Good Friday Meditation 2023
We may not know, we cannot tell (Isaiah 53 1-6)
Isaiah foresaw that at the end there would be nothing attractive about Jesus. Suffering is sometimes described as noble, and I don’t doubt the nobility of Jesus bearing even at this dreadful time. Even so, I doubt whether, had I been passing by I would have been drawn to him. In the words of the prophet: ‘nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others;’. And yet, far worse for Jesus was not only that he knew that this was to be – had known since at least the start of his ministry, but he also knew that the time was coming when even his Father would turn away from him. We have the saying: ‘What you never had, you never miss’, but I think the reverse must be even more true – what we have never been without, we don’t know what it is like to lose. We have never been rejected by God. Whether or not we knew it, he has always loved us. At this moment in time, Jesus knew what it was to be rejected, not only by his friends and followers, but also by his heavenly father. We do not know, we cannot (thank God) tell, what pains he had to bear.
Fixed by Godfrey Rust
Between time and eternity
nothing was fixed.
One gaped at the other
across an unbridgeable void.
Stories of patriarchs
pinned them lightly together.
A loose frame of parables,
scraps of psalms, prophecies, tongues.
Poets tried words;
scientists, numbers;
musicians, delicate vibrations;
painters, the placing of colours
but nothing was fixed
until a workman took a hammer and a wrist
and with one whack nailed down
eternity screaming into time.
There was no other good enough (Colossians 1: 18-22)
Paul was a good student of the Law. He would have been well aware that a sacrifice to God, to comply with the Law had to be without blemish. He also understood that no person on earth would have been able to fulfil God’s plan for the redemption of humankind. Since we have been blessed with free will, and have consistently used it to go at all times counter to God’s will, the only person who would be able to fulfil the plan of redemption would have to be perfect. And only God is perfect. And so it was that only God himself, in the form of a man on earth, but one who was in all ways perfect, would be good enough to fulfil the plan that was started with creation. ‘in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things’.
Economics by Godfrey Rust
Here is the only successful
planned free market
in the history of the world,
where the cost of living
and the wages of sin
are the same
and the rate of exchange is fixed
at one life
given as a ransom
for many.
He died that we might be forgiven (Hebrews 10: 16-18)
The writer to the Hebrew Christians in the early church would have understood about covenants, as would the readers of this letter. It is possible that it was written because some of them were considering leaving their Christian faith and reverting to their ancestral Judaic faith – which relied on the continuing priestly sacrifices still being carried out in the Temple at Jerusalem. The purpose of this letter is to remind them that the old covenant has been superseded by Jesus on the cross. Sacrifice is no longer necessary, as sin has been wiped out. God is saying: ‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. We thank God daily that this forgiveness is ours, freely given on the cross.
Accomplices by Godfrey Rust
father forgive them
they didn’t know what I was doing
when I slipped into humanity disguised
my light shone in a darkness
they could not comprehend
forgive them all
my dear, dull accomplices
who don’t know the cost
of an immortal’s suicide
they tried to keep us
from this meeting here
forgive the crowd
making the necessary choice of Barabbas
forgive Pilate’s wife
whose conscience nearly ruined everything
forgive Judas
his kiss of death
father forgive them
they don’t know what we are doing
forgive them
they didn’t know what they were building
we were architects
and these rough beams were cut
to meet our most exacting standards
forgive them
they don’t know what will be executed here
how might they understand
these hammer blows would be
the final acts of our first creation
like workmen at the launch
of some great enterprise of state
they come to watch
the ceremony of our fierce ambition
and as they hoist me up to you
before this brutal act of love
extinguishes my mortal life completely
father forgive them
they don’t know what they’re doing
Dearly, dearly has he loved (John 19: 16b19, 26-30)
It was not his love for Lazarus that turned Jesus face away from his power base in Galilee and sent him south to Jerusalem. It was not the kiss of Judas that delivered him to the High Priest and the roman soldiers. It was not the blows and swords of the soldiers or the baying of the crowd that drove him up the hill to the place of execution. And it was not the nails that held him to the cross. He had the power to overcome all these things, and the temptation must have been strong. What took him there and kept him there was the same as that which led him to make provision, when near to death for the care of his mother. His motivation throughout all of his ministry was, and remains his love for all creation. His love for me and for you. We thought earlier of what it must have been like for him to realise that even his Father had abandoned him to his fate. Our constant thanks must be for the fact that we will never have to know what it is to lost God’s love for us. His final words on the cross give us that assurance – ‘It is finished’.
Welcome to the real world by Godfrey Rust
I’m beginning to understand.
I saw a sign once
outside a church. It said
Are you really living
or just walking around
to save the expense of a funeral?
I didn’t know
that Love is real life,
and everything else
is just a more or less entertaining way
of dying,
and I didn’t know
that Love is like nothing on earth.
Love isn’t what you fall in.
It’s what pulls you out
of what you fall in.
Love isn’t a good feeling.
Love is doing good
when you’re feeling bad.
Love means hanging in
when everyone else
shrugs their shoulders
and goes off to McDonalds.
Love means taking the knocks
and coming back
to try to make things better.
Love hurts.
It’s its way of telling you
that you’re alive.
And the funny thing is that after all
Love does feel good.
People say love is weak.
But love is tougher than hate.
Hating’s easy.
Most of us have a gift for it.
But love counts to ten
while hate slams the door.
Love says you
where Hate says me.
Love is the strongest weapon
known to humankind.
Other weapons blow people up.
Only love puts them back together again.
And everything that seems real,
that looks smart,
that feels good,
has a sell-by date.
But love has no sell-by date.
Love is Long Life.
Love is the ultimate preservative.
I don’t know too much about love
but I know a man who does,
up there on the cross
loving us to death.
Love is the key
to the door of the place
he’s prepared for you
in the kingdom of God.
If you’re beginning to understand
then welcome to the real world.
Hymns reproduced under CCLI 1618191 for St Michael’s Church, Pen Selwood
Poems copyright Godfrey Rust, www.wordsout.co,uk. Used with permission