The Day of Our Despair

The Day of Our Despair
A Sermon preached at St. Luke's Church
by The Rev. James B. Craven III
on the Maundy Thursday - Good Friday, 13-14 April, 2006

In the name of God - Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Amen.

   This is the day of all our despair. We are tempted on this Good Friday to turn our thoughts inward as did those closest to Jesus on that first Good Friday. The Blessed Virgin, Peter, James, John, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, all of them were probably thinking “It’s over now. How can we go on? What will become of us? Will we be next?” They found the answer very early on that first Easter, as we will very early this Sunday morning. For now though, let us not look at ourselves and our own stake in this faith drama. On this day when the Lenten shadows are the darkest, and we feel we are looking down into the grave of all our hopes, let us instead turn our thoughts away from ourselves and reach out to others even more in need. As has been noted, Christ was crucified between two thieves, not two candles.
    We experience here today the interaction of liturgy and consciousness, and it helps us to answer the haunting question of the spiritual, Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
    An Easter story illustrates this truth. It happened 30 odd years ago in Paraguay. A priest had escaped from the prison where he had been confined by the military junta for preaching the unvarnished gospel, something dangerous today in many places. He escaped two days after Easter, and told of the celebration of Easter inside that prison.
    The prisoners, most of whom were priests, nuns, doctors, and lawyers had been forbidden to worship, but while the non-believers kept the guards busy, the Christians huddled together. The prisoner-priest began the ad hoc liturgy:

This meal in which we are a part, reminds us of the prison, the torture, the death, and the final victory and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He asked us to remember him by repeating this action in the spirit of fellowship. The bread which we do not have today, but which is present in the spirit of Jesus Christ, is the body which he gave for humanity. The fact that we have none represents the lack of bread and the hunger of so many millions. When Christ distributed bread among his disciples, and when he fed the people, he revealed the will of God that we should all have bread. The wine which we do not have today is his blood present in the light of our faith. Christ poured it out for us to move us toward freedom in the long march for justice. God made all persons of one blood: The blood of Christ represents our dream of a unified humanity, of a just society without difference of race or class.
    This communion means that our dead are alive, that they have given their bodies and blood, making Christ’s sacrifice their own. I believe in the resurrection of the dead and feel their presence among us.
    The communion is not only a communion between us here, but a communion with all our brothers and sisters in the church or outside, not only those who are alive, but those who have already died. Still more, it is a communion with those who will come after us and who will be faithful to Jesus Christ.

    The priest then held out his empty hands to each person, placing his hand over theirs as they together proclaimed, “Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me. Take, drink, this is the blood of Christ which was shed to seal the new covenant of God with humanity. Let us give thanks, sure that Christ is here with us, strengthening us.” Then they raised their hands to their mouths and received the body and blood of Christ and, after sharing the kiss of peace, they returned to their life in prison with new hope.
    Throughout the history of Christianity, we have been torn between two orientations. Which will prevail, the contemplative or the active? Piety or politics? Mystic enlightenment or social responsibility? The easy way out would be to choose one or the other. For us though it must be both, for each is insufficient without the other. As James put it, “… if the experience of God does not lead to action it is itself a lifeless thing.” That may explain why the commandment reads, “You are to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and you are to love your neighbor as yourself.”
    We have heard the phrase “take up your cross and follow me” and the words of Paul that we should “glory in the cross” so often that the meaning of the Cross and of the Passion is often lost to us. They tend to become for us mere theory, for in practice we set up reservations and limitations too readily. Sometimes our exodus and freedom are such though that the cross becomes literally real for us, as it did in that prison liturgy in Paraguay. On this heaviest of days, hear the last words of Alfons Maria Wachsmann, a German priest executed in 1944 for opposing Hitler. The letter was written, with manacled hands, to his sister one hour before he was beheaded:

In one hour I am going to die, and my passover will be completed. In one hour I will pass over into the glory of the living God, to whom I have given myself over wholly and without reservation. In his hand I am sheltered. God will care for you. Do not lose courage. Trust in him who has not forsaken me. I have prepared for this hour by 8 months of Lent in prison, difficult yet very beautiful. On the Way of the Cross I am approaching the last station. There has been darkness, but the day is dawning. They come for me now, and I must go home through the narrow gates of the guillotine. I die always your brother and a priest of the Church of God. In thee, O Lord, have I hoped. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Alleluia.

St. Luke’s
14 April 2006