Good Friday 2024

A Sermon from the Church of  

Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida

Preached by the Rev. Timothy E. Schenck on March 29, 2024 (Good Friday)

Three crosses. You see them on hillsides, sticking up in farmlands along desolate stretches of highway, on bad religious clipart. You’ve seen the symbol of the three crosses, but maybe haven’t given them much real thought.

The middle one we know. The one that stands a bit taller than the ones on either side. The cross of Christ. The implement of torture that killed our savior. The Roman Empire’s preferred form of execution. A painful and humiliating death reserved for those to be made an example of. Like a man claiming to be a king. A prophet who upset the political status quo. A teacher who exposed the hypocrisy of the religious authorities. Jesus was all of these things. And he was strung up on the hard wood of the cross.

Jesus was put to death because he held up a mirror to the world, and the powers and principalities of the world didn’t like what he reflected back to them. That God’s way is not about power and control, but love and service. As we hear in the prologue to John’s gospel, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” 

When you preach love in a world bent on hate, you end up on a cross. When you teach compassion in a world bent on cruelty, you end up on a cross. When you encourage love of neighbor in a world bent on love of self, you end up on a cross. 

But Jesus also chooses death. Because toning down God’s message, compromising on God’s message of love, was never an option. Jesus can only love wholly and without exception. He simply cannot love with conditions. And he knew that in the end, divine love would overcome death. And so he enters Jerusalem, knowing full well how this would all go down. Knowing full well that he would drink the bitter cup of crucifixion. To prove to us, to demonstrate through his broken body, that love is indeed stronger than death.

But Scripture tells us that Jesus didn’t die alone. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we hear that there were two other crosses, that two criminals were crucified, one on either side of him. Hence the image of the three crosses. In Luke’s gospel we hear about the interaction between Jesus and these two men, as life slowly and painfully drains out of their bodies. And the difference between how they approach death is striking. One of them continues to mock Jesus. “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” There’s no remorse for the crimes he committed. With his dying breath, he spews hate and derision. He is literally next to the Messiah, but his heart is hardened. His eyes cannot see, his ears cannot hear, the message of love and peace radiating from Jesus’ very being, even as his breath becomes labored and pain sears his body.

But the other criminal has noticed Jesus. Perhaps he saw something in his eyes. A sense of peace. Perhaps he saw him looking with compassion upon those who mocked him and spat at him. Perhaps he saw the forgiveness he reserved for the soldiers tasked with nailing his hands and feet to the wood of the cross. Perhaps he heard the love in his voice as Jesus quietly prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

And suddenly this man who has lived a life of immorality and crime, feeding off of and exploiting the weakness of others, is transformed. He doesn’t join in the insults of the other criminal. He, who would have nothing to do with Jesus or his teachings as he bullied his way through life, looks over at his fellow criminal and asks, “Do you not fear God? We have been condemned justly, but this man has done nothing wrong.” As the life begins to drain from his body, he defends Jesus. He testifies to his innocence. Despite living a life worthy of condemnation, he turns to Jesus at the very end. He believes in him. He puts his soul into his hands. 

In the end, this man is the only one who speaks up for Jesus. The disciples have fled. Peter, the rock upon whom Christ has built his church, has denied him three times. Fear has overtaken his closest friends. Their silence is deafening. But one man speaks up. One man testifies to the truth. One man, the last person anyone would expect, stands up for Jesus. He is known to us as the penitent thief, by tradition he died to the cross at Jesus’ right side. His last words are, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.”

We have two choices when it comes to to our response to the cross. Like the first criminal we can deride it or minimize it or trivialize it. We can ignore its power, its triumph, its pain, and its glory. We can live our lives never experiencing the true peace and joy that only comes from knowing at the very core of our being that we are loved and forgiven.

Or we can make it the defining statement of our lives. We can experience Jesus’ death as an act of love. One that banishes the fear of death that so often defines our interactions with ourselves and others. We can allow our souls to be filled with the peace of God that passes all understanding. That’s what Jesus wants for you. That’s why Jesus was willing to be betrayed into the hands of sinners and put to death on a cross. Because he desperately and irrepressibly loves you and longs for you.

“Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.” May that be our prayer this day and at the hour of our death. When Jesus will lovingly gaze upon you, as he did to the penitent thief, and reply, “Truly I tell you, this day you will be with me in Paradise.”