denial of truth in life.

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate went out to them and said, ‘What accusation do you bring against this man?’ They answered, ‘If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.’ The Jews replied, ‘We are not permitted to put anyone to death.’ (This was to fulfil what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.)

The crowd stormed round from Caiaphas’ place to Pilate’s headquarters with Jesus bound in their midst, heedless of their desecration of the Passover – though the crowd did not enter the unholy edifice of the Roman Governor of Judea. I would say that it was only a nod to their own ritual Law as the people of God, for their intention was truly unholy, wasn’t it? Can’t we understand how such behaviour is engendered in our own time? We all protest too much, don’t we, when we look daggers at someone and say, “A pleasure to see you”?

Once I read a very long study of the figure of Pilate. Everything in this description of the meeting between Pilate and Jesus was taken to be a confirmation of the worst a politician could be. From the cynical question, “Are you the king of the Jews?” to the washing his hands of the matter of this petty, mendicant preacher must have been written to show the dreadful behaviour of a crowd which has no recognition of the truth nor its own complicity in the debasement of another person. They brought before this worldly politician a man, whose crime Pilate did not even recognise. It was of no significance to his career – it would not bring him advancement – this minor event, the condemnation of a wandering, charismatic preacher to death, was nothing he wanted to take a part in. He was as cynical and sarcastic as any politician might be. So he threw the case back onto the crowd who brought it to him. – That crowd was as shrewd as Pilate, demanding he take responsibility for what they wanted to be done – with the sophistry that it was not lawful for them to put anyone to death.

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate asked him, ‘What is truth?’

Here is the central point of Jesus’ preaching – the Kingdom of God. Jesus announced that it is so very near that we should listen to the call of conscience and repent because we have not followed the truth. The Kingdom and the truth go hand in hand in Jesus’ world, but what about Pilate and the crowd – were the Kingdom and truth connected at all in their minds? Jesus condemns those who do not hear truth just before Pilate asks the only question anyone ever remembers about him – “What is truth?”

After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, ‘I find no case against him. But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ They shouted in reply, ‘Not this man, but Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas was a bandit.

Did Pilate really think Jesus innocent, or was this whole episode just too messy for him as an all-powerful enemy leader lording it over a recalcitrant, conquered people to deal with? In his cynicism, Pilate threw it all back to the Jews in the form of a choice, between this innocent preacher, Jesus, or that revolutionary bandit, Barabbas. Was this a test for the crowd to prove itself as false and inauthentic as Pilate himself?

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.’ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’ When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.’ The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.’

Pilate did what every duplicitous politician would do – he humiliated the accused with a bitterly ironic beating and sarcastic dressing up no Jew would have ever countenanced for themselves and presented this comically parodied figure back to the crowd.

“Ecce homo” – “Here is the man” – says Pilate after he had personally insulted him with a blow from his own hand. He thus  dismisses this “man” whom he had just called the King of the Jews and presents him to the people gathered at his door. The crowd speaks the truth as Pilate hauls Jesus out before them. The crowd replies that Jesus claimed the Kingdom of God as his own, that he was the Son of God. So this Jesus has to die because of their own Law’s condemnation of human hubris, that no man might claim to be God.

Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, ‘Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’ From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.’

Here we find Pilate in his base humanity, in his fear, a fear the Jews re-enforced by accusing Pilate of not being a friend of Caesar. He knows how the Roman emperors claimed divinity for themselves. Now this Jew has done the same – and Jesus puts a true fear of god in him, no wonder the narrative says that he was “more afraid than ever.” Whatever he does, whether he acknowledges Caesar or Jesus, the ruler will hold him accountable for everything he has done in this incident. He knows the spies are everywhere and he fears for himself even more than he has ever done.

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, ‘Here is your King!’ They cried out, ‘Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!’ Pilate asked them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but the emperor.’ Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

As he quaked in his boots, being accused of not being a friend of Rome, Pilate produces Jesus to the crowd yet again. He mocks them about Jesus being their king and whether he should be crucified. The Jews were supposed to be preparing for the solemn feast of the Passover. Here everyone is at the place of judgement, the Stone Pavement, Gabbatha, and there was such an outcry. The Jews were happy that Jesus should be put to death, and that they had sworn allegiance to Caesar even more emphatically, thus condemning Jesus to be crucified.

So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, ‘Do not write, “The King of the Jews”, but, “This man said, I am King of the Jews.” ’ Pilate answered, ‘What I have written I have written.’ When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ This was to fulfil what the scripture says,

‘They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.’

And that is what the soldiers did.

From the place of judgement to the place of execution Jesus and two other condemned men staggered and were hung up to die. He died under the sign entitled “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” There was no mistake. Like a social media post, once it was written, it was written and nothing could change it. And so Pilate paradoxically confesses Jesus a true king. Truth in mendacity, truth in a web of lies.

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

The compassion of Jesus for all is evident here. That Jesus loved everyone assembled here at his death is apparent when he commends his beloved disciple and Mary to one another as a new family, a family which everyone could be. Every man is a son to every woman, and every woman a mother to every man.

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

With this last gesture to ensure that love would endure, he accepted the fate of all flesh. Life is love as Jesus showed it through his whole life. Here we can hear Paul’s words again about Christ’s obedience, can’t we?

We must obey the one commandment he gave to the world that we love one another and ourselves because we love God.

Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.) These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘None of his bones shall be broken.’ And again another passage of scripture says, ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced.’

After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Are we like Joseph of Arimethea? Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but he was a secret one because of his fear of the Jews. Joseph fears the crowd. He doesn’t want to confront that mob which calls for blood, even though they don’t want to be ritually unclean by a profound blood-guilt, or by dealing with the outcast or the foreigner. Joseph finally steps up to act for Jesus. He, I think, like Peter, has heard the cock crow. I think we should be like Joseph of Arimethea. We must go forward in faith like Joseph, even if ours is a secret faith. Let us do the good we can and testify to the truth. We must prepare ourselves for Easter when truth will out and joy will abound. Until the tomb of our hearts is full of the glory of the Lord, let us sing again.

hymn 295 “let all mortal flesh keep silence”