Leaning Into Lent | Week 6 | Holy Week - Good Friday (4-3-26)

Thank you for joining us on this Lenten journey. You can find additional resources at spanishfortumc.org/lent. If you want to know more about our congregation, check us out at spanishfortumc.org/welcome

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Hey everybody. Thank you for being with us today on Good Friday. This is our last devotion of Lent. Um I want to say uh thank you, Pastor Mike, for being in with us this week. Absolutely. Um thank you, Buzzer. Sharing your thoughts on the on the scripture. And thank you, Pastor Sarah. Um, this is probably one of your uh biggest projects as far as like uh reading the scripture and grinding it out because you've done every week with me, every um every interview, every conversation for the past six weeks. So thank you for doing that. Yeah. And I hope you've in hope you've enjoyed uh you know this. This is not the end of your first year with us, but like as we're moving into the end of your first year, I'm looking you you've been enjoying this this whole exercise.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

It's been fun and it's been really good. So I'm happy.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Cool. Um so we're on the Good Friday lectionary passages. Um, and we in, you know, as I was just said on my nail Wednesday if you're with us, we're not doing the Old Testament, New Testament gospel once day. We're doing the daily lectionary passages for each of the days of our devotions. And today is Good Friday, and so the lectionary passages for today are Isaiah 52, 13 through 53, 12, right? So uh 52 verse 13 through chapter 53, verse 12. It's a very long passage. And then Hebrews 10, 16 through 25, and then um the entire passion narrative of John 18, 1 through chapter 19, 42. Obviously, we're not gonna read all of any of those because it would take the entire time. We're gonna look kind of the 30,000-foot view of Good Friday, these texts, but I want to begin with Psalm 22. I'm not gonna read it in this entirety, but I do think it's important. Um, one of the things I learned, one of the one of the first cool things I learned about the Bible whenever I was like 13 or 14, um, was that sometimes uh the Hebrew people um and uh the Israelites, even uh Jewish people today, um, would identify a psalm not by a number, but by its starting verse. It's actually pretty similar to how we have our hymns. Most of our hymns, um, the title of the hymn is typically the first line, the first verse of the hymn. It's not an oily case at its usual. Like live high the cross begins live. Uh well, if a young person who is memorizing the Psalms was asked Psalm twat is Psalm 22, that might not make perfect sense because they didn't all have um the same, not every tradition had the same Psalms and they're passed down and they're identified by their starting line. When Jesus is on the cross, at one point he says, Um, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And I remember when one of a teacher of a lay-speaking class, when I was 14 years old, explained to us that Jesus very well could have been referencing Psalm 22 when he was on that cross. And by saying, My God, my God, why are you forsaking me? It's almost like he's quoting the entirety of the Psalm, which if you read the entire uh Psalm 22, gives you this overarching narrative of what Jesus is experiencing. So listen to just part of it. My God, my God, why are you forsaking me? Why are you so far from helping me from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer me, and by night you find no rest. Um, I'm gonna skip on ahead. Uh I am worn, um, but I am mourn and not human, scorned by others, despised by the people, all who see me mock me. Um, commit your cause to the Lord, let him deliver, let the let him rescue the ones in whom he delights. Yet it was you who took me from the womb. You kept me safe in my mother's breast. On you I was cast from my birth. Uh, do not be far from me, my trouble is near. Many bulls encircle me. Uh they open wide their mouths like ravening and roaring raining roaring lions, I am poured out light water. My mouth is dried up. Um, for dogs are all around me, accompanied evildoers encircles me. Um so he's saying, Do not be far from me, these bad things are happening, the psalmist is saying. And and in a way, you kind of hear um this same, my mouth is dried up. There are people around me who mock me. Uh, Lord, um, I need you. So the phrase itself, my Lord, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Sounds like Jesus believes God has abandoned him. However, when you read it, the psalmist is saying, Lord, be near to me. Lord, I believe in you, Lord, I trust to you, Lord, I need you. Um, and so it it it really turns that phrase on its head. So for those who've always wondered, why does God abandon Jesus? Um, while he's on the cross, it there it there is this sense from the psalm that Jesus recognizes his need for God, you know, as rather than saying, Um, I don't believe God is with me anymore. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

