Talks for Meditation on the Passion Service Good Friday 2009 – Reed April 15, 2009
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WHEN I SURVEY THE WONDROUS CROSS
Mark 15.1-15
When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of glory died,
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.
What do you see when you look at the cross?
Love, pain, desolation, cruelty, sorrow, death, forgiveness, a king, a pauper, a friend, an enemy, God, forsakenness by God. We come today to look at the cross, to see behind the image, beyond to God.
How we view the cross and its meaning will be different for each one of us, but the one thing that it is above all is a symbol of love. And it’s a symbol that demands a response.
Isaac Watts wrote the beautiful and moving hymn that we have just sung. It was a novelty at the time, though it is now one of the traditional Holy Week hymns. Today many people love it but it caused much controversy when it was first published in 1707. It was innovative in that it wasn’t just a compilation of biblical verses, as most hymns of the day were. Instead it was a very personal hymn “When I survey the wondrous cross.” It was a hymn written from the depths of the soul.
And what did Isaac Watts see when he looked at the cross – the prince of glory, the death of God, the insignificance of everything else when laid alongside the cross, sacrifice, sorrow, love, a crown, a gift, a demand for a response from those who watch, not a small response, but the offering of themselves, totally complete.
My richest gain I count but loss – this phrase echoes the words of St Paul in Philippians chapter 3 – “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ.”
For Paul, everything that went before is as nothing compared to what he has gained through his faith in Christ – the gift of eternal life, the gift of knowing God, the gift of receiving God’s love.
Paul reminds us that it isn’t by keeping laws that we become righteous – part of God’s kingdom – but by having faith. First and foremost, it is about us receiving a gift from God, the gift of his Son.
As we gaze on the cross, we see that gift – that prince of glory.
But what a prince we see! This is no rich man, clad in finery. This is no powerful figure to whom others are beholden. This man on the cross appears to be the antithesis of all that is regal. No crown but one of thorns, no robe but one of blood.
Here on the cross we have God in all his vulnerability. That is an idea that people then and people now find hard – that God became powerless for his creation. God chose to relinquish his power when he came to earth as Christ Jesus, because becoming human was the best way of bringing about salvation.
The nails kept Jesus on the cross – but more than that, it was love that held him there.
In the reading we heard from Mark’s Gospel, we see Pilate utterly amazed because Jesus does not fight back. He does not accept or deny the charge of kingship against him but responds “You say so.” In other words, that’s what you think. What else can he do?
If he accepts the charge against him, people will misunderstand him. They will see him as a political figure, desiring to overcome Roman rule, force a conflict and set himself up as the new omnipotent leader.
To admit to being a king would challenge the power of Rome, a power most vividly seen in Israel of the time by the presence of soldiers and the act of crucifixion – during Jesus’s lifetime, many people were crucified for crimes large and small. It was a punishment that was final, cruel and overused.
But to deny the charges would have been untrue. Though not looking like a king, Jesus was the Messiah – God’s anointed one, who was to bring freedom for God’s people. And Jesus, in his utter trustworthiness, could not lie.
Sadly truth has become a casualty of much of our modern society. Many people see no harm in telling a lie – perhaps referring to it as “a little white lie” in the hope that they won’t feel so bad. Others, sadly, don’t even notice when they are not entirely honest with other people. We might lie because we are scared or don’t want to cause hurt to someone else – but every untruth or hidden truth is a betrayal.
Why is it so important not to lie? At heart it’s an issue of trust. How can we trust those who lie to us or distort the truth?
Above all, Jesus longs for our trust, and our faith that he is utterly trustworthy. This scene in front of Pilate is evidence of that – if ever there was time when someone might be tempted not to tell the whole truth, it would be when facing death. The silence of Jesus leads to the freedom of a guilty man, and the death of an innocent one.
What do we see when we look at the cross?
FORBID IT, LORD, THAT I SHOULD BOAST
Mark 15.16-24
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
save in the death of Christ my God.
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.
