Good Friday

 

The Altars are stripped, the Tabernacles empty and Christ dies on the Cross, consummatum est, it is finished. I found this powerful, from Morning Prayer:

For the ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright, Our life is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there is no remedy: neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave. Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education. He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. He was made to reprove our thoughts. He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion. We are esteemed of him as counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father. Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him. For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies. Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience. Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected. Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them. As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls. For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it. (Wisdom 2:1, 12-24)

 

Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it. Yes indeed.

In Hoc Signo,

LSP

Saturday Sermon

 

Jesus says to his disciples, who were annoyingly busy fighting among themselves over their respective positions of power in the  coming Kingdom, "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mk. 10:45)

Christ does so on the Cross, the throne of his sovereignty, by which he exercises dominion over sin and death, opening the gates of heaven to the faithful and inaugurating the Kingdom. I found this, by the Anglican bishop NT Wright helpful:

We have, alas, belittled the cross, imagining it merely as a mechanism for getting us off the hook of our own petty naughtiness or as an example of some general benevolent truth. It is much, much more. It is the moment when the story of Israel reaches its climax; the moment when, at last, the watchmen on Jerusalem’s walls see their God coming in his kingdom; the moment when the people of God are renewed so as to be, at last, the royal priesthood who will take over the world not with the love of power but with the power of love; the moment when the kingdom of God overcomes the kingdoms of the world. It is the moment when a great old door, locked and barred since our first disobedience, swings open suddenly to reveal not just the garden, opened once more to our delight, but the coming city, the garden city that God had always planned and is now inviting us to go through the door and build with him. The dark power that stood in the way of this kingdom vision has been defeated, overthrown, rendered null and void. 

 

The dark power that stood in the way of this kingdom vision has been defeated, overthrown, rendered null and void. Yes, powerful, though I'd change "garden city" to "heavenly Jerusalem."

That aside, how easy it is to be a porch warrior or for that matter an armchair Christian. Our Savior demands more, we're to take up our cross and follow him, entirely. 

In the end, all will be asked of us. Pray that with James and John we will, by the grace of God, say yes and that by loving as Christ loved us find greatness in the Kingdom of God. And know that the demons, to say nothing of their temporal allies flee before the sign and the life of those who live in Christ crucified.

In Hoc Signo,

LSP