get your payments from the nations...

for your trials & tribulations.

 

Okay, I just got to ask: why are you here?

Isn't there already plenty you have to do without coming to church on a Friday evening?

Aren't you busy enough?

Why are you here?

 

In fact, many of you were here yesterday, weren't you?

So why come again today?

 

Not only were you here yesterday, I'm willing to bet many of you will also be here for our Easter Vigil (tomorrow at 8 pm) or Easter (Sunday at 9 am) service.

Do you need another thing to do, another place to be? Are you looking for something to occupy your time, because if you are I've got a box of files that needs sorting...

What is it that brings you here, to this place, today?

I admit have a suspicion, though. A hunch as to why you're here...

And it isn't because that's how you've always done it.

And it isn't because you're church rats.

And it isn't because you're not busy enough already.

Although you may be one or all of those things, I'm willing to wager there is another reason you're here.

A better reason. A more powerful reason. A more meaningful reason...

You're here because you've witnessed it, haven't you?

You've experienced such a moment.

You've been there when everyone's hair stood on end.

You've stood as everything, in an instant, changed.

 

You've experienced it, haven't you?

Of course, that is why you're here.

That is what brings you here this Friday evening.

 

We're here because we been there when the darkness, turned to light.

We've been there when what has been, transformed into what will be.

We've been there when death, turned to life.

It is that experience that brings us here this evening.

I must admit that, that is always how it goes...

Those of us who have been grasped, who have been in the presence of the almighty, cannot not undo what has happened to us.

We've been there when everything changed and so now know that not all is as it appears.

We now know that God is worth worshipping.

And that, that, is what brings us here.

We've been changed when we witnessed what has been, transformed into what will be.

We've fell to our knees tremble and hands shake as we've experienced death turned to life.

We've felt the world flip upside down as we watched the darkness turned to light.

 

Those moments have turned, have changed, have transformed our lives, our world.

So we come.

We come.

 

On a busy enough Friday evening, we come.

We come because there is something in us that believes, and has reason to, that the cross is life giving, after all.

We come because there is something us us that trusts, and has reason to, that indeed God did transform that one hanging on the cross.

We come because there is something in us that hopes against hope that God brought that one to life, and through that Jesus, God has brought us all to life, again.

That is why we come.

That is why we are here, here on this evening, this Good Friday...

 

Just as on that cross despair was transformed into delight, as tragedy was transformed into triumph, as heartache was transformed into hope - so we too have been transformed.

 

We cannot go back to the way things were, and that, that is what brings us here.

Today is really the paramount moment when we put on our faith that has made us maladjusted to injustice, when we put on our faith that has made us different, hopeful; today is the moment when we put on the faith that causes us to talk, to touch, to see, to experience the world with hope.

With Hope.

Today is the day when we put on that same faith that inspired John, our Gospel writer, to see Jesus' crucifixion not as a humiliation, not as a failure, not as a tragedy, but as Jesus' enthronement as king.

With that faith, from being present when a moment changed everything, John knew this crucifixion of Jesus was more than it appeared. He knew that it was bursting with hope, with promise.

John, so long ago, had the courage to not merely understand but to proclaim Jesus' crucifixion as his exaltation, is the one we take our lead from today.

This John is one who, although we've never met, we can relate to.

 

John has been present when everything was transformed, and he's been changed. This John has been changed, and he can't be the same.

We know that experience, don't we?

 

John, too, has put on the faith that changes everything.

This John knew that Jesus' crucifixion was more than it appeared.

He had been there when what had been, was transformed into what will be;

when death, was transformed into life;

when darkness, turned to light;

and so he cannot keep silent, he cannot keep this to himself, he cannot undo what has been done.

 

And we know that feeling, don't we?

That is what brought, what brings us here today.

We've experienced it, and we cannot undo what has been done.

 

"So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull. There they crucified him."

There everything changed.

That place, that cross is what brings us here today.

That place, that cross is the culmination of God's work:

turning what has been, into what will be;

turning death, into life.

turning darkness, into light.