What will I sacrifice for Christ?
Jesus sacrificed everything for us – his relationship with his family, his friends, his status, his divinity, his life. As we survey the cross, we see where that has led him – a man in utter vulnerability, empty of everything, naked, and mocked by those he came to save. So weak that he was unable to carry his own cross to Golgotha, so powerless that the soldiers cast lots for his clothing.
The mocking came verbally, but also in the king’s purple robes in which they dressed him, the crown of thorns, the kneeling down in pretend worship, before they stripped again and replaced his own clothes.
How different from the homage the wise men paid at his birth – an unlikely king, even then, living far from a palace! But contrast those wise, rich, powerful Gentile men who recognised in that tiny baby something kingly which they acknowledged even though the surroundings were so far removed from what they expected, with the Roman soldiers, ruling by force and bullying, whose worship is a parody of the real thing.
Even those on either side of him, also dying on the cross, joined in with the taunting. They were vulnerable themselves and yet they retained their desire for power over another, even to the end.
Jesus’s power was like no other. Jesus’s power was not the power of someone who lords it over others, but the power of one who serves. The desire for some kind of power over others is a very human longing. We want to be seen to succeed, to gain the promotion or the money or the sense that we have achieved something. It’s not entirely a bad thing – without aims and goals, it is easy to stagnate or give up or not make the most of one’s opportunities.
In this day and age, what really brings power is the ability to choose. Choice is so prevalent in our society; one sign of poverty – financial, physical, emotional, spiritual – is that choice is removed. But choice can also overwhelm and give rise to a shift in values. It can lead to a selfishness, a desire to put my needs above those of anyone else in the desire to get what I want.
The choice that Jesus had was a stark – it was a choice of life or death. In that situation, most of us would choose life; he went the other way. Always an upside-down king.
But Jesus’s choice is a choice that we are all called to make. Watts’s hymn reminds us that paradoxically it is Jesus’s death in which we boast. A death is not normally something of which we would be proud – in fact, it is the complete opposite. But Jesus’s death was not the end. Jesus’s death brought life, and because of that, we can legitimately boast in it.
We can wear our faith with pride, not in ourselves, but in Christ, who gave up everything for us. The third and fourth lines of this verse are hard to sing – Jesus stood for the truth. Here we are singing: “all the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood.” Do we?
What will I sacrifice for Christ?
SEE FROM HIS HEAD, HIS HANDS, HIS FEET
Mark 15. 25-32
See from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down;
did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown?
How much do I love?
Why is it that those whom we love most are also those who cause us most sorrow?
Love and sorrow are inseparable. When someone whom we don’t know that well hurts us, we become aware of the damage caused, but in most cases we can quickly move on from it. We might feel anger or seek revenge if they hurt us in a big way, but in general we recover without too much pain.
But when someone we love hurts us there is a different situation. There is a relationship with people whom we love of a different quality, a relationship that is harmed when that person causes us pain.
The sorrow can come in many ways – they may do or say something that causes damage – emotional or physical; they may hurt us in not being honest with us; they may spurn our love or ignore us. Love and friendships are fragile and can be easily destroyed. When that happens with someone whom we love very much, it causes untold damage.
Relationships can be mended, and with trust and love and forgiveness and attention can be restored. It takes both sides to be loving and humble, to listen to each other and spend time with each other, but if both are committed to doing that, they can come out the other side stronger and the relationship firmer.
But when that doesn’t happen the hurt grows within or is buried and ignored or festers like an unhealed wound, opening up again at the slightest provocation.
We only know the joy and damage of human relationships, but we do know how it feels when our relationship with someone we love is not as it should be. God is faced with that all the time.
God loves each person from the depths of the heart, but that relationship is so easily damaged by the power of sin. None of us escapes that – we all do things that damage our relationship with God, whether it is our behaviour towards others whom God loves, whether it is our lack of attention to that relationship, our pride, our selfishness, our lack of love – the list can go on for ever.
