A Good Friday Reflection

The Trial of Jesus calls for a judgment. - What is your judgment?

How do we evaluate the so-called “Son of God”? When he stands before us, do we take the judgment seat?

Pilate, we are told, “sat in the judgment seat.” He was asked to give a verdict, to give a sentence based on that verdict.

Pilate wasn’t the first to get a chance to sit in judgment over Jesus. The Gospels tell us that Religious leaders, Herod and the crowd also were giving their verdicts. Jesus was a very judged man. And in the end, everyone who sat in judgment over Christ, didn’t get what they wanted from Him.

Before Jesus got to Pilate, the Religious Leaders had judged Jesus guilty! They were tired of Jesus calling them, the most religious people in the whole society, Jesus was calling them: sinners along with everyone else! They not only followed the Law (as they understood it) and even new parts of the law they made up! How offensive is that to be told your piety isn’t good enough!

Before Jesus got to Pilate finally, Herod had judged Jesus guilty…of not being entertaining enough. Herod demanded a sign! He wanted signs and miracles just for him. He wanted a Santa Claus, giving him goodies. And when Jesus was silent to that request, when Jesus didn’t answer his prayer for goodies, Herod was done with Jesus.

Now, Finally, Pilate sat in judgment over Jesus, but didn’t really find a problem with Jesus, so it seemed. But everybody else seemed to. So Pilate says with his lips that he doesn’t find guilt with Jesus, and then Pilate does what to an innocent man? Pilate has Him tortured. Mocks Him, makes Him the center of ridicule. Which lied, his lips or his actions?

When the crowd, when everyone else wants to be rid of Jesus, when the world is found to cry for his death, when it might be costly and hard to declare the truth about Jesus…Pilate asks “What is truth?”

Pilate denies Truth itself, standing in front of him, Pilate has the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE in front of him, and sends him down the WAY of the Via Delarosa, he lies about the TRUTH, and he sentences LIFE to death.

The Neutrality and apathy of a Pilate, always finds itself crucifying Christ. The fence sitters, seem always to find themselves right along with the crowd when it comes down to the real choice that was before them. The choice was between the INNOCENCE of Jesus or their own INNOCENCE.

Pilate starts by saying “I see no crime in him! He seems innocent,” but ends with saying, “I am innocent of his blood! I wash my hands!” 

Pilate couldn’t be neutral. And neither can you. In the end: only one can be innocent. The Trial of Jesus calls for judgment. All men, in one way or another, attend the trial of Christ. They are asked, as Jesus did to his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”

Your verdict on that question, is the most important question you will ever answer. Who do you say Jesus is?

Is He the Son of God? If not, the religious leaders were right to declare him guilty.

Is He supposed to be Santa Claus? If so, Herod is right to dismiss Him when he doesn’t get his every request.

Is He to be the popular King? The cool friend? If so, then Pilate is right to deliver him to the crowd, when the world rejects Christ.

Pilate sat in the judgment seat and made his verdict known. Pilate was more concerned to declare Pilate’s innocence. In fact, everyone there thought they were innocent!

That’s what makes an innocent verdict so hard to pronounce over Jesus. If Jesus is innocent, then what he says is true. When He says He came for sinners, and points to you, either you are a sinner He came for, or He is a lying sinner for saying: you are a sinner.

It comes down to this: Either Jesus was innocent or you are. Which is it?

Are we wrong when we sit in judgment over Jesus for not confirming us, telling us “Good job applying the law to others and not yourself! Good job following your own rules and not God’s!” Are we guilty for dismissing Jesus when he doesn’t do this, or is Jesus guilty?

Are we in the wrong when we sit in judgment over Jesus because he doesn’t give us a all WE want? Are we guilty for treating Jesus like Santa Claus, or is Jesus guilty for not being our personal Santa Claus?

Are we in the wrong for ignoring Christ, for saying we don’t find guilt in him, but in the end, not concerning ourselves with Christ crucified when the world is found to be against him? Are we guilty for going along with the world, or is Jesus guilty for not being what the world wants?

The trial of Jesus demands a judgment. What is yours? Do you sit in judgment over Jesus? Or does he stand in judgment FOR you?

Just know this: Jesus only stands in judgment for the guilty! The minute you say “I am innocent” is the minute you cry out “Jesus is the guilty one! Crucify Him!”

Is Christ’s rightful place on the cross, or is yours? Before the cross is what Christ took in your place, you must see your rightful place is on the cross.

The story of the