Good Friday series of Homilies Isaiah 52.13 – end 53Jesus entered Jerusalem and was acclaimed by the people at the roadside. Shortly afterwards he became the victim of abuses and insults. Making his way to the Cross he carried, not only the Cross but also those hurts that had been shouted at him, the verbal abuse. Those stripes were cast upon him, an extra burden. He carried his stripes to the place of his crucifixion.In the passage from Isaiah we learn that by the bruises he suffered, the wounds that he endured, punishments were made upon him, punishments that made us whole. ‘By his bruises we are healed’. Those wounds inflicted upon him removed from us the wounds that we carry. But did he remove from us the physical wounds that may have been inflicted upon us as we travel along the path of life? Did he remove from our souls the spiritual wounds that we have encountered?The answer has to be yes to both questions. In one of the gospel writings it is very much physical healing, and in the first letter of Peter spiritual healing is the view. The burden that Jesus is carrying is being carried for you and me. A healing of our physical wounds and our spiritual wounds are on his shoulders.That healing is promised to us all. Completely and without any reservation, healing is God’s promise to each end every one of us. the Bible tells us that we have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved. The ultimate healing is resurrection. A promise made to every believer. We may receive ‘roadside repairs’ to keep us going but it is the ultimate healing that will come to us. healing given to us through Jesus on the Cross. Hebrews 10: 16-25 We are back to promises as we read the passage from the Hebrews. Again, God has promised that he will not forget us, he will not cast us aside. His law, given to us, he will write in our hearts. He will write it in our minds. Our sinful path will no more be counted against us. As we learnt in the first Good Friday homily we have been given spiritual healing in addition to physical healing. Our healing comes with the words, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more”.We can now stand before God our Father in true cleanliness. Our sins have been removed from us. We are cleansed in both body and soul. We can approach the sanctuary, through the blood of Jesus, and with our hearts sprinkled clean from any evil conscience. We carry with us that hope, a certainty, that we have a great high priest who looks over us. A high priest that we can approach with truth in our hearts. This we can do because of that promise made to us.So cleansed and healed we are now able to go out and encourage all whom we meet to devote their life to love and to good deeds. About us we will see those who turn their backs to any form of social duty. Those who are not willing to go out of their way to give help where it can be seen to be useful. That is their habit, their way of life. But we, fill our lives with encouragement, for ourselves, and for each other, ready to step forward in the name of Jesus. John 18.1- end 19 Many of us have a ‘secret place’, actually not all that secret as probably half of Exeter knows of it, but somewhere we drive to for some peace and quiet. A place to escape from the everyday life of telephone ringing and the adverts played as you listen to some calming and quiet music on the radio.Jesus knew of such a place, and he would visit there with his disciples. It was a place with a garden. It was also, ironically, the place where Jesus was to be betrayed. Soldiers and police were taken there to arrest him and Jesus, knowing what was about to happen stepped forward to be bound.When the soldiers were asked for whom they were looking they answered ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. Jesus replied, ‘I am he’. Here he declared his divine identity. Here, in the garden, there was such a display of divine presence, of majesty and of power that those who were the enemies of Jesus, confronting him in the garden, were powerless to stand against him.Jesus stood there in lowliness and humility. Before him were the guards and soldiers, armed and ready to take him away. Yet, in this picture we have before us we also see something of the majesty of his glory. It was something that all around must have perceived as they fell before him. His extra dignity, his calmness of reply, must have profoundly affected everyone.When faced with adversity there are time when we might feel ready to burst out, to proclaim loudly our innocence. Jesus just stood there and said, ‘I am he’. In calmness (after the occasion of Malchus losing his ear) he was led away after saying to Peter, ‘am I not to drink the cup that the father has given me’. His work had to be completed, work set for him by his Father.Collect for Good FridayAlmighty Father,look with mercy on this your familyfor which our Lord Jesus Christ wascontent to be betrayed and given up intothe hands of sinners and to suffer deathupon the cross;who is alive and glorified with you andthe Holy Spirit,one God, now and for ever.
Maundy Thursday 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13: 1-17, 31b-35A meal can be used in many different ways. From a quick meal at the nearest takeaway to a lavish feast in the most opulent of surroundings. The quick meal can be a means to an end, a brief diversion from what you are doing before continuing again. The lavish feast may be a celebration of an event or recognition of an achievement gained.In the epistle reading we are looking at a meal where Jesus is with his disciples. Is this going to be a quick snack or something more extensive? The answer is that there is no other meal that is so sacred, so fundamental, to the Church. These are the words that Jesus shared with those at table with him. They are the words of the most sacred act of worship in the Church, the words of the Sacrament of the Last Supper.The words, their understanding, may be hard for us to fully appreciate perhaps, but as we sit to eat our slice of bread at the table we do not need to understand its chemical makeup to gain from it nourishment. We can look at the bread and wine of the Eucharist with similar understanding. When Jesus broke the bread and handed it round he said, “This is my body”. However, when he said this he was still in his body. The bread and his body were very much different things. He also did not mean that this stands for my body. Partly true but very much more. As we take the bread and eat it we do so in faith and love. Not just faith and love of Jesus who died for us, but of a living contact with him. A non-believer would feel nothing but to a lover of Jesus it is our way into his presence. It is through our faith that we share in the Body and Blood of Christ.The past few homilies have been looking at promises, at covenants. Under the old promises humans were for ever at fault. They could not hope to keep to the law in a perfect way and so they were always in default. They were very much dependent upon the free grace of God’s love. But we now have a new promise. We can approach God as our Father. This is possible through the shedding of the blood of Christ. The wine of the sacrament stands for the life-blood of Jesus through which this new relationship is possible.The meal of the Last Supper is so full of emotion, of meaning, of teaching. Of all meals that we may share as individuals, grab at a drive-through, sit watching the television, or round the table at a silver service restaurant, none could possibly compare with the events at table with Jesus. Collect for Maundy ThursdayGod our Father,you have invited us to share in the supperwhich your Son gave to his Churchto proclaim his death until he comes:may he nourish us by his presence,and unite us in his love;who is alive and reigns with you,in the unity of the Holy Spirit,one God, now and for ever.