God’s sorrow comes from God’s love. It’s always those whom we love who cause us most grief. And God’s love knows no bounds. God longs for people to return to love – loving each other and loving God. The relationship broken could only be restored in one way – through Jesus.
And that’s what we see on the cross – the love of God for us and the sorrow our sin causes. Jesus hangs on the cross because of God’s love for us.
And that’s why we see love and sorrow flowing from his wounds. God’s love for us is complete and perfect – how much do I love back?
Everyone misunderstood what Jesus was – they mocked him as king, the other crucifixion victims shared in the taunts. Those around could see the pain, but could they also see the love?
What do I see when I look at the cross? Do I see Jesus’s sorrow turned into love? Do I see a man dying for me, so that I might be reconciled with God? Do I see a broken relationship restored?
What sorrow there is in being crucified by those you love! And what sorrow we see also around the cross, the woman watching from afar as their beloved is crucified; the sorrow of a mother watching her child suffer; the sorrow of God allowing the forsakenness of Jesus. But sorrow only because of love. The women, his mother, God – all sorrowful because of their love for him.
Where do we stand around the cross? How much do we share their sorrow for the one we love?
Of course, we know the rest of the story – the story of love conquering all.
Jesus’s love was about reconciliation between God and human, and between one human being and another. It involved sacrifice and commitment.
Are there those for whom our love is mixed with sorrow? Are there those whom we love who have caused us sorrow? Jesus died for those broken bonds to be restored, and to be restored more fully than they were before they were broken. It takes two to put things right, but in the context of Jesus’s love he has done all the hard work – all we have to do is let go of the pride and receive from him.
How much do I love?
HIS DYING CRIMSON, LIKE A ROBE
Mark 15.32-41
His dying crimson, like a robe,
spreads o’er his body on the tree;
then I am dead to all the globe,
and all the globe is dead to me.
What does the death of Jesus mean for me?
Jesus has died. His time on the cross has finished him off, but as St John acknowledges in his version, Jesus’s final words “It is finished” have more than one meaning. Yes – his work on earth is done, but that cry of dereliction is also, for John, a cry of triumph. And this side of the first Easter Day we would do well to recognise that.
As we saw that love and sorrow are so entwined, so are dereliction and triumph. The triumph over death completed because God makes something out of nothing.
That tearing apart of the persons of the godhead at the moment of Jesus’s death is the greatest separation that can be imagined. Sometimes when people lose someone through death whom they have loved very much for many years, they feel as if they have lost part of themselves. It is a deep experience of loss that comes from loving so completely that the two really do become one.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, though three, are one – Jesus’s death rips that relationship apart. He has been forsaken, not just by the Jewish people he came to save, not just by those who rejected his teaching, not just by Judas and Peter and his scared friends who ran off to hide, but also by God.
At noon darkness covered the land, but the darkness was not only a physical one, the darkness was a spiritual one – the Son of God deserted and betrayed by those whom he loved, taunted and abused by those who wanted to show that their power was greater than his, the darkness of separation from God.
But in the moment of greatest darkness, the moment of his death, something amazing happens. First the Temple curtain is torn in two. The division between God and humanity has been overcome; in Jesus we have unmediated access to God. We become a priesthood of all believers, not only of that exclusive group who had power over the temple.
We all share the priesthood. Before Jesus access to God was seen as regulated and could only occur through the mediation of priests. Through Jesus’s death access becomes available to all the faithful.
But priesthood as well as opening the channel between God and us brings with it a vocation, a vocation, a calling, to be God’s servants and ministers.
Jesus’s death makes ministers of us all. And to what sort of ministry are we called? We are called to follow the example of the one who got down and washed his friends’ grubby feet. We are called to follow the example of the one who gave his life for others. True servant-hood is about anticipating the needs in advance of those whom we serve – it is an art form that very few achieve with any success.
And it’s not about knowing what’s good for another – it’s about loving them so much and getting to know them so well that our service enhances their lives. Our service needs to be unobtrusive – it’s not about drawing attention to ourselves and the good that we are doing – no one else needs to know. Being a true servant is about meeting the needs of others.
