Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne, UCC
April 2, 2010
Good Friday - True Love Baptist Church

Awake to the Depths  

"Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you
may not come into the time of trial."
(Luke 22:46)

Prelude

To Pastor Robert Bell,

and the members of True Love Baptist Church,

it is good to be here this afternoon and to share

your company; I have memories of this place

that go back to Pastor Bishop Jesse White.

I'm grateful for the ties that are rekindled

with our worship today.

To the Rev. Mike Nickleson,

President of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance;

whose strong song and courageous spirit is like few others

in the grand enterprise we call church;

and to the Rev. Roger Reece,

President and Executive Pastor of Associated Churches of Fort Wayne

and Allen County,

at whose invitation I stand before you this afternoon,

I thank you for your leadership in our community and

the good work you inspire.  I hope I live up

to the responsibility you have entrusted to me.

To the Rev. Fred Morris, my preaching partner,

and all other reverend clergy who are in attendance,

to all the saints who are gathered,

bless you for being present.

Good Friday is a Holy Week day that invites us

to break our routines and our separate ways; 

it is good to share with others the story that defines our lives;

it is good to worship the Lord - together;

it is good to listen and learn   - together;

it is good to praise and thank the Lord - together.

Now ... this is not intended to offend,

but I'm not one who believes

we need be together all the time;

I do believe we should be together some of the time;

and I also believe some blessings

won't come,

don't come,

and can't come,

unless we are together. 

So count me glad to be part

of the service this afternoon.

And if in my part I fall flat, grow dull, go long;

if the heart be weighted or the mind become worried;

if I begin to bore, make you sore; or snore,

have mercy upon me;

and pull aside Pastors Nickleson, Bell, and Reece,

and say, "Let's give that brother a rest for a while."

          *****                   *****                   *****

Luke 22:44-46

The title for this meditation:

"Awake to the Depths."

Good Friday is a day full of unique challenges

for the church in general and for the preacher in particular.

The volume of material defies compression

into what time we allot.  We could be here today as long as

True Love worships on a Sunday morning,

and still not get into all the nooks of wisdom

and crannies of insight the scripture provides.

The church has traditionally spent Good Friday

addressing the "seven words" from the cross. 

This is a huge lot of material, spelling out

grand themes of Christian faith.    

In my tradition there is an order for reading the 7 words:

(1) forgive them; (2) today paradise; (3) Behold thy son/mother;

(4) why hast thou forsaken; (5) I thirst; (6) it is finished,

(7) into thy hands I commend my spirit.

After each word came a song; same tune, different verse,

with each verse ending in a plea:  Hear us, Holy Jesus.

(E & R Hymnal, p. 542)

May Thy life and death supply

Grace to live and grace to die,

Grace to reach the home on high,

Hear us, Holy Jesus.

Permit an observation on "volume,"

the sheer amount of material dealing with

the death upon cross of Jesus,

which tells us something significant

about the church that produced

the gospel material.

When there are horrific episodes in life,

when events transpire that scar the soul,

that diminish, or twist, or distort the human spirit,

it can take years of time to pass before people can

speak of the day or the experience that so changed life.

We have a term for this in our cultural lingo:

Post traumatic stress syndrome.  PTS for short.

It makes strange appearances in soldiers

who as young men/women go to war;

and traumatic episodes get suppressed

sometimes until old age, and all of a sudden

the furies return to haunt and stalk.

Death whenever, however it occurs can traumatize.

My daddy died in May of 1964. 

I still don't have much to say about that day. 

What do you say about the day that life changed,

unexpectedly, never to be the same?  Not much.

One might expect the death of Jesus to have sufficiently

traumatized the disciples to the point of silence,

to have halted the movement of his followers,

to have stifled their allegiance and muted their witness.

This surely is what the Romans intended;

it was the purpose of crucifixion - to silence

any that would dare question their rule.

The Romans used violence as a strategy, a tool of

foreign policy.  The cross was state sponsored terror

designed to induce shame, to instill fear,

to splinter and fragment community. 

Yet this is not at all what we find. 

