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
