“NAILED TO
THE TREE” – a Good Friday reflection
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This
sermon was preached Reading: John
19:17-30 |
The
soldiers are heavily armed.
The
prisoner is on the ground, weak, naked and defenceless.
One of
the soldiers kneels on the prisoner’s forearm to hold his wrist steady against
the wood.
He picks
up a heavy hammer and some thick 5” nails
So the
crucifying begins.
The
hammer blows echo across the valley beyond Golgotha Hill
The
hammer blows echo across the centuries…
Rembrandt’s etching entitled “The
Three Crosses” depicts powerfully the figure of Christ hanging on the
cross, bathed in a pool of heavenly light and surrounded by the crowd in the
surrounding darkness.
It is said that if you look at one of the faces towards
the outer fringe of the crowd you will see the face of Rembrandt himself.
The artist, recognizing his guilt, his part in the murder
of Christ,
his sins which helped nail Jesus to the cross,
has painted his own self portrait in the crowd.
Were you
there when they nailed him to the tree?
The 18th Century Slave Captain John Newton is
famous for his hymn “Amazing Grace” Most of our hymn books give only 4 or 5
verses – but originally there were 12, some of which we seldom if ever sing -
In one
verse he speaks of standing before Christ hanging on the cross.
Christ looks down on him silently –
He goes on:
Sure, never 'til my latest breath,
Can I forget that look
It seemed to charge me with His death
Though not a word He spoke.
My conscience owned
and felt the guilt,
And plunged me in despair;
I saw my sins His blood had shed,
And helped to nail Him there.
And still
the nails are driven in….
·
When
prisoners in Abu
Ghraib are humiliated,
Christ is mocked again by the soldiers
·
When
the poor of the developing world groan under the weight of unjust trading
systems favouring those of us in the rich world, Christ stumbles again beneath
the weight of the cross
·
When
a woman is found in a North London flat
dead for three years – living in a society which apparently neither missed nor
found her for three years,
Christ cries again “My God my God, why have you forsaken me?”
·
When
44 people die on Flight
77 on 9/11, or when 13 men and women doing their shopping in a Baghdad market
are blown up by a bomb this last Wednesday,
Christ again and again and again gives up his Spirit…
Were you
there when they nailed him to the tree?
We were
all there.
Do you
not see the whole human race gathered in the deepening gloom about the cross –
all of us enmeshed in our sinfulness and selfishness…
Do you
see your face there in the crowd?
And who
can but tremble??
I read recently about a Church which each year places
a large wooden cross outside the Church at throughout Lent.
Then on Good Friday the cross is brought into the Church and placed by the
Communion rail.
On the preceding Ash Wednesday at the start of Lent everyone in the Church had
been given a nail and asked to carry it with them throughout Lent.
Then on Good Friday they come to the Church and are asked to come forward with
their nail. Each person takes a hammer
and hammers their nail into the cross.
The Church is filled with the sound of hammering.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord??
Of course you were,
Of course we are,
with hammers in our hand…
And what hope can there be for us –
for us who have conspired to kill the Son of God –
what jury in
Virginia or anywhere else would have mercy on those involved in such a
conspiracy??
But we are not judged by a court but by the victim –
who says
“I came to a cross precisely to be with you in the depths of sin & death –
I came here precisely to save you –
Do you think now I will let you go now?
My love is enough to cover your sins 10000 times over –
May your sins be forgiven
You shall be with me in Paradise…
Yes I was there when they crucified my Lord
Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!
Love so amazing so divine demands my soul my life my all.