I think it's in verse seven there. I underlined and highlighted both, you're my strength. Come quickly to help me. So he he understands God is still on the verge, he's still right there close. Step in, step in at any time. Yeah, uh as Jesus would would quote this text. Um I didn't, because the passage is so long, I just pulled excerpts from it as as I was reading and doing my study. Uh verse 31 they will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn. He has done it. I I love it. Yeah, the descendants surely will hear the testimony of those faithful before. Very, very powerful. And uh also shows Jesus knew Old Testament. I knew the Psalms.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Yeah. Hey, Jesus, read your Bible. Okay, well, what else? From uh go ahead if you got anything from the Psalm, but Isaiah 52, Hebrews 10 or John 18.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yeah. I was gonna say what that what you were saying, I see paralleled in in Isaiah. Um, you know that the passage highlights that God's power is revealed in the midst of suffering. So it's not necessarily that, like you were saying, that Jesus is saying, Oh, I've been abandoned, I feel abandoned, but kind of just acknowledging that the suffering that he is in and acknowledging that God is there in it.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Calling out to God in the midst of the suffering.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

This whole lectionary Uber text today, Psalm 22, Isaiah 52, Isaiah, Hebrews 10, John 18, really hammers home the praise, the suffering, the son of man. The son of man must suffer. Suffering. Obviously, that language has made its way into many of our hymns and a lot lately of contemporary worship songs. But it is an important thing to hold on to that though Jesus is God, God chose to suffer. And it on our behalf, God suffered. So this idea of suffering permeates the scripture throughout the Bible, either pointing to Jesus or talking about Jesus after the fact or telling us about Jesus' suffering, which is why you should be at church tonight. I would say it one more time. The Bible thinks this is really important. And so we can't skip it. Lament is a human experience. Pain is something we all go through. Jesus went through it too, but acknowledging it does not give power over us, but allows us to stop pretending it's not there. Um I I think it is practical that people go from Pond Sunday to Easter just because we're not used to going to church on Thursday and Friday. I also think, too, though, is that a lot of you just don't be talking about suffering. A lot of people, unless you share it, what should we be uh a lot of people don't like living in the to wait the cross. We like celebrating what the cross did. We're really big about wearing crosses and about singing the suffering son of man in a praise context. Like God did this, yay, rather than this is what it was and how heavy it was and how dark it was and how difficult it was and how painful it was. Because if you lose that, it doesn't give the appropriate amount of weight and meaning to the part that's where they're being praised, and to the resurrection itself. The fact that Jesus overcame death and through resurrection is vitally important. Which so too is the fact that he chose to suffer, we didn't have to.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

You mentioned hymns, contemporary songs. Handel's Messiah comes heavily from Isaiah 53. He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him. Despise and rejected in a man of suffering. That's it. That's it. By his wounds or by his strikes we are healed.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Yeah, I I can think of just like countless songs kind of mine that have the language of today's texts in the Yeah. I do think our our hymns, and particularly things like Hymns of Messiah, they do try to bring that weight to it as well in a way that contemporary worship doesn't always do. And contemporary worship is born out of the phrase praise and worship, not lament. And so we do lean towards the the the more uplifting aspects of it, but we shouldn't do so at the expense of appreciating the the suffer, the heaviness. Which is like I was just a right upstairs.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

It is. There's there is a saying that I really like, um just highlighting my emous for a minute. Um, but you know, with it it's without the darkness, how would we ever see the stars? Which I relate to a lot because I really like the darkness part, but it's because it does illuminate those brighter areas. It's not that I don't like the brightness at all.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

It's not that I only live in the dark, but um, she does actually sure the lights on in her office. Let me say she's got like one limp and the rest of us are like, hey, are you okay?

