Good Friday

[cappie]

Today, on Good Friday, we are asked not to look ahead to Sunday, but to sit here, at the foot of the cross. At the entrance to a grave. Today, we have to do what we do throughout life when beloved people die; we are asked to walk away in sadness.

Let’s not skip ahead. Good Friday has something to teach us.

The disciples did not know that Sunday would bring relief. The disciples did not know that Jesus would be resurrected. The disciples did not know that there was any hope. They walked away in sadness. They hid in fear.

The disciples sat where we sit when someone we love dies. Because it is common knowledge that when people die, they typically do not come back to us in three days.

As much as we would like to avoid it, death is coming for each of us. Death is coming – for each of us and those we love.

Good Friday teaches us to look at death, to accept it as reality, to have patience with it. Because Jesus did it first.

Good Friday teaches us that when we are at our lowest, God is there. Good Friday teaches us that when we suffer, God is there. Good Friday teaches us that when we all inevitably face the reality that is death, God is there. God has been there. God will be there. Even in the depths of the grave. Good Friday teaches us that there is no grave that we could go into — literally or figuratively — in which God cannot reach us.

In the gospel text for the day, we hear the story of Jesus’ death as told by John. While the other gospels feature miraculous happenings when Jesus dies, like tombs being opened or the curtain of the Temple being torn in two, in John, we do not hear of those. For whatever reason, the evangelist does not choose to feature those occurrences. Because it is generally accepted that John was the last gospel to be written, we can safely assume that the fourth evangelist knew about them, but they are simply not featured in his writing.

No, instead, in John’s gospel, Jesus simply breathes his last. Jesus simply dies. Fittingly, for a gospel in which Jesus is the love of God made flesh for the sake of the world, Jesus simply dies the death of a human. Just like us.

Also fittingly, Jesus does what many people do when they know that they are about to die. He takes care of his friends. He takes care of his mother. He gives the beloved disciple to his mother, and she to him, to care for one another.

After he dies, we meet a character that we also met in chapter 3 of John: Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee who first came to Jesus by night. It was to Nicodemus that Jesus said his famous words in John 3:16:“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

After Jesus dies, Nicodemus shows that Jesus’ words that night had an impact. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea show up to collect Jesus’ body and bury him.

Yes, we know the end of the story. We know that Jesus will be resurrected. We know that Sunday is coming.

But on Good Friday, we are asked to forget that we know the ending. We are asked to sit with death and accept its reality because God endured death first.

Good Friday reminds us, every single year, that death is a reality that we must face, but that we need not be afraid because Jesus has endured it first.

We are finite, our lives are temporary.  We embrace the hope of Good Friday: That while death is the worst thing, the hope we have in Jesus is that the worst thing is never the last thing.

We are dust, we are mortal, and we are bound for the grave.

But the Good news, is that Jesus has gone before us to the grave.

And where Jesus is, there is hope – on Good Friday and forever.