All Christians are called to serve. We are called to serve those whom we love and those whom we don’t, for we are called also to love them. We are called to serve our friends and our enemies. We are called to serve people like us, but also those who very different from us.
In the dereliction on the cross, Jesus was still serving. That wonderful passage from Philippians chapter 2 sums up the work of the cross:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto the point of death – even death on the cross.
And through that service, somehow God was made visible. The centurion, standing at the foot of the cross, can only marvel and say “Truly this man was God’s Son.”
What does the death of Jesus mean for me?
WERE THE WHOLE REALM OF NATURE MINE
Mark 15.42-47
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an off’ring far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.
What does the death of Jesus demand of me?
Christianity is amazingly easy – all we are asked to do is believe in Christ. There are no strict rules and regulations; there is nothing we must do before we can receive Christ’s love. What could be easier than that?
But love is a strange old thing. When we love, we want to give of ourselves to the one whom we love. Jesus gave himself for all those whom he loved – he gave his very life.
Love is about communication – we long to communicate our love. How excruciating it is for someone who has fallen in love but can’t tell the person who is the object of their desire. When we love, we long to communicate that love – in words in deeds, in thoughtfulness and care. And through communication, love grows. Where there is no communication, love can grow stunted and die, for communication is a bit like the water that allows the seeds to grow.
The cross was all about God communicating love to us through Jesus. We know the story – how God sent the Law and the Prophets to help people love him back but neither worked – people were not willing to listen to the communication. So God communicated himself by coming among us and speaking our language. Christ left the heavens to live on earth and dwell among us.
And when we love we have to take care of the needs of the other. Our love for someone at its truest allows them to be free to be loved, and free to be themselves. Jesus does not want to bind us with all sorts of rules and regulations but to allow us to be free to be ourselves. He wants Peter to be Peter and Paul to be Paul. He wants Jane to be Jane and Mary to be Mary. He doesn’t want Peter to try to be Paul or Jane to be Mary.
In the same way our love for another is not about changing them but about giving them the freedom and space in which to grow and develop.
Sometimes our behaviour can diminish those whom we love; sometimes it can help them flourish. Jesus accepted limits on his divinity in order to be human and to live among us. Sometimes we too need to be willing to give up things for the sake of the one we love.
There are behaviours and attitudes that bring life to others; there are also behaviours and attitudes that we engage in that harm and diminish the other. Our response to loving someone is to want to behave towards them in life-giving ways.
And that’s what our faith is about too. The response that Christ longs for from us whom he loves is not about following blind laws but about living in a way that brings abundant life not death.
We all know that some behaviours are good and some not. And sometime we are faced with two options neither of which seems good, and we have to work out what is the right thing to do in such a situation. As Christ limited his divinity for the sake of humanity, sometimes we too need to limit our freedoms to do what we want for the sake of those whom we love.
Communication and compromise are key things in any loving relationship, but what is needed in order to give those things life is commitment. I’m beginning to sound a little like a wedding sermon now – but perhaps that’s not surprising since the Church has been described as the Bride of Christ.
Commitment is what help us to hang on to a loving relationship when it goes through a tough time – commitment to the relationship and to the other. It was God’s commitment to creation that underpinned the love and wouldn’t let go when we chose to turn in the other direction.
Love is wonderful but commitment to a loving relationship has to underpin our love, commitment to the other person. God’s commitment to us was total; Jesus’s commitment to his life’s work was total, leading him towards suffering and death. The commitment meant that he did not waver but carried through his redeeming work.
The hymn on which we have been focusing today begins “When I survey the wondrous cross”; it ends with a response. As Isaac Watts the hymn writer gazed on the cross and its figure, and reflected and prayed, he was moved to respond, recognising in humility that the love of Christ demands not only a part of me but my soul, my life, my all.
It is nothing less than the man on the cross gave for us.
What does the death of Jesus demand of me?
