Friday, April 3, 2015

withstanding emptiness

A sermon preached by Anne E. Kitch
Grace Church, Allentown PA
Good Friday 2015





Sometimes…

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you

Sometimes… writes poet David Whyte

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,


this place
this time
this space where Jesus dies is troubling
this now
calls us to gaze upon love poured out

can you see it, smell it
taste it and hear it
can you touch with all of your being
the breath and life and love pouring out of the body that is broken
pooling at the foot of the cross
to be soaked up by parched earth
leaving…emptiness

how does this place trouble you?
what does it request of you?


Jesus, the lamb of God
Jesus bearer of our sins
of our iniquities
of our inadequate hope
this Jesus emptied himself to become at the same time nothing
and all things
a kind of infinity of emptiness
that somehow both contains and is contained by love
we cannot possibly wrap our minds around this
and yet, nevertheless, we are here
witness to the nothingness

how does this place trouble you?
what does it request of you?

if nothing else
this place requests that we lay down all our burdens
here at the foot of the cross
after all it is too late to do anything else

we are invited--
requested but not required--
to lay down all that troubles us
our anger and disappointment and fear
our obligations and tasks and plans
the forgiveness we have failed to ask for, or to give
the broken relationships we cannot mend

and more
our pride and competencies and accomplishments
our certainty and strength and joy
and our love
our love too is poured out at the foot of the cross

the cross asks of us not only to enter into the emptiness
but to become a part of it
allowing it to scour our souls

this day asks us to stand at the foot of the cross
to stay in this moment of infinite sorrow
and to stand it as long as we can
to be with Jesus here—while Jesus ceases to be
and to stay one moment more
and then another
and to stand our ground still as that moment dissipates into a chasm beyond

It simply cannot be tolerated

we can orchestrate and choreograph our way into and out of this moment
we can give it the care and attention deserved
of the most sacred, the most holy

but it is humanly impossible to stand in the abyss
so we don’t

but Christ does

unbelievably
for us
love is forsaken

Sometimes…

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests, …

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now.
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away*


the cross waits patiently for you
unrelenting in its demand
that you stand here and know yourself loved

because even as inadequate and broken and brave
as faithful and pitiful and beautiful as we are
we are emptied to become both less and more
vessels for God’s grace

and that grace always comes

it is finished
but God is not


*Sometimes, by David Whyte