Here are a poem that I wrote and my sermon outline for Good Friday at First Pres. Church in Jamestown.
Good My Lord
Today is for
despair.
Yesterday is for
hope.
Tomorrow is for
expectation.
Joy hangs in the balance,
dizzy with dread.
Three days upside down.
Good Friday?
Good, my Lord?
***
Today is for despair.
Get into the depths of it.
Go to the crossroads,
and choose your way.
Today is for despair.
Be your best.
***
Touch the face of God.
Hide under God's strong wings.
Choose this day --
the tomb, or just after.
One day for despair,
and one day only.
***
See through the ink that wrote
"King of the Jews".
Open your eyes;
there will be no difference.
Ink will stain your orbs
and dye your spirit.
Learn the far edge of Good.
Learn the lesson of giving up.
***
Stand still and feel it.
This is the threshhold
of joy. Laugh at allthat would destroy you.
Believe that you have
the strength of the one
whom you follow.
Laugh now.
Stay in that place of pain
and gain. Laugh.
***
Good my Lord.
Oh, yes, very, very good.
The best.
The_best_laugh_last.
************************************************************
Today is the one day that we, as followers of God in Jesus Christ, have full permission to give in to despair.
There is God’s absolute genius in this, because that means we have both permission and the expectation that on all the other days of the year, and every year, we will sing God’s praise and do God’s will and say,
This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
But on this one day, when the sun became a black hole that swallowed up all that was good in the Creation,we are invited, and we are encouraged, to feel the full despair of the occasion.
Our Lord, dead on the Cross.
His followers, stunned and terrified.
The Cross has power for you, in proportion to your ability to understand the despairof this occasion.
The text that I chose is short and ugly, stark and frightening:
Mark 15:25: It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him.
Matter-of-fact.
No exit.
No future, and no hope.
For the space of this one day, allow the facts to teach you of despair.
Tomorrow, jump up with joy, for your salvation is near.
And Sunday? Put despair on the shelf for another year,for there is no place like that in the Kingdom of God,except for the space of this one day.
Sunday is for laughing, and dancing, and singing.
Today is different.
But still, and all, this, too, is the day that the Lord has made.Let us rejoice and be glad in it,
and let us feel the occasional, as well, in that matrix of joy.
1 comment:
Jon's poem and sermon today at the Good Friday service in Jamestown were poignant, persuasive, and remarkable...for me, the picture he painted of despair, true and utter despair, was most helpful...despair as end and ending...but also as precursor to any possible new beginning.
Following Jon's sermon, one of our liturgical dancers offered her "Dance of the Crucifixion"...the most dramatic and effective piece of liturgical dance I ever have experienced...and as Libby (Jesus) dropped to the floor frm the cross, and the chapel filled with darkness and silence, the despair I felt for the world and for myself was palpable, as it was for most people, I think, who were present.
Perhaps, in despair, it is hard to anticipate anything. Nevertheless, come, Easter, come.
Thank you, Jon, for a deep experience of Good Friday.
Tom
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