SPEAKER_00 10:08

I just like it. No, but I mean, it is true though. Uh without the darkness, how would we see all of the things that are that are bright? How would we ever see the light in in all of it? And um, like going back to what you were saying. And I also like in um in John that kind of unlike other gospels, that it highlights Jesus's control over his own passion in a way, and how it's not he's not a helpless victim in this scene. He states like I am he to his captors. He doesn't resist or fight, and he remains in command of his own fate until his purpose is fulfilled.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah. Um and then even then he says it is spinner.

unknown 10:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

He will say it by the way.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah. And that's why I I and I'll emphasize this is my first time saying it, that you should go to church on Thursday and Friday. Because again, like how can I understand personally how you can fully appreciate and fully take in um the positive weight of Easter and the the light that Easter brings if you're not willing to step into that darkness that Jesus experienced and you know, be there for a while. It's okay to be uncomfortable for a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

It's like the cross is the the light in the darkness that, you know, illuminates Easter. And okay, like like um like the one at Blue Lake, you know? The one across the things that's a lake also. It's it's I know we all call it Blue Lake. It's a big pond. It's not quite, I don't think it's quite lake signs. But on the other side of Blue Lake, no, and not no matter where side of your on, there's a glowing cross. You turn that thing on in the daytime, you can't you can't receive that. Well, well, the second thing is night, you can see the scene glowing. That's it one of everybody's favorite images of Blue Lake, nighttime that crawls of the lake. There it'll be fine. Um, yeah, we haven't tell if Sarah just moved us into the passion narrative a little bit. No, no, no, that's that's the appropriate thing, eh? Oh, what else from either the Hebrews passage or the John passage can we can um lean into or or talk through tonight? Or talk through this morning before tonight, I guess I should say.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

The uh Hebrews passage there, particularly verse 24, pushes us into really one of the more concrete natures of church. Uh how we're to spur one another on toward love and toward good deeds, uh, not giving up meeting together, as some have a habit of doing, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day, capital D, the day approaching. Um to me, here it gives us a springboard for uh the nature of church, what church is about with fellowship, with mission, with evangelism, with discipleship. Um Christ did a wonderful thing calling the church to order, calling the church family together, to share and lead each other onto faith.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