We find stubborn defiance, sorrowful outrage,

tenacious resistance.  The gospels, especially the Good Friday

readings, illustrate a refusal of the followers of Christ

to be silenced (see Rita Nakashima Brock/Rebecca Parker,

Saving Paradise, "women's lament-poetry," p. 52-53).

There is depth to the suffering of the Lord

and to his death.  Recall the words of Isaiah:

By a perversion of justice he was taken away.

Who could have imagined his future? (He) who had

done no violence, with no deceit in his mouth.

(Isaiah 53:8, 9)

The church faced the fullness of what was perverse

and obscene with a determination to tell the truth

about Jesus' death.  To not tell the truth, the whole truth

would be to dishonor the life.  To not speak is to be complicit

with the powers of death.  So, Good Friday is an awesome reminder

of the church's refusal to silence it's witness.  Good Friday is

the church's finest hour of proving itself brave and courageous.

          *****                   *****                   *****

Awake to the Depths.

After the upper room assembly, before the arrest,

trial, the crowning with thorns, the nailing upon cross,

Jesus spent time in prayer in the garden on the Mount of

Olives.  Luke tells us this "was his custom."

Jesus separated himself from those that followed;

he gave instruction:  "pray that you may not come to

the time of trial" (Luke 22:39).  And then he went off.

Jesus prayed.  You remember:

 "let this cup pass; but not my will but yours be done."

It was tough prayer.

Sweating prayer. 

On your knees prayer.

It was "I'm in this, but I not sure

I like what it's all about" prayer.

It was "I love you, Lord, I lift your name on high,

but I'm not certain I understand all that is swirling about

in my head, in my heart, in this world" prayer.

This is depth prayer.

It is getting down to the issues,

to heart of things.

It is prayer that fully awake inside

to what's going on in the outside.

Depth prayer is honest prayer.

It is authentic prayer, as opposed to

the poor, pretentious prayer

that often proliferates.

What was it the prophet Ezekiel

spoke of a people who flatter God with the lips,

but whose hearts are set on personal gain (Exodus 33:31).

Good Friday is designed for depth prayer,

for serious students of the Holy Spirit.

It is for those who want the Jesus life,

in the face of the cross.

May Thy life and death supply

Grace to live and grace to die,

Grace to reach the home on high,

Hear us, Holy Jesus!

When the prayer time for Jesus was over,

he sought and found the disciples.

And found them sleeping. And he said:

Why are you sleeping?

Jesus asked the disciples.

Why are you sleeping?

And today, I sense,

Jesus is asking the church.

Why are you sleeping?

          *****                   *****                   *****        

I'm sympathetic to sleepers.

Sometimes sleep is a gift. 

We are so overloaded, so spent

trying to get through a complicated day,

we just can't keep up.  Even in church. 

There is good sleep, necessary sleep, blessed sleep

(Psalm 4:8; 3:5).

But there is dangerous sleep. 

And I want to speak about dangerous sleep;

embarrassing sleep; seductive sleep;

sleep that denies, betrays;

sleep that brings us regret, or fills us with remorse.

I confess, if I'm in pew rather than pulpit,

there can come upon me a glazed look, and my lids grow so heavy,

my head I cannot keep erect, and so it slips, and sometimes tilts,

and sometimes I'll jerk, and then pretend I was listening all the while,

but then it comes upon me again.  It's not easy staying awake in this

troubled world.  Jesus was understanding (I hope). 

The issue was sleep when said

"... the spirit is ...willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41).

Sometimes there are tricks in the preachers bag. 

For many years of my life, I served a congregation

in Michigan that worshiped in a little white clapboard church. 

It was not in city, town, or village, but at a crossroads

in the heart of a township dotted by old farms and

new housing developments.  One of my predecessors

was a man by the name of William Hainsworth. 

Rev. Hainsworth was known, at least in those parts,

for "housetop preaching."  He took as text Matthew 10:27:

"What I say to you in the dark,

tell in the light;

and what you hear whispered,

proclaim from the housetops."

That preacher would periodically get the ladder out,

and climb up, and preach.  He got a fair amount of

marketing mileage out of this, and had his picture

in the paper on more than one occasion.

