“THE DEATH OF GOD”
Saint John 18:1 - 19:42
Good Friday: 19 April Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
The liturgy for Good Friday is different from all the other services which are conducted at Augsburg throughout the year. While we could, and probably should have The Mass, we don’t. And an evening Vespers service seems just not weighty enough for the solemnities of this day. Many parishes have what’s called a Tenebrae service. While not wrong, at all, this is a hybrid collaboration of various monastic elements that come out of more recent Romanism.
So this particular service is brief, save for the Passion Reading from Saint John. This service is serious, somber, and reflective. But of what?
What are you doing here and what should you be feeling and experiencing? (two words confessional Christians should be wary of)
First off: Today is NOT the day that The Lord Christ Jesus died. The Lord died, probably on March 25th in the year 30 A.D., but that’s not what I mean…the calendar date is not the issue. No, the Paschal Mystery, the Agnus Dei sacrificed for the sins of the world, for all sin, the all-atoning vicarious death for you and your trespasses, happened back then, on a Calvary which is no more. Today, this evening, you don’t participate in that death but rather you remember it, you commemorate it, you meditate upon it. How so? By the Word of God. By the Holy Gospel of God from His Holy Apostle and Evangelist Saint John the Divine—The Theologian.
Secondly, tonight is not all about the dark and damning Law where no joy exists and all one should do is look morose and sullen. No. Good Friday is good because Jesus suffered and died for you! There is nothing, save the Easter morning announcement, that is more “good” than what was done between 9 am and 3 pm on Good Friday. Good Friday then, and our commemoration of it now is Gospel—Gospel even more so than Law.
And thirdly, as to how you should “feel,” what you should be thinking, i.e. believing and confessing, is not sorrow over Jesus or emotional travail for “poor Jesus.” The Second Person of The Holy Trinity willed to become Incarnate so that He could be the Second Perfect Adam in place of your “old Adam.” He joyed to obey His Father where you daily disobey. He willed to suffer and die to win you back from sin, death, and the power of Satan. He did what He meant to do, freely and with love in action. So, cry, weep, smite your breast, feel horrible, but not for Jesus. Let the contrition and sadness and repentance and promise to do better by the power of the Holy Ghost, be over your sin and your sins. Weep for your weakness and pain and disobedience and ungratefulness and stubbornness.
Christ was where He was meant to be. The Shepherd became the sacrificial lamb, that you might be passed over. Lifted up high on the crucifix the God/Man then and now draws all of His flock, His own, to Himself. You His brother and sisters believe, teach, and confess His Person and His Work. You share Him and you witness Him to the ends of the earth. You confess with your lips and lives His Spirit of Evangelization in His Evangel—His Pure Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. The bloody Truth in all its terrible majesty.
Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us, poor sinners.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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