There's this um line that just always ticks me when read John's passage. And I kind of forgotten about it until as we was kind of talking through things, where Pilate is interviewing Jesus. I'm like, Pilate is looking for his way out of this. You know, this you know, for the context, you know, this is a very politically tense deal, right? He doesn't he's he's been put there to keep the order. Like he's representing Rome, but he's not the chief authority in Rome. So his own position is not guaranteed if he messes things up. Um and so he's there in Jerusalem at a time in which the city has swelled to have it and hundreds of thousands of people in it. They're there for the Passover, right? Normally there's probably less than 100,000 people living there, and and now there's like 300,000 people there. I don't really got numbers, but something like that. And so you have this massive crowd, and it's very tense. And you have um here it you you can kind of feel the agony of Pilate trying to he doesn't want to sacrifice his integrity and kill an innocent man. He also doesn't want to cause a mob scene, which then either kills lots of other innocent people because it's people go wild, or lose his position of power. I mean, it it's almost like he's put in the place of deciding between power and integrity. Um, because I don't think Pilate ever believes Jesus is really a bad. No. In the fact, but some this is the lie that gets me every time. You can kind of hear this exasperation, this kind of desperation, as Pilate said. Pilate asked him, So you are a king? Jesus answered, You say that I'm a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. Pilate asked him, What is truth? And and it's almost like when he says this, like we said on Wednesday, kind of like this scene, like this ending. In fact, again, within the Bible, it kind of gives us the differentiation between this and the next chapter. I mean the next um section. Yeah. Um, what is truth? I can imagine him not engaging the conversation face to face, eye to eye. But Jesus is there and it's like he's walking up and down talking, and Pilate's like looking out over the people. Almost like he's kind of like looking off into the distance. And Jesus says, Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. And you can see Pilate looking away and be like, What is truth? Like this kind of like abstract, it's it's almost not an indirect response. It's this, what am I going to do with my own soul? What is true in the situation? Who gets to decide truth? What is ultimate authority? I don't know. I hear this, I see this in my mind's eye, and it just carries this way deeper weight and meaning than him being like, I don't understand what he's talking about. It's almost like he's participating in the um, you know, meta-narrative under his theological word that John is doing. He's inviting Pilate to be a feature, not just kind of like this uh passing figure.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah. I also, I mean, I know that this this happens a lot between like Jesus and the Pharisees and stuff, but just the exchange between Jesus and Pilate here, I don't get the impression that Pilate wanted him to die at any point because he keeps asking him so many questions. It's almost like he's cracking way up. Right. It's like just say something, like say one thing so that I don't have to do this or so that they don't lose their minds and they don't write about like just give me one thing that I can't run with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Uh well, we made it the entire uh Legend season before our first technical bitch story, cut the camera out entirely. Uh, but Sarah was finishing up um this idea that that the pilot does not want Jesus to die. Um and and you know, uh I think that there's so much humanity that we see in the personnel pilot while we're also looking at the epitome of humanity in Jesus. Well, as we get ready to wind down Lent and as we move towards Good Friday worship tonight, is there anything else from today's passages or this week's holy week passages, your thoughts in general that you'd like to leave us with? Or ideas that you want to share, or not from your readings?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Towards the end of the uh gospel passage, it's interesting to me that uh two key figures stepped forward to claim Jesus' body. They were uh well known in the community. Joseph of Arimathea tells us in verse 38 was a follower of Jesus. He was considered a disciple, but in the background, he never took uh a role up front. But then he and then Nicodemus, who you know was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin court, uh both claimed his body. Um so there you see not just an inkling, but a lot of experiential love and appreciation for Christ, even from those who uh were coming over from the more Jewish tradition and uh making I think Christianity following Christ uh another big step further leading into what's gonna happen now. Jesus is gone.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Yeah, you can almost see John like doing a handoff from the disciples to the new disciple, yeah to the next. Because I mean obviously when John's writing this, the Gentiles have become a huge part of the church, but it's just over a hundred years likely since Paul's done this work and so gentle. So he's he's showing us this kind of like transition from the deeply Jewish disciples who are Jesus' followers, who adventures are alike, to these people who are being converted along the way, to even, you know, people who we wouldn't think of as typical Jesus follower or people who uh are upfront of the story, getting the getting the next role. That's good. That's a good word I follow by that. Well, thank you both very much for today um and for all the work this week um and for all that you do for this congregation. I love serving with you both. It is a joy and a privilege. Um I look forward to worship tonight. And then Easter on Sunday, we got it there. Uh 6:30 sunrise service, 715 breakfast, 8 45 traditional, 11 o'clock contemporary. We'll see you there. You can come at all if you want. Yeah, three docs. We'll be there. Yeah, we'll we'll be at all. Uh let's pray again. And God, we thank you for this hallubi. We thank you that it draws us nearer to you as we uh go deeper in our faith. We ask, Lord, that you help us to keep our attention and mind on you, maybe not be distracted um doing these um services, but fully give you our whole self. I know Easter, Lord. Um, as you come through Holy Weekend as the Easter season, may we um go tell it on the mountain. May we spread the good news, may we tell everybody about how we are resurrection people and how we are seeking uh to share your good news and light with this world. So we thank you, Lord, for your presence with us now and always. In your time's name, prayer. Amen. Thank you all for being with us all lent. I hope you all have enjoyed this. If so, let us know. Maybe we'll try and do some more things on this in the future. Um but we'll see y'all tonight on Sunday.