Wednesday of Holy Week Hebrews 12: 1-3 John 13: 21-32I remember how, in the past, I would walk on Dartmoor. It can be quite an unforgiving place as well as being full of beauty. Only the unwary go unprepared, to remain near a car park and within sight of the road is not pushing the boundaries of danger too far. It is when one strides out into the wilds of the moor that care needs to be taken. Before setting off the rucksack is checked to cater for all eventualities. Then it is picked up and laid down quickly. Far too heavy for the planned walk. Out comes the excess placed in including the proverbial ‘kitchen sink’. Only then can the proposed venture be considered. The handicap which would have weighed us down has been removed.Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews, exhorts us to run the race that is set before us with perseverance. We are running on a track which does not just meander along its way as a visitor would wander when exploring a new location, but one which has a planned direction and route with a goal which is to be like Christ.In addition we are not travelling alone. Paul tells us that we are travelling in the company of a great cloud of witnesses. It would be like embarking on a perilous journey, with danger lurking on every side, with all sorts of hazards and traps ready to ensnare the unsuspected, and all of the time surrounded with a host of those who have gone before us, who have successfully completed the path and who are encouraging us on.This Holy Week Jesus is traveling along the path that will lead him to the Cross. He is doing is with a cloud of witnesses, except here the witnesses include all of those Christians throughout the centuries who, each year look back on those events with grateful hearts. Grateful that, even leading to his death, Jesus obeyed the word of his Father. In so doing he died crying out that our sins may be forgiven us.Those sins are like the contents of our kitbag weighing us down. Contents which we take out and put to one side no longer needed on our journey. Jesus is there forgiving us our sins as we cast them out. Then we can proceed with our own journey and with our own witnesses looking down on us as we go. Thanks be to God that the heavy burden that we would have travelled with has been removed. We now stand a better chance of reaching the goal set before us.Collect for the Wednesday of Holy WeekLord of all life and power,who through the mighty resurrection of your Sonovercame the old order of sin and deathto make all things new in him:grant that we, being dead to sinand alive to you in Jesus Christ,may reign with him in glory;to whom with you and the Holy Spiritbe praise and honour, glory and might,now and in all eternity.
Tuesday of Holy Week 1 Corinthians 1: 18-31 John 12: 20-36We are walking with Jesus in his final few footsteps towards Jerusalem and his arrest leading to his crucifixion. The crucifixion was something of a stumbling-block to the Jews. Their own law tells them that those who are hanged are accursed by God. Therefore, how can someone who is hanged upon a cross possibly be God’s Chosen One. This very act, to the Jew, painted an impossible picture of the Chosen One of God.In God we find goodness and beauty, we find happiness and all that is best. In coming to us as his Son he immediately encounters the ugliness of humanity. To the Greek this just could not happen. How could one who had suffered as Jesus did be the Son of God.This is the atmosphere that surrounded Jesus. The questioning, the uncertainty. How could this happen?There is a well-known sentence in the Bible from the pen of Paul; "What looks like God's foolishness is wiser than men's wisdom; and what looks like God's weakness is stronger than men's strength." How can God allow himself to become involved in such an act? Was it disregard? Here is where some of the problem lay. The wisest of humanity pondered and pondered over this and could not arrive at a solution. But the answer, in its plain and simple truth, is that what might appear to us mere humans as foolishness on God’s part is in fact far wiser than any solution that we might ever possibly derive from all of our deliberations.There is a similar argument to the second part of Paul’s sentence. No matter how strong we might feel in displays of power, or in the volubility of our language. Or in displays of political manoeuvrability or of emotional prowess, all of these displays of strength may be quite formidable to those around us, but are as mere puffs of wind in the strength of God our Father.This was the background of the Christian message. Against the Jewish or Greek ideas it looked as if it would have little chance of success. It was a battle. Christianity won through. Comprising of people from all walks of life, from slave to members of the highest ranks of society, all are called. The reward waiting for them was of knowing that in Jesus they look upon the most uplifting thing in the universe. It told them, and us, in all of our humility, that in the eyes of God we are worth the death of his only Son.Collect for the Tuesday of Holy WeekLord of all life and power,who through the mighty resurrection of your Sonovercame the old order of sin and deathto make all things new in him:grant that we, being dead to sinand alive to you in Jesus Christ,may reign with him in glory;to whom with you and the Holy Spiritbe praise and honour, glory and might,now and in all eternity.
