Good Friday and Suffering

 

A Sermon preached on Good Friday, April 2, 2021 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Isaiah 52:13—53:12, Hebrews 10:16-25, John 18:1-19:42

The theme of our Lenten course this year was “Why Suffering?” Today, Good Friday, is the day we remember with sadness, and strangely also with gratitude, Christ’s suffering – his Passion to use the church term. Over a period of four weeks, we looked at reasons for suffering, at suffering and the Bible, at suffering and blessing, and at coping with suffering. I thought I would use these themes as a lens through which to reflect on Good Friday.

Some suffering is simply a consequence of the way the world, the way creation is set up. The creator is infinite and timeless, the creation is not and those created are not immortal. We will all die, and death often involves suffering. But much suffering is also a consequence of free will, of the choices we take. Being created to love involves freedom. We cannot be coerced to love. And having choices means that we will not always make the right choices.

Good Friday, the Cross, is the consequence of a number of choices: God choosing to send God’s Son to a world that consistently denied God. Jesus choosing obedience, even when it involved his suffering and death. The High Priests choosing power, while cynically claiming that it was better to have one person die for the people. (John 18:14) The Roman authorities choosing “keeping the peace” over justice. The disciples choosing to flee and Peter to deny his Lord. At the end of all these choices we find Jesus on the cross, abandoned by almost all his followers, except it seems for some faithful women followers.

Good Friday is consistent with scripture. The Bible is a text full of suffering, because it is not an abstract theological essay, it is all about life. We have books dedicated to suffering: Job, Lamentations, many of the psalms. The Bible is full of stories of defeat and destruction. And in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, as we heard a moment ago, we are introduced to the figure of the suffering servant, one who will suffer for others:

“He was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases … But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” (Isaiah 52:3-5)

Jesus told his followers early on that, in accordance with the Scriptures, the “Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31) And on the Cross, using scripture, Jesus connects his suffering with the Biblical narrative: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” comes from Psalm 22, as does the reference to "They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots." Psalm 22 is all about the suffering servant figure. And when Jesus quotes Psalm 31:5 in Luke’s Gospel with the words: “Into your hand I commit my spirit,” the second half of that verse, while unspoken, also needs to be heard: “you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” Scripture reveals God's will and Jesus perfectly accomplishes God's will.

Good Friday is a Blessing. Standing as we are now, at the foot of the cross, it is difficult to see the blessing. But this death is as much a gift to us as Jesus’ life with us. In his final prayer, Jesus prays to God: “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.” Jesus’ suffering liberates us from sin. Jesus’ suffering restores our relationship with God. Jesus’ suffering is already the victory over death in which we share. Jesus’ suffering reminds us that evil and suffering are real, but that they do not have the last word. “All things work together for good” writes Paul in Romans 8. Even the hardest moments in human life can offer us transformative power for good, none more so than “Good Friday.”

Good Friday not only helps us cope with suffering, but to overcome it. Good Friday is the proof that God knows and understands what it means to suffer and to die. Whenever we suffer, we can call on a divine companion to share in our pain, and to strengthen us. In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ concern even on the cross is how his mother will cope with her suffering. With the words: "Woman, here is your son" and "here is your mother," Jesus entrusts her to the loving care of the disciple whom he loved. (John 19:26) When, in the gospels of Mark and Matthew Jesus cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he is showing his solidarity with all who doubt. But what truly helps us cope with suffering and death is our faith. We trust, as Jesus trusts, that God will redeem us and welcome us into God’s presence.

Today, on Good Friday, faith and trust are all we have. We have to trust that something good will come out of this death, Jesus' resurrection is still ahead of us. “It is finished,” Jesus says, fully in control, in John’s Gospel. His suffering was over. But not his story, not the story of our transformation and the transformation of the world. That had just begun and still continues. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “The resurrection of Christ reveals that we have a future. Suffering and death do not lose their bitterness, but they appear in a new light.”

Amen.