Good Friday is Aw(e)ful!

The Rev. J.W. Messer
Good Friday 2012

Good Friday is AW(E)FUL!

How we define a moment is important.  And Good Friday is a defining moment.

Good Friday is awful!
Today the definition of awful means: dreadful, terrible, bad.
Yet generations ago awful meant: awe filled, or full of awe.
Full of awe takes on a whole different meaning. Awe is wonder, admiration, or inspiring.

Good Friday is awful and Good Friday is full of awe.

These two definitions seem opposite on the day of Jesus’ death, the day we call Good Friday. For the disciples, Good Friday was anything but good. Their friend, leader, and savior was dead.  They thought their purpose was gone. Everything they believed had not fulfilled the way they thought it would. Jesus was dead and they had problems burying his body. A friend had betrayed a friend.  Good Friday was awful.

Yet today the church lifts this day up. While it is a solemn day, it nevertheless is a day that is full of awe. Today is a day we wrestle with something that may seem both awful and filled with awe.

Two thousand years ago on a Friday, it was awful, for a man suffered true abandonment and betrayal. Good Friday refers to the last day of a man named Jesus from Nazareth. On that day he died a horrible and horrifying death, broken and betrayed.

Jesus found himself in the place where those he believed in no longer believed in him -- when those he had turned to and helped turned from him or were unable to help him.

It’s not a place anyone wants to be.  It was awful.

It was a time when Judas was faced with his darkest moment --when the world seemed to be closing in on him. The moment what he thought to be right turned out to be wrong, and what he thought he would never betray, he did betray. It is the darkest moment for any person or any one of any faith.

Yet Judas did just that.  Judas betrayed him by not believing in him and giving into his awful fear.   It was an awful act.

I cannot imagine what it was like to know those around you loved you, but would do nothing to help you, one of your closest friends would betray you, and those you held and had been cheering your name were now shouting for your death. And when politics and letters of the law were something you fought against and were now being used to condemn you.

No one ever expects to be in this awful position.

And yet on Good Friday Jesus found himself in this awful position. The last few hours of Jesus life he hung on a cross, which was a painful death, and in that time he could only look down on those he loved but were unable to help them. Those he loved looked back up at him, helpless to assist the man that had been their friend, their leader, and for one, her son. The world he was called to save, to lift up, had put him on trial and claimed an innocent man was guilty.  On Good Friday we look at Jesus’ death, and wonder, if we were there, what would we have done? And for that matter, in our lives today we may ask ourselves the same question.

It’s awful. Good Friday is awful….. But Good Friday is also full of awe.

Good Friday is a time we can sit in the moment that the disciples sat, when we feel abandoned, when we don’t know what the future holds. Where we look around us and all our laid plans have fallen around us.  Where we shout at God: “WHY US?” “Where are you in all of this?” or “My God, My God why have you forsaken me”

We know God is full of awe. He did not abandon Christ on the cross, and God does not abandon us, even when it’s hard to sense Him.

The thing is, we humans can be awful and we can be full of awe too. Look at the people in the Gospel reading. The crowds were full of awe and became awful. Then they shouted awful things as Christ died, yet when he breathed his last, they found themselves filled with awe. Look at Judas. He was full of awe of Jesus and then fell into an awful place when he doubted himself and all that he had believed in. Look at today. Casually scanning any newspaper headlines on any day will confirm this.  We can be awful towards each other, or we can be full of awe of live.

What the people did to Jesus was awful.  However, the results were full of awe.

God is with us. Jesus has lived like us among us and knows what it is like. God loves us so much that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God. Not pain nor joy.  Not life nor death.

Today, this service and lectionary is about living in the moments that are awful in our lives --recognizing them for what they are and knowing that we are not alone. Just as those people two thousand years ago, as we read in the Gospel, we don’t know what tomorrow will hold. All we know is… Good Friday is awful but it is full of awe.

+In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!+