Sermon preached at Christ Church
Greenwich, Connecticut
March 30, 2018 / Good Friday
One of the eerie parts of Good Friday is how normal it seems, banal even. If Jesus’ miracles seem far-fetched, and his teaching esoteric, there is nothing unusual whatsoever about his betrayal, trial, crucifixion, and death. If you read the newspaper, you have seen this story. Jesus’ trial is highly political, and Pilate gives up Jesus to the mob as the cost of keeping the peace. As he falls from grace, Jesus is abandoned by his closest followers, whose triumphant entry into the capital – which we heard on Sunday – has yielded ashes, failure, and death.
Of course they scatter. Of course Peter denies Jesus. I think that we can understand this. It would have been dangerous to do otherwise, perhaps even fatal.
“After these things,” St John writes, “Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus… Nicodemus… also came.”
This is Joseph’s first appearance, since he has been following Jesus “in secret,” but we have met Nicodemus before. Earlier in John’s gospel, Nicodemus was named as a Pharisee, a strict observer of the traditional and written Jewish law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity. When he first encountered Jesus, we know that Nicodemus came to Jesus “by night” (John 3:2), the way Deep Throat came to Woodward and Bernstein. Being seen with Jesus could compromise his position.
“One wonders immediately how much St John wishes to say to his contemporaries about men of learning and influence who do not have the courage to profess their faith openly.”[1]
One wonders what St John would have to say about us. Have we denied Jesus? Maybe. Have we come to him in secret? Without a doubt.
Most of the people whom I know regard Christianity with a kind of benign indifference. Others find the life of the church quaint; some consider that anyone who gets tied up with religion must be softheaded. I know that I have a very low tolerance for awkwardness, for social friction, and so I have many times in my life been at pains to NOT mention that I spend my Sunday mornings in church, or that I take the Gospel seriously. It’s easier that way. It means I don’t have to risk looking suspect, or silly.
I have been, in other words, just as cowardly as Peter, and just as concerned with my own standing as Joseph and Nicodemus.
The first step to a relationship with the God who is in Jesus Christ – the first step toward the peace of God which passes all understanding – is to become conscious. Conscious that we are instinctively looking out for number one, conscious that we spend most of our days wrapped up in ourselves. What it looks like to shake off the shackles of sin and self-absorption is to make a 180 degree turn, away from our own self-interest, and toward God.
Good Friday is what the first part of that equation looks like, carried to its logical conclusion. Good Friday is triumph of self-interest, the triumph of sin, the triumph of the utter banality of violence, fear, and sorrow, which we see in the news every day.
But even in this darkest hour, there is hope. For it is the most unlikely disciples who come to Pilate to take away the body of Jesus. Imagine what that must have cost them. Imagine what it must have taken for them to say, “To hell with it,” and to have borne Jesus’ corpse away from Calvary. They must have done so in view of many people, carrying the body to the garden that was nearby, where they conducted a loving and reverent burial, and in Joseph’s own tomb. Their secret discipleship could have been a secret no longer, and they would have had to do worse than travel to the ends of the earth. They’d have had to talk to their friends about it.
When we return to this church in three days’ time, will we be ready follow Joseph and Nicodemus out of hiding? Will we be willing to make that 180-degree turn? And will we be ready to carry the good news of Jesus Christ outside of these walls and into the places where it is not usually heard?
[1] Gerard Sloyan, John (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 43.
That Holy Fellowship 