As any preacher will tell you, the sermon on the page is never exactly the sermon that ends up being preached, but I figured I'd start posting my written sermons anyway. I have some audio and video ones that I'm hoping to post as soon as I stop being lazy too. This was the sermon I preached on Good Friday this year at Wesley UMC in Concord, NH. Enjoy!
In his book The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene Peterson describes three kinds of languages that humans use to communicate. The first language is the language that each child learns. These are the words of relationship, of intimacy, of love. This is the simplest, deepest language that we have. The babbling of an infant can’t be translated, but it communicates deep meaning just the same. The nonsense syllables of a parent talking to a preverbal child have no definition, and yet their meaning cannot be mistaken. The first language we learn is the language of the heart - love language.
Quickly, though, this intimate language is pushed aside by the languages of information and motivation. The first, the language of information, is what we use to name things in the world - tree, box, cat, mother, brother. We define the world in words heavy with information, loaded with description - we speak about the world we see, hear, touch, feel and experience. The language of motivation is the language by which we are moved and the language which we use to move others. A child quickly learns that making a demand for “baba” will result in a quick treat; in most sermons, the pastor is using language of motivation to illuminate a point in scripture, or get the congregation to think about something or do something differently. The languages of information and motivation quickly replace the language of intimacy, of love, of relationship.
Poetry is a form that uses the language of intimacy. A poem can evoke emotions, feelings and sensations that a newspaper article simply cannot. It does this not by using the language of information or motivation, but by using the language of intimacy, of relationship, by placing words together in such a way that deep meaning is produced that goes far beyond words placed on a page or spoken in the air. The language of poetry, then, the language of love, the language of intimacy, is the language that Jesus uses when he cries out on the cross.
In the gospels, we read the story of Holy Week. We listened to the story last night, during the Tenebrae service. We heard about Jesus’ last week, beginning with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, moving through his time spent teaching in the temple, the last meal with his friends, the despairing solitude in the garden, the betrayal, the trial, the crucifixion, the death. We hear the story in the language of information, and perhaps of motivation - certainly the writers of the gospel emphasized and de-emphasized depending on their particular perspective. But the language we hear most often as we rehearse once more the stories of Jesus in the final week of his life is the language of information - the language of the head, of description, the language that describes and defines. But the story is far more than simply the facts - it is far more than a torturous recitation of a story that began and ended, more than a simple remembering of what happened, more than a series of vignettes that follow one another in sequential order. When the gospel writers introduce Psalm 22 into the story, they are introducing the language of intimacy, the language of love, to deepen and broaden the story that must never become a simple recitation of events. The poem that we read earlier tonight enhances our experience of the story, and uses language that expresses far more than simple description ever could.
Psalm 22 has a typical structure for a Psalm. It alternates between complaining to God and expressing trust in God. It begins with the words that Luke puts in Jesus’ mouth while he hangs from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The word “forsaken” could also be translated as “abandoned” or “left behind.” The poet uses the word אֵלִי, a form which means “my God.” It is a form of the word that is especially intimate, something that is used between people who have close personal attachments. God has a prior relationship with the one who is crying out, and yet the poet feels abandoned, left behind. The psalmist is in the depths of despair; suffering and trials are recited, interspersed with remembering the goodness of God in the past. Even while remembering God’s mighty acts, though, there is a deep feeling of despair. The psalmist - and Jesus - are in a place so dark, they cannot sense the light of God’s love. “Trouble is near, and there is no one to help.”
In verses 12-21, the psalmist’s plight continues, but there is some hope. Danger still surrounds: “Many bulls encircle me;” “dogs are all around me.” The poet is close to death, on the boundary between life and death: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint...you lay me in the dust of death.” The psalmist cries out, still in suffering but also in awe: “O my help,” the psalmist calls God. “Deliver me!” The sentence at the end of the second section sums it up: “From the horns of the wild oxen you have answered me.” Most translations translate “answered” as “rescued;” but I think “answered” works here. Even though the psalmist is still in the midst of sufferings, God has answered the poet from within the midst of the suffering. God is present in the suffering of the psalmist, and by using Psalm 22, the gospel writers are reminding us in a language deeper than words that God is also present in the suffering of Jesus on the cross - and God is present in our suffering as well.
In the final section of the Psalm, the poet is so moved by encountering God in the midst of suffering that she or he cannot contain their joy; a call is sounded to the people of the congregation, to the people of the community, to come join their voices in praise of the loving God who is present in our pain. This is the story that we tell in descriptive words this holy week - this is the story that we tell with the very living of our lives: the story of a God who loves us so much that God is with us in our suffering, even when we cannot sense God’s presence.
This Psalm is filled with expansive and explosive imagery. The images are graphic: the poet feels like a worm, dehumanized, degraded; the psalmist is surrounded by strong bulls that open their mouths wide as they roar; the poet’s heart is like wax, melted within her or his breast. Although it is composed of typical elements, it also pushes the boundaries of the form. Its movement from the depths of despair, through the hope found in suffering, to the exuberant call to the congregation to join in celebration runs the gamut of emotions that one encounters in one’s life story - the emotions we encounter in the stories of Holy Week. Psalm 22 is not unique because it’s used in the New Testament; Psalm 22 is used in the New Testament because it is unique.
I’ve had more people ask me this year, I suppose because they assume I’m in seminary and a pastor and so I must know, just what is so good about Good Friday. Because when we look at just the “facts”, there’s not much good on Good Friday. Jesus is on the cross; Jesus is suffering in a way that many of us have never witnessed unless we’re fans of horror films. Jesus is in the same depths that the psalmist is in, and Jesus cries out as the psalmist does, as we do when we find ourselves in the pit: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me? Why have you left me behind, when you promised to be with me through everything? Jesus uses intimate language to address God - not the dry language of description, or the cajoling language of motivation, but the deep, heart-felt, spirit-driven language of love and loss, bliss and pain, joy and sorrow.
But remember, the Psalm does not end with a lament, the psalmist does not end in despair. This Psalm ends in rejoicing; and this story ends, we know, in the joy of Easter, the defeat of death, the way of love that defines the story, that defines our story. The psalmist rejoices because God is found in the suffering; even in the midst of pain, even in the depths of despair, God is present, God is with us, God loves us. That is what is so good about Good Friday: Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us, cries out in pain and sorrow from the cross, and God is there. Our Savior, the Christ, the Anointed One, dies on a cross tonight, but on Sunday morning he will be absent from the tomb. God is with us in the person of Jesus, and God is with us even in the deepest, darkest moments when darkness overwhelms the light.
Tonight, we remember the death of a person who did not deserve to die. His death was ugly, it was harsh, it was violent and brutal and would most certainly be rated R if it were to be shown on screen today. We like to forget that part; we clean it up, maybe have some artfully drawn blood dripping from his hands in the more realistic paintings, but generally we prefer to remember our Jesus as we will remember him on Sunday - with jubilation, and singing, and rejoicing. But before the joy of Easter, we remember his death: the embodiment of cruelty and injustice, physical pain almost unimaginable, emotional pain equally indescribable, a death from which our Savior cried out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”
As Jesus cried out from the cross, so too we cry out from our places of darkness, from our own pain and suffering. We encounter our own deaths, our own trials, and we cry out “My God, why have you forsaken me? Why am I so alone?” The good news, sisters and brothers, spoken to us in the words of intimacy, of poetry, of love, is that God is with us in the depths. God who loves so much that God died on a cross; that is the God who is with us in our suffering. Even when we cannot see or hear or feel that presence, it is there. We are never alone. We are not forsaken.
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