“CHRIST
RECRUCIFIED”
|
|
A sermon preached Readings:
"Indifference"
by G.A.Studdart Kennedy |
“Here they
crucified him” (John
19:18)
On
this Good Friday let me take you on a brief historical tour.
·
In the 16th C the Spanish conquistadors
rampaged through South and Central America.
One of the spokespersons of the American Indians
was called Bartholome de la Casas.
He wrote of the massacres of his people like this. He said:
“I have seen Jesus Christ, our God,
scourged and afflicted and crucified,
not once but millions of times".
·
Wilfred Owen found himself in the Flanders fields of WW1.
Passing along the roads to and from the front, he passed many wayside shrines,
little Calvaries, models of the crucifixion.
Some were still standing, some had been destroyed,
many were askew because of the shelling.
Owen wrote,
“One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war too he lost a limb”
And we
might add, in every war – whether amidst the shrines or the minarets –
by the Somme or the Euphrates, still
Christ hangs, still he loses a limb, still dies again.
But
here is Owen again, a few months before he was killed in 1918, writing
home.
He describes how he prepares the men for action:
·
“For 14 hours yesterday I was at work –
teaching Christ to lift his cross by numbers,
and how to adjust his crown;
and not to imagine he thirst until after the last halt;
I attended his supper to see that there were no complaints;
and I inspected his feet to see that they should be worthy of the nails..
I see to it that he is dumb and stands to attention before his accusers.
With a piece of silver I buy him every day,
and with maps I make him familiar with the topography of Golgotha.”
·
One of the most powerful cartoons I know shows the cross –
and yet from the top of the central upright, smoke belches forth.
And in the foreground are the concentration carts taking the victims to the
ovens.
Is it a picture or Auchwitz or Golgotha?
Or is it one & the same?
[“The Jew on the Cross” by Sydney
Nolan,
featured on the front cover of “Jesus our Contemporary” by Geoffrey Ainger, SCM 1967]
·
In 1943 Mother Maria, a Russian Orthodox nun,
was sent to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp
where even the guards called her that wonderful Russian nun.
They probably never meant her to die.
But one day a new block was built in the camp.
The prisoners were told they were hot baths.
A few dozen women were lined up outside the buildings.
One girl became hysterical.
Mother Maria, who had not been selected, came up to her.
”Don’t be frightened, Look, I shall take your
turn.”
And in line with the rest, she passed in through the doors.
And the date?
Good Friday 1945.
·
Those going to the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial in 1947
passed the shattered Church of the Sebaldus Kirche
on the way in and out of the court house.
Exposed for the first time in 100s of years
was the particularly brutal carving of Christ crucified,
with great shafts of metal pinning hand and feet.
A commentary on the crimes.
And finally back from Europe to S America.
·
Michael Taylor of Christian Aid tells of sitting on a Brazilian
hillside with a woman.
The hill is barren and bare.
A dirty stream at the bottom has a few fish.
Otherwise there is nothing to eat.
Nearby a circle of crosses – the graves of her children.
He says –
”I sat beside her as part of a world that crucifies her and shuts her out –
that refuses to stretch out its hand
to feed her and clothe her and visit her and comfort her.
Yet like the crucified, her arms are open wide in welcome.
She greets me like a friend.
She offers to share what she has.
She thanks me for coming.”
[quoted in Donald Hilton
“Liturgy of Life” NCEC 1991]
And
so we return here to Good Friday 2003 in Exeter.
And
here today – as every Good Friday -
we confront two monumental truths –
·
The judgement of Good Friday,
that the cross is always re-erected in every generation,
and that you and I are constantly hammering in the nails.
·
And the Good News of Good Friday,
that the one on the cross is constantly offering us his open hand and saying
“ I know you come with hammer and nails
but still I offer you my acceptance and love.”
So
today, as we share in this service,
And then as we follow the cross to Cathedral Green,
let
us contemplate the Cross,
let
us tremble as we see what our sins have done.
Let
us seek forgiveness for every nail we strike.
But
let us rejoice that in the end, love will triumph,
and
though the hammering of our sin and war
might last a hundred thousand years,
nevertheless shall the open hand of the Lord’s love be victorious.