Good Friday, April 6, 2012

Isaiah 52:13-58, Hebrews 10:16-25, John 18:1- 19:42 

After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of   Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews.  (John 19: 38-40)

In the early 1970’s when my mother was struggling for one and a half years with bone cancer, I lived an hour away from her and spent every weekend at home. At the end I visited her daily in the cancer hospital near our family home. Many of the details of those days are still vivid. 

 

Nellie, my mother’s closest friend, told me that she had been a patient in that hospital years before when it was built to care for tuberculosis patients. She remembered my mother’s visiting her daily, taking a bus because my father needed the one car for work. 

 

When I visited my mother for her first stay there, she told me that all food tasted metallic because of her medications and treatments. I would talk with her about what I could bring that she might be able to enjoy. Her favorite fruit flavored jelly candies tasted metallic, even the vanilla milkshake did, and finally she told me there was no use trying different foods anymore. My presence was what she wanted and was what I could offer her.

 

The details in the Good Friday Passion account from John have become vividly familiar too, and always I am engaged by the details John gives us. Peter warms himself at a charcoal fire, trying to protect himself from the cold night air. At he was willing to risk being near Jesus, but then Peter was recognized. Then he might have felt the chill that comes with fear.

 

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus step forward, one to ask Pilate if he can take away the body of Jesus, the other bringing one hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes for the anointing of Jesus’ body in preparation for burial. These two people, initially cautious and self-protective, now dare to do these things though earlier Joseph wanted to keep his following of Jesus a secret and Nicodemus came to Jesus in the cloak of night. Here they seem more emboldened.

 

When we hear the Passion read on this day, with all its familiar and poignant details,

we carry within our bodies, minds, and hearts the details of our own suffering or the afflictions carried by those we love. In church on Good Friday we sit alongside other people who also carry their own stories of suffering. The details of our stories may be unique, but our shared humanity binds us to one another and to the God who humbled self to be clothed in our frail flesh. Some days we may feel separate from one another, and at times even distant from God, but on this day it is hard not to feel at one.

 

(Janice Schuyler)