Posts Tagged ‘John 18:1-19:42’
Love and Sorrow – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
Good Friday
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
John 18:1-19:42
“Did e’er such love and sorrow meet?”[1]
The Good Shepherd lay down his life for the sheep, allowing arrest to final breath. “Wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”
As his followers fought back, Jesus denounced violence and retribution. “Put away your sword.” Jesus spoke with authority not coercion or oppression. “My kingdom is not from this world. . . . Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Jesus spoke tenderly to his dearest giving them to each other: “here is your son . . . here is your mother.”
“Did e’er such love and sorrow meet?” Read More
What Is Truth? – Br. Lucas Hall
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Good Friday
What we’ve just heard is the drama of Christ’s passion and crucifixion, the great story of his death. “Drama” is an appropriate word, as, like much of John’s Gospel, this telling is almost begging to be dramatized. Characters enter and exit with clear lines of dialogue, the setting shifts between scenes, it’s genuinely like a stage show. And in this telling, in this story, in this drama, I find myself very intrigued by the figure of Pontius Pilate.
I’m not the only one. Christians for many centuries have been interpreting Pilate, his character, his motives, and his ultimate fate. Some have regarded him as a cruel persecutor, an evildoer cursed to bear the great burden of his sin. Others have regarded him as a basically well-intentioned man with his hands tied, neither so evil as to deserve special condemnation, nor so good as to deserve praise. Others have seen, within his proclamation of Christ as King, a budding Christian, one who would later fully convert and be changed by this brush with Jesus.
All of these interpretations have precedent in Church tradition. So why is Pilate so simultaneously interesting and divisive? I suspect it’s because it’s quite easy to read him in this retelling in different ways. Is he a man concerned with justice, trying to judge rightly? Is he a tyrant, a prince of this world conspiring against God’s reign? Is he just a confused foreigner, disturbed in the middle of the night to hear a theological dispute he has no context for understanding, and may even find boring or ridiculous, at least until he hears that this man claims to be the Son of God, a concept perhaps more easily accepted by a Roman polytheist? They’re all valid ways to read the story.
The Last Breath of Jesus – Br. Keith Nelson
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Good Friday
John 18:1-19:42
lanterns, torches, & weapons
a sword
a severed ear
a charcoal fire
a crown of thorns
a purple robe
a cross
an inscription
an untorn tunic
a jar of sour wine
a sponge
a branch of hyssop
a spear
These are the non-human witnesses of the passion of Jesus Christ. Most are what a materialist culture would call inanimate objects, witnesses without agency, intention, or sentience. But these disparate, created things have been joined in the devotional mind of Christians over the centuries under the banner Arma Christi – the weapons of Christ, the things he uses to conquer death. They are listed in litanies, depicted on altarpieces, and cluster around roadside shrines. The cross is given the central place, “an instrument of shameful death” transformed by Christ’s passion and resurrection “to be for us the means of life.”
In a lesser fashion, these other created things also share participation in Christ. Drawn into the purposes of the prince of Peace, these so-called “weapons” become by his passion implements of peace and Life. By their strange constellation in the same place, at the same time around Jesus of Nazareth, their Maker has conspired to set us free. Read More
Powerful Truths & Ineffable Mysteries – Br. Keith Nelson
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John 18:1—19:42
Good Friday
I.
“It is finished.”[i]
Logically, there should be no more to say. “It is finished.” The altar is naked, the flame extinguished, the holy water dried up.
And yet, we linger here where powerful truths have been expressed and ineffable mysteries suggested.
II.
The Truth: that the Love of God risks everything, forsakes all sense, abandons natural order, acts contrary to human expectation. We read in this truth the voluntary self-gift of God’s only-begotten Son “into the hands of sinners” that he fashioned from clay.
And the Truth: that the Love of God can – and shall – convert every instrument of death that cruel humans can invent into a key that opens the door to Life. We read this truth in the Cross that bore his Body.
And the Truth: that the Love of God endures the worst imaginable suffering. Through this, not in spite of this, as a ray of light pierces the darkest storm cloud, God’s glory is made manifest. We read this truth in the flesh of Jesus Christ: beaten, bleeding, broken, dying…drawing all people to himself.
Read MoreLife out of Death – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Isaiah 52:13-53:12 / Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 / John 18:1-19:42
The suffering of Jesus, which we remember on this holy night, would be appalling enough if this put an end to something so terrible: if Jesus’ death on the cross forever ended the tyrannical power of unjust rulers; or forever ended conspiracy and betrayal and discrimination; or forever ended martyrs’ giving up their lives; or forever ended suffering from disease and diminishment, or even death itself. None of this has ended. If anything, Jesus’ death on the cross was the start of something. We are not spared the experience of the cross, we are shared the experience. Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (1) Down through the centuries, many people in many places have understood Jesus’ words about “taking up your cross” quite literally. Even today Christians are being killed in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and countless other places around our world. Tyrannical power, injustice, discrimination, disease, and death continue without end. Read More
Judas & Peter – Br. Curtis Almquist
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John 18:1 – 19:42
I have come to know a young man who is now incarcerated in prison. He was charged and convicted on multiple felonies. If you knew the gentle family who raised him, you would be as shocked and numb with despair as they are, asking how in the world could it have come to this… for their son, whom they love and thought they knew so well?
I haven’t been able to get that question out of my mind: how did it come to this? As I’ve read what we all see relentlessly in the media, I often ask myself, “how has it come to this… for them?” Why do people make wrong choices? How do people come to be broken as they are and, and then, so often, do unto others the harm that was done unto them? Sometimes, it seems it’s with only a fleeting moment’s reaction, and sometimes from a day or week or many years of planning, preparing, and anticipating, a person will act or react in a way that proves tragic – tragic for them or others or both. It’s a question I’ve had to ask myself a good many times. Read More