I think he liked the attention.  Nobody slept through any

of that, I suppose, but I don't know as if he really woke anybody up.

Albert Schweitzer, the theologian turned doctor,

one who left the heart of Europe because he

lost his own heart in love of Africa, encountered

a disease there he called "sleeping sickness."

He saw the physical impairment as a type of spiritual condition,

a "sickness of the soul."  He cautioned it was dangerous

because you could catch it, this sleeping sickness,

and be unaware of it.  You have to be careful, he said.

As soon as you notice the slightest sign of indifference ...

the loss of a certain seriousness, of longing, of enthusiasm,

of zest, take it as a warning.  Realize your soul suffers

if you live superficially" (inside my Bible cover).

So - today - Good Friday. 

I'm wondering.  Are we awake? 

Is Jesus speaking as once he spoke, asking: 

Why are you sleeping?

          *****                   *****                   *****

ARE WE SLEEPING,
UNAWARE OF THE APPALLING NATURE OF SIN

Like many in recent weeks, I've been following the

issue of health care reform, and trying to sort out

what is means for me, and what it means for us.

Are we awake to the powers and principalities at play,

malicious, mean, and nasty?

I was quite intrigued by the congressman who,

accompanied by a picture of Nancy Pelosi, directed

chants of kill the bill, turning thumbs down to the Speaker,

then pantomiming the slapping of the Speaker's face.

It was all caught on tape, so all could see.  All but

the congressman who callously denied and disavowed

any impropriety.

Real change comes with a price. 

Real change, so Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. recently observed,

"... sparks racism, bigotry and hate."

Good Friday reminds us, wake up to

the appalling nature of sin.

Our capacity to resist the way of Christ, to flatter with our lips,

but deceive with our hearts, is great indeed.  The cross

is alarm clock: face up to the powers, wake up

to the depths of what is truly important. 

          *****                   *****                   *****

ARE WE AWAKE
TO THE DEPTHS OF LOVE?

One further question on Good Friday:

Where is the Love,

and how best do we understand it?

Such a pressing question.  And I ask that we linger with it.

There is sin aplenty. 

There is suffering aplenty. 

There is death aplenty.

But where is the love?

Just as it has come to every generation of the past,

so too, it comes into this our time, this place, this hour.

Where is the love?

Google that question, and up will pop the rap group,

Black Eyes Peas, and you can hear and see them sing:

Where is the love?

Erich Fromm wrote more than fifty years ago,

speaking of the disintegration of love in our western society.

He sought to clarify and qualify that love is

"a constant challenge ..."   He sought to clarify:  love rests not,

but rather is "a moving, growing, working together... "

and it is present regardless of whether there is

"harmony or conflict, joy or sadness."  If proof of love you seek,

then Fromm was quite clear:  it is found in  

the depth of the relationship", in the fruit by which

love is recognized" (Fromm, The Art of Loving, p. 103).

Good Friday is the day of depth in the church.

God was in Christ, so we have been taught.

          (II Corinthians 5:19)

God so loved - even in the depths of which Christ was crucified.

Even in the depths of death.  Even in the depths of burial.

God so loved. 

In this God was not sleeping,

nor was God observing.

God was not willing, wanting, watching, or waiting. 

But if not, then

where is the love?

Could it be there existed

this depth of relationship between

the parent/child,

between Wisdom and Word,

between Maker and our Master,

between the Lord, the Lover and the Beloved. 

that we dare say:

As Christ died, so too did God die.

As Christ was forsaken, so too was God forsaken.

As Christ was buried, so also, is God buried?

If awake, then Good Friday leads us into such depths.

And awake surely need we be. 

For as he has gone, so we follow.

And having walked with him,

having served him,

having loved him,

having honored him,

having suffered with him,

having died with him,

we will live with him and glorify him forever!

So let us pray, this Good Friday, that we be awake,

to the depths, even to the depth of the cross. 

Let us pray for the grace we all need to weather and

withstand the death of the One who lives. 

May Thy life and death supply

Grace to live and grace to die,

Grace to reach the home on high,

Hear us, Holy Jesus.

Amen.