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SERMONS

Good Friday
March 29, 2002

By David Christian

"On this day the ministers enter in silence."

The prayer book opens the proper liturgy for today with this instruction. On one level it is a straight-forward directive to those responsible for planning this service. But at a deeper level it is a simple statement of the reality that we experience on this Good Friday.

"On this day the ministers enter in silence." On this day we all enter into the silence.

There is a silence that surrounds death. If you have ever been present when someone dies, you know. There is a silence, an almost palpable stillness, that envelops all who are present.

How much more then, when the one who has died is the Son of God. How much deeper, how much more profound, the silence surrounding the death of the Christ. Luke tells us that even the sun's light failed as darkness descended over the whole land. A silence that enveloped all of creation as its very Lord hung dead upon a cross. A silence stretching across space and across time.

It is this silence into which we have entered today. It is this silence which fills this room. A silence, a stillness that penetrates to the very core of our beings. A silence in which all creation pauses at the wonder of what has occurred.

This is the silence in which we rest today. The profound silence of death.

But there is an important difference between today's silence and the silence which surrounds most death. The silence surrounding most death is a silence filled with sorrow and with loss. Even when death comes after long struggle and there is a sense of relief and release. Even then there is sorrow and loss.

But not today.

In the strange and wonderful mystery of our redemption-the mystery that we celebrate during these three days-everything is turned upside down. The crucifixion of Jesus represents not loss but victory. In the very act of giving himself up to death, Christ destroys death. The silence in which we rest is a silence of ultimate triumph, not defeat. It is a silence of breath-taking joy, not of sorrow.

Tomorrow, the third day, we will see the mystery play itself out to its glorious conclusion. But that comes tomorrow. Today we remain in the silence. We rest in the stillness. And we contemplate the one who could undergo so much suffering and pain out of love for such people as you and I.

David Christian
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi

Isaiah 52.13-53.12
Hebrews 10.1-25
John 18.1-19.37