<html><body><div>Our Deacon preaches on Maundy Thursday this year. Here's the Good Friday draft from me.</div><div><br></div><div>Happy Maundy Thursday!</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY GOOD FRIDAY<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">ISAIAH 52:13 – 53:12 25<sup>th</sup> MARCH, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">HEBREWS 10:16-25 PSALM 22<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">JOHN 18:1 – 19:42<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 2.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> In some sense, the Gospels are a record of failure: failure of the disciples; failure of the broader community and the visitors to their homeland; failure of Jesus Himself, as He worked to spur the hearts, the minds, the imaginations of all who listened to Him. But if the Gospels are such a record, then they end up as triumphant, as they allow each of us in our brokenness to become part of the story. The Gospels, and, most especially, the record of this day, speak to the way that Jesus walks through the dakest times in our lives, and never flinches at the smells, the sounds, or the sights – or, if He does, then He doesn’t let them stop Him. Indeed, we come to hear the story, year after year, and we’re touched by the silences, when nothing seems capable of being said; we’re moved by the darkness which often seems impenetrable by light. But we sit, we stand, we kneel, not thinking about moving away, because what we find here, what we experience, speaks to us to the depths of our beings. Especially, so it seems, in times of crisis, when the temptation is to despair and to lash out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> It was not always so, of course. We need turn only to the accounts to see that. People continually misunderstood Jesus. They confused what was valuable and what was less important. They didn’t see how all things were being made new. They saw things happening only in their own terms. When they discovered Jesus confronting their beliefs and their sense of security, they backed off. Indeed, often the struck out, verbally <b><u>AND</u></b> physically. So Judas betrayed; Peter denied; the group as a whole tried to isolate Jesus from contact with those with whom they were uncomfortable. And the onlookers, especially those who thought they were in charge; they lapped it up, believing that Jess was playing right into their dirty hands. Above all, everyone one of them fled from the arrest, the trial and the cross. <sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> They couldn’t stand it because they couldn’t understand it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> And this is how it can be for us. For a variety of reasons, not everyone comes to these liturgies between the two bench-mark Sundays. Perhaps the rawness of the emotions, the bluntness and nastiness of what is described, the starkness of the silences and the shadows cast in the half-light; perhaps these disturb us so much. Yet we come, because in all that we hear and see, that we taste and smell, even in the cross itself, we find ourselves. We find our own situations addressed by Jesus. We see Him subjected to incredible viciousness. We see Him as people more than strip Him of His clothes but also of His dignity, as they think they reach the core of His being. We see Jesus ridiculed and His flesh torn. But we see Jesus submit to this for <b><u>OUR</u></b> sakes. So <b><u>WE</u></b> come. <b><u>WE</u></b> sit here, and listen, and reflect, and cringe, because what Jesus bore speaks to all the doubts, all the questions, all the disappointments, all the failures of our own lives. We come because Jesus draws us to embrace Him and, in turn, to be embraced by Him. We come so that in the midst of all that we don’t understand, we can take hope that He takes up our sufferings and becomes present with us as we each make our own journeys.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> No matter that it would have been easier, certainly more convenient, nt to be here, we come because in Jesus’ cross and passion, we see that He has redeemed the world, including everything about and within us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> But at what cost?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Even here, though, we find that not all our questions are answered. Just as this night is but one part of a three-day drama, and doesn’t yet include the whole picture, so when we look, when we listen, when we feel the mixture of emotions that are part of who we are right now, so we find a curious ability to live with our questions all the way through until answers come, whenever that may be.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> This may seem to you, as it does to me, particularly relevant as the world witnessed yet another attempt to demonstrate depraved indifference to human life. Not that the attack on Brussels was the only one in the past fourteen days. People scattered across multiple continents suffered from violence and destruction whether from bombs, bullets or barbaric starvation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> We still strip Jesus naked, on a daily basis, and demean Him till all the sense of dignity is erased. There’s nothing left but hollow, staring eyes, all in the name of religion.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Yet there can be something we can do, something we can offer. We ca remind people of the cross and our longing never to have that repeated. We can remind people of the love of Jesus, lifted high for everypne to see. We can draw others into love in the midst of tremendous pain. We can learn what it means to believe that Jesus shared our life, and faced such cruelty, and offered His life for us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> In a few moments, a large cross will be brought through the space where we sit, and placed where we can see it, where we can come to touch it, and wonder at how incredible is God’s love for us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Then, shortly after that, Jesus’ Body and Blood, in the Holy Sacrament, will be brought in by the same route that the cross took, and set in front of us. We shall pray. Then we shall eat and drink,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Always, Jesus is present, no matter where, no matter when. We may ake that Presence to our comfort. And we can take that Presence to others, to any, for the healing of the world. We are invited to bring the sacrament into our lives – in Brussels, in Ankara, in Baghdad, in South Sudan, in Jerusalem, in Gaza, in Yarmouk, in Madaya, in Albany – everywhere Jesus offers His body.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> But for now, it is enough that we are here, perhaps bearing witness to ourselves, certainly to others, that the deepest darkness <b><u>CAN </u></b>be faced.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">NOTE:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px;">[1]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> See, among others, “Short Stories by Jesus” by Amy-Jill Levine. HarperOne, New York. © 2014. Page 2 ff.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><o:p><br></o:p></div></body></html>