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The Annunciation
We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts, that we who have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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The Annunciation
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Scripture citation(s): John 19:1-37
A Sermon by
Fr. Austin
on
John 19:1-37
✛
The Total Self-Offering of Jesus
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After the tears of Jesus, weeping over his friend Lazarus who had died, weeping over the city of Jerusalem, the human city that has turned away from peace; after the tears, and after also his tenderness, his gentle washing of the disciples’ feet, his tender mercy shown to all who come to him, after his Father’s tender mercy shown to all to whom Jesus has come; after his tears, after his tenderness, we come tonight to the self-offering of Jesus, his total self-offering.[1]
You may have wondered why the name of this day is Good Friday. It is an obvious question. Why not “Bad Friday” or at least “Sad Friday”? On this day, with ancient and solemn rituals, we remember the death of Jesus. The day is somber. The church is bare. And we feel barren, bereft. Why “Good” Friday?
The answer, I have come to think, is not because, although this was a bad day for Jesus, it turned out to be a good day for us. Of course I do believe it is good for us that Jesus died. Had the Son of God not taken on human flesh, and having taken it on, had he not gone on to embrace his death, there would be no salvation for us, and the human situation would be more bleak than the worst French existentialist nightmare ever thought it was. Yes, it is good for us that Jesus died. But what I have come to believe is that it is not good for us despite it being bad for Jesus. Rather, it is good for us precisely because it was good for Jesus.
The death of Jesus on the cross is the endpoint—the successful terminus—of a trajectory of life that defines who Jesus is. Let me explain.
Jesus is the eternal Son of God. His Father, loving the world that had gone astray, sent him into that world to save it. And the way Jesus would save the world was by being human.
To be human is different than being a molecule, or a rock, or a snake, or a fish, a bird, or any other kind of animal. To be human is also different than being a piece of music or a software program.
To be human is to live with other people in love.
Everything else in the world is about being itself, or, once it is alive, about perpetuating itself through progeny and descendants. But to be human is not to master self-preservation or self-propagation.
To be human is, rather, to find that your identity is in other people with whom you are friends, other people whom you love.
This is what Jesus did. This is the reason he had to have disciples: to be himself, Jesus needed to have people close to him, people to whom he could introduce this true way of being human, people whom he could love, people who would be his friends. He taught them how to live by love, which is not to be sentimental and cruel, but to be true and tender.
And to give oneself away. Real human beings live out their lives by giving themselves away. Remember the question Jesus asked? What father among you, he said, if his child asked for an egg, would give his child a scorpion? Even we who are evil (so Jesus said) know that much [Lk 11:12f.]. That is to say, even in the midst of a sinful world, we can grasp the point, that to be authentically human is to give ourselves for others.
Jesus indeed has been called “the man for others.” His life as a whole was a life for others. Coming forth from the Father into the world, he became human, really human. He achieved his perfect humanity by giving himself away. And the endpoint of that achievement is the cross. “It is finished,” he says from the cross. This is good Friday because here, now, at last, Jesus completes his mission of giving himself away, the mission his Father gave him to be completely human.
The mission of Jesus has not been understood. The religious authorities charged against him that he made himself out to be the Son of God—a capital offense they assert, as if he were putting on airs and trying use false divine claims to take command of the people. But in fact, although he was in truth the Son of God, he had humbled himself from that in order to be human.
Pilate senses something of this, but it eludes his comprehension. He can tell that Jesus is a king, but he can think of a king only as being someone who is over and above people; Pilate does not know (although he may sense the irony) that the basis of Jesus’ kingship is his total self-offering, his total humanity.
He keeps giving it away. We are told even about his clothing, a final gift to the soldiers who watched him die. And when he dies, he gives up the ghost, that is to say, he gives away his spirit which now goes out from him. The body that remains, the dead body there still hanging on the cross, gives itself over to the spear. Blood and water come out; a sign that death has set in, and perhaps a sign of more.
So here we are. It is a Good Friday, good for Jesus. He had a perfect human life. He finished it. He gave it all away.
__________
[1] See my sermons, “The Tears of Jesus” (Palm Sunday evensong) and “The Tenderness of Jesus” (Maundy Thursday), both given in 2016.
