When I was a kid, we used to play a game.
If
we were in the car and we’d drive by a cemetery we’d hold our breath. Where did
that game come from? Maybe from an old superstition, not wanting to breathe in
bad spirits or the spirits of the dead. Maybe it was a way for the young to
flip their nose at death. Maybe it was a way to take our mind off of the fact
of death itself.
Maybe
we just wanted to see how long we could hold our breath. But I think there was
more to it than that. I say that because I have done a lot of breath-holding in
my life...especially around death.
Games
in the car are one thing, but it was only a matter of time when I had to
confront death straight on and breath holding, while natural, was not a
practical option.
These
came in the moments when I have been witness to death. Sometimes I have witness
the death of a person who was surrounded by family and friends and we prepared
for that moment in prayer, in story-telling, and in tears.
But
there have been other moments when the person was alone, virtually unknown
except for perhaps a name on a driver’s license found in a wallet or purse. Or
people who have died violently, or suddenly, or was suddenly stricken with no
one there to help. It is these people I think of whenever we say the Great
Litany and we pray “From dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord, deliver
us.”
For
these, I could still hold my breath. I would keep these at arms length with a clinical
eye. Yes, my heart would tug, but these—especially in hospital ministry—I would
attempt to keep at a safe distance. If you don’t, you go cuckoo.
But
sometimes you can’t hide. And these there were the deaths of people close to
me: my parents and family members, my friends and people in my parish. These
were different to me. These were stark in their immediacy and impossible to
hold at a clinical distance. This was when I could not hold my breath because
there was no breath to hold.
We
will all face death—and not just our own. We are told death is part and parcel
of living.
Jesus
died.
That
is why we are here tonight. Jesus died.
It
is important for me to say those two words in all their stark brevity. The
bumper sticker tells us that Jesus died for our sins. We say that in our
collects, prayers, scripture and story; and that is true. That is why he
died. That is the meaning of his death.
But
at the moment, when it happened there were no slogans, no anthems or hymns, no
bumper stickers. In that moment it was just this simple fact that could barely
be uttered by those closest to him: Jesus died.
We
are tempted to jump past this moment and go straight to Easter. We are tempted
to hold our breath and drive around this truth. It is like whistling in the
dark—that nervous act of apparent confidence in the middle of the unknown. We
do that when we are faced with a hard fact of life that we do not want to deal
with. We hold our breath. We whistle in the dark. We cover our ears and hum.
But no amount of avoidance can dodge this fact: Jesus died.
Jesus
did not pretend. He did not hold his breath and wait till it went away. He
died. If we forget that he died, or if we hold or breath or whistle past it,
then we forget that Jesus lived, breathed, ate, loved, worked, grew as much as
he taught, healed, preached and touched. Jesus had family and he had friends.
He had enemies as well as people indifferent to his existence. He lived. Just
like us.
I
heard a sermon once from a priest named Fr. Bill Lewellis, who talked about
whether or not Jesus knew what was going to happen. He said,
“I have always
believed in … and I set my heart today on God in Jesus.
“For most of my adult
life, however, it has been crucial to my relationship with Jesus to think that
Jesus lived his life without knowing how things were going to turn out … that
he was not an actor who knew the ending of the script. I believe in the true
man in Jesus. I set my heart on Jesus as true man.
“Because Jesus was
truly human, he had no more (and no less) reason to trust God than you and I
do. He had the tradition. He had the scriptures. It seems he knew them well. He
had friends. He had prayer.
“Those who wrote the
gospels (after the resurrection) knew more than Jesus (when he walked his way
of the cross) about how things would turn out. That is crucial for me.
Otherwise, I would have to believe Jesus, when he suffered and died, was simply
a good actor. And if I believed Jesus were an actor, I could not believe that
he understands how I think, how I feel, how I can live through hills and valley
of prayer and despair … how I struggle to understand myself."
As
we face the reality of Jesus’ death we discover the truth that God is with
us—not just in the things we like, or in the times we choose, but all of life.
Our victories and our set backs; our joys and our despairs; in our choices and
in the things we don’t choose; in what we are aware of and in what happens deep
inside us. He is with us in the things we face, and he is with us in the things
we don't know, and he is with us in the things we avoid. God is with us in
living and in our dying. In Jesus, God and humanity join, and everything which
keeps us apart dies on the cross.
Tonight,
we know, Jesus died.
We
can’t hold our breath. Whistling in the dark won’t make it go away.
Jesus
died. And so we live.
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Here is the bulletin for Good Friday at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater, FL
Here is a video of the liturgy.
Here is a video the sermon.
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