Sermon for Friday, April 7, 2023 || Good Friday || Passion According to John

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I know this is way out of sequence, but I forgot to post my Good Friday sermon back in April, and since we did not have a normal sermon for Trinity Sunday yesterday, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share what I said on Good Friday.

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The Passion narrative we just heard can be quite overwhelming. It is by far and away the longest reading we listen to all year, and there’s a lot going on. So instead of talking about the entire Passion narrative, each year I like to focus on one little moment of it that speaks to the whole story. On this Good Friday, that moment happens right at the beginning of the story, so cast your minds back about ten minutes to the garden where Jesus is arrested.

The Gospel tells us, “Judas brought a company of soldiers and some guards from the chief priests and Pharisees. They came there carrying lanterns, torches, and weapons. Jesus knew everything that was to happen to him, so he went out and asked, “Who are you looking for?””

Here Jesus asks a question that ripples down through the centuries to us: “Who are you looking for?” We might answer this question any number of ways, some helpful and some not so helpful to walks of faith.

The not-so-helpful ways often involve us looking for someone to concur with what we already think or what we want to do. We want a rubber stamp kind of god, a god who won’t challenge us or confront us to change in any way. This kind of god is like the graven images and golden calves of the Scriptures – gods who can be controlled, gods who can only confirm an already chosen path, not compel us to choose a different one. Writer Anne Lamott talks about this type of god when she says, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

Too often, I suspect I am looking for this type of god, one who will help me remain in familiar surroundings by never urging me to step beyond my comfort zone. It doesn’t matter if the interior of my comfort zone is a small, stifling place where I become a small, stifled person. The true God might offer abundant life, but that kind of life comes with risks – risks like meeting people who might challenge me to change my thoughts or behaviors – and I’m okay in my shell, thank you very much.

But I keep hearing that question: Who are you looking for? And it reverberates within me, and I realize that in order to stay alive I need to grow and in order to grow I need to have new experiences and in order to have new experiences I need to listen to that voice pulling me from my comfort zone.

And so I step outside my shell, and I start looking. Who are you looking for? I listen, and the helpful answers start to come. I’m looking for the Savior who will rescue me from my apathy. I’m looking for the Teacher who will show me new ways to live. I’m looking for the Wind of the Spirit who will stir me into new encounters that will challenge and stretch me. I’m looking for the Beloved who will help me know that I, too, and cherished by God. I’m looking for the Good Shepherd, who will lead me to green grass and still waters. I’m looking for the Light of the World, who will shine on all the places that I ignore and help me see them with new eyes. I’m looking for the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

This God is not a rubber stamp kind of God. This God is the one who calls us into deep and transformative relationship, as we grow into the people God yearns for us to be.

And this is the God whom Judas and the soldiers and the guards encountered in the garden. “We’re looking for Jesus the Nazarene,” they say. “I Am,” Jesus says, responding with the divine name, just in case we, the readers, have missed the other dozen times he has done this throughout the Gospel. He asks them again, “Who are you looking for?” Again they say, “Jesus the Nazarene.”

But it’s clear that no one in the garden, except Jesus himself, knows who they’re found. They were looking for a charlatan, a messianic sensation who had gotten too big for his britches. But what they find is someone else entirely. If they were truly looking for the divine in their midst, they would not have resorted to violence – the soldiers or, for that matter, Peter, who cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant.

And this is a cautionary tale for us when Jesus asks us this question: “Who are you looking for?” Our answers never fully comprehend the sublime combination of love and grace and justice and challenge that is our God. But that doesn’t mean we are always lost to our own graven images. Because Jesus asks this question one more time in the Gospel. We’ll hear it on Sunday. Mary Magdalene stands weeping outside the tomb. And Jesus, whom she thinks is the gardener, asks her, “Who are you looking for?” In the midst of her grief and anger, she is blinded to the reality of what is standing before her. But then Jesus speaks a single word, a magic spell. He speaks her name, and she recognizes him.

So when we are looking for God in all the wrong places, know this. God is and always will be looking for us. And not just looking, but finding us, and calling us each by name.

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Photo by Christopher Sardegna on Unsplash.