April 18, 2025, Good Friday, John 16:1 – 19:42 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ April 18, 2025 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to the sermon, click the link above. The text is below.

The people, the ragged multitudes who followed Jesus like hungry sheep, who hung on his every word, who brought their sick and lame and demon-possessed to him by the thousands to be made well and whole – they don’t come off too well in the gospel accounts of the Passion. On Palm Sunday we echo their voices, crying, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” And we try to acknowledge our part in Jesus’s condemnation. Our sin, our hardness of heart, our selfishness paved the road to Calvary like the crushed branches of palm, left and forgotten by the fickle crowd. We know that – we tell ourselves that – but most of the time, when we view that maddening crowd in Jerusalem, we see ourselves kind of on the fringes, surely not right in the thick of the raging mob, not crying out with the loudest and most cruel voice. In the very back of our minds; in the secret place of our hearts; we tell ourselves – that’s “them,” it’s not “us,” – it’s not “me,” – not really.

Tonight as we read John’s story of Christ’s Passion, there is another word from the mob that jumps out at me. Jesus is brought before Pilate. Pontius Pilate is a ruthless tool of the Roman powers that be, but even he can see that Jesus has been unjustly accused. And he isn’t above being a little superstitious. He’s not a godly man – not a Jew, by any means – but he’s hedging his bets. He actually tries to release Jesus, wanting to keep his hands clean of this whole Jewish mess, but it’s the people who are having none of it. “Shall I release your King?” Pilate asks the crowd. And they answer him, “We have no king but the Emperor.”

“We have no King but the Emperor.” How can they say that? Have they forgotten every work of divine power they saw Jesus do? Do they just despise every bit of wisdom and kindness and mercy and healing they received at his hands? Are they heartless? Cruel? Faithless?

No. No, they’re just human. They are human beings, terrified, fearful for their security, fearful of the power of the Romans, fearful for their lives and the lives of their children and the existence of their nation. It would have been a dangerous thing, a very dangerous thing, to stand beside Jesus on that day, in that place, in the midst of that crowd. These weren’t heroes or radicals or martyrs. They were just people. People like us.

And the thing is, it is still a dangerous thing, in these days, in this place, to stand by Jesus – and if we’re keeping our eyes open, we see that it’s getting more dangerous every day. Because standing beside Jesus today means standing beside all those whose lives, like Jesus’s life, are hanging in the balance. Standing beside Jesus means standing with the poor – not just the “deserving poor” but the down-and-out poor, the addict, the homeless, the lost. It means standing with the prisoner – not only the unjustly accused, but the murderer on death row. It means standing with the transgender person. It means standing with the immigrant. And those are becoming very, very dangerous places to stand. To have no King but Jesus means that we serve him in the last and the least. It means we serve him in the despised and the rejected and maligned. And sometimes that will mean becoming the despised and the rejected and the maligned.

And we are certainly as human as the next guy – at least, I know I am. Except for the exceptionally brave among us, probably not one of us can say that we feel ready, absolutely, now, tonight, to stand against the Rome of our day, to put our security and our safety, our very lives and the lives of the people we love, on the line for the Jesus of the Cross – which is to say, for the people who right now are in the cross-hairs of injustice and hatred and cruelty. I don’t know if any of us feels ready to make that choice. But the story of the Passion calls us to make it. It calls us to respond to Pilate when he asks us, “Shall I crucify your King?”

May God give us all mercy and strength, through the power of his Holy Spirit, to remain faithful in this time of testing.