Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth
Good Friday
April 10, 2009
THE GIFTS OF GOD FOR THE FAMILY OF
FAITH:
HOW HOPE OVERCOMES DESPAIR
Scripture: John
19:16-30
INTRODUCTION
On the 21st of
May, 1927, while people held their breath between two continents, a small plane
called “The Spirit of St. Louis” was sighted over
Finally, at 10:24 PM that
night, Captain Charles A. Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget Airport in
Five years later, Amelia
Earhart, who at the age of 35 was
Then, in the spring of 1937,
Earhart tried to fly around the world.
Again, as had been the case with Lindbergh, millions were watching and
waiting with exuberant expectation. But
this time something went wrong, and somewhere near
I
Almost 2000 years ago, as
Jesus hung on the cross with the last breaths of life slipping away and death
ever so near, and knowing that just about all of His disciples and friends had
already forsaken Him and fled in fear, the picture which the scriptures portray
on that first “Bad Friday” is filled with sadness and despair: “position
doubtful.”
And that’s the way it was
back then – “Bad Friday,” the worst Friday in history, as the Son of God who came
into this world with love in His heart and light in His eyes, was crucified
between two thieves.
“Position doubtful” – those
who thought He was the Messiah had given up the dream that Jesus would restore
God’s Kingdom on earth.
“Position doubtful” – a
handful of religious leaders had plotted and schemed to do Him in, and it
appeared they had won.
“Position doubtful” – Pilate
and the empire he represented had washed their hands clean, and assumed the job
was done.
“Position doubtful” – the
soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross divided His clothes between them and
chalked up the loss to a meaningless post mortem.
“Position doubtful” – John,
the only disciple that stayed on, and three Marys, including Jesus’ mother,
stood there in grief with no options left, except to listen as He said “Woman,
here is your son…John, here is your mother.”
“Position doubtful” – and as
Jesus died, He shouted out loud “It is finished!” – the Greek word in the New
Testament is “tetelestai”! And that is
how the Gospel of John concludes the crucifixion story: “Jesus bowed His head
and gave up His spirit,” finishing this gory and painful requiem on a note of
sadness and despair.
“Position doubtful” – you
see, it was a “Bad Friday” when Jesus was crucified and died, and everyone in
II
Have you ever been there,
when your own position was doubtful and you didn’t know where to go or what to
do?
A New Yorker cartoon pictures
two men in a prison cell, desolate and isolated with their hands and feet shackled,
and one man says to the other man “Now, here’s my plan.”
Have you ever been there,
when your own position was doubtful and you didn’t know where to go or what to
do?
A middle aged woman, struggling
in a stale marriage, went to see her pastor and said with tears in her eyes, “I
don’t know how much longer I can hold on.”
The pastor replied, “But didn’t you marry him for life?” “Yes I did,” she answered, “but he hasn’t
shown any signs of life for the past 25 years.”
A man married to an alcoholic
woman, kept holding on as long as he could.
One night, she embarrassed him in front of some old friends at a dinner
party. As they were driving home, she
broke down and cried out “Why don’t you just leave me?” He answered, “Because I remember a beautiful
person I married years ago, and I have hope that she’s still in there.”
Have you ever been there,
when your own position was doubtful, and you didn’t know where to go or what to
do?
In the midst of this
financial meltdown, some employees working in a solar research complex out in
Have you ever been there,
when your own position was doubtful and you didn’t know where to go or what to
do?
An older adult friend of mine
whom I visit from time to time, said to me not long ago, “You know, every one I
love is either turning gray, falling apart, losing their marbles or dying.”
And as we read the
newspapers, go online or watch TV every day, with the stock market up and down
like a roller coaster and our president and his advisors trying to help us find
a way out of this mess, if we are looking for some sign of hope on the horizon,
Jesus Christ has already given it to us – and the word is “nevertheless.”
III
Remember when He knelt down
in the Garden of Gethsemane, facing the crisis that He knew had finally come,
Jesus bowed His head and prayed “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
Thine be done.” (Matthew 26:39)
In that prayer, down on His
knees, our Lord entrusted everything to His Father in heaven. So as He went to the cross, suffering the
sadness, despair and loss of His own life, Jesus knew that somehow, some way,
God would save the day. And that is
exactly what happened.
We who live this side of
Easter, we know how the story turned out.
We proclaim it in the Apostles Creed every Sunday: “Jesus was crucified,
dead and buried, but on the third day God raised Him from the dead.” And ever since then, as Christians who
believe in the resurrection, we have been given the gift of hope – hope that
sees through the darkness, hope that heals our sadness, hope that overcomes our
despair and helps us go on instead of giving up.
That is why we call this
“Good Friday” instead of “Bad Friday” – because looking back at the cross through
the eyes of Easter, we now know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God has the
power in the midst of anything to “work all things together for good.” (Romans
8:28)
Frederick Buechner, in his
marvelous book “The Magnificent Defeat,” describes it this way:
“I cannot tell you…what I think I
would have seen if I had been there myself…But I can tell you this: that what I
believe happened, and what in faith and great joy I proclaim to you is that He
somehow got up, with the life in Him again, and the glory upon Him…I was not
there to see it, any more than I was awake to see the sunrise this
morning. But I affirm it as surely as I
do, that by God’s grace, the sun did rise this morning, because that is why the
world is flooded with light.” (From “The
Magnificent Defeat” by Frederick Buechner, 1966)
If you have come here today
looking for that light at the end of the tunnel, praying for help in the valley
of the shadow, searching for hope in your heart and the strength to cope with
whatever you are facing right now; if your position is doubtful today, then
remember the way that Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before He went
to the cross: “Nevertheless, not my will
but Thine be done,” and make that your prayer too. Because He has promised to walk alongside
you, to guide you and to provide you with all that you need to see this life
through. Do you believe that today?
CONCLUSION
An 85 year old man believed
it, even though he was suffering from the final stages of cancer. His pastor came to see him at home, and as he
sat down in the bedroom, he noticed a chair next to the bed. He said “It looks like you’ve been expecting
me.”
The older man asked “Why do
you say that?” And the pastor answered
“Well, I saw the chair there, and I just assumed that someone had put it close
by for me to sit in.” The older man
motioned for him to close the door, and then said “I have never told anyone
this before. For a long time I never really
knew how to pray. But some years ago, a
friend of mine told me that prayer should be like talking with Jesus. So he suggested that I sit down and place an
empty chair across from me, and to visualize Jesus sitting in that chair, and
spend time talking and listening to Him.
I decided to do it, and that’s the way I have prayed ever since. But I haven’t told anyone, not even my
family, because they would probably think that I had gone off the deep end and
lost my mind.”
The pastor thanked him,
offered a prayer and then went out the door.
A few days later, the older man’s daughter called to say that her father
had passed away. And she added this: “My dad died in his sleep. But there is one thing we haven’t been able
to figure out. Just before he left us,
he looked at me and then at an empty chair in the room, and he said ‘Could you
please pull that chair a little closer to the bed?’”
My friends: when all is said
and done, Jesus Christ is the only One who can give us life here and now on
earth and life forever in heaven. He
went to the cross with a prayer on His lips and hope deep down in His heart:
“Nevertheless.” And that is the prayer
which gives us hope to overcome our despair, in this life and in the next.
In the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.