Good Friday - April 3

Praise God
Psalm 22

This year in particular I have been troubled with the profound discontinuity between how we refer to the cross and what the cross really was. That discontinuity is captured in one of the collects for Holy Week. “O God by the passion of your Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life.”

It was a cruel and inhumane means of political execution.

But at the same time I can’t get the hymn out of my head “When I survey the wondrous cross.” We call the cross wondrous. In today’s service we venerate it.

The cross itself… Can it be both beautiful, wondrous and horrific?

We revere the cross, of course, because of Easter. Because of what happened later. Jesus’ death on the cross ultimately brought such wondrous results. But that’s looking forward into the future.

But what about today? The day of execution, the day of death. Is the cross wondrous today? As Christians, of course, we are never without Easter. But imagine there had been no Easter. Today a holy man dies. Dies on a cross. (Not “the” cross which has come to signify so much, just “a” cross.) Without Easter is the cross wondrous? Without Easter is there anything good about this day?

In Mark’s account of Jesus’ death (which we heard on Sunday) and in Matthew’s Jesus utters the words of a psalm as he is dying on the cross. Psalm 22, which we just prayed. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

As I’ve been reading William Temple this week, one sentence has stuck with me. Describing participation in worship, he writes: “We join in praise of [God’s] goodness in the Psalms which rise out of every kind of human joy, sorrow, perplexity, anxiety and doubt.”

We join in praise of God’s goodness in the Psalms. I may be stretching Temples’ meaning beyond what he intended when I suggest that psalms are always prayers of praise. Yes, they arise out of the full range of human experience and emotion. The full range. But they always acknowledge and praise God’s holiness, God’s glory, God’s majesty and God’s goodness.

People categorize psalms… There are psalms of praise, royal psalms, psalms of ascent to be prayed when climbing up to the temple, psalms of lament or complaint. Psalm 22 is a psalm of lament. But did you notice how it is full of praise? All psalms are prayers of praise.

God’s holiness. God’s glory. God’s majesty and goodness. These don’t depend upon Jesus’ resurrection.

God’s holiness. God’s glory. God’s majesty and goodness. These don’t depend upon our success or happiness. God is not good and holy only when we feel favored or blessed. The writer or writers of the psalms understood this. In the midst of joy, yes, but also sorrow, perplexity, anxiety, doubt, horror and death, God’s holiness, glory, and goodness are worthy of praise.

God is worthy of praise at all times. Even from the cross.

This is one of the messages of Good Friday. To remind us that God is worthy of our praise. Always. Even in the most horrific or desolate times of our lives. Praise God.

The most important meaning of this day does lie ahead. But in the mean time. In all times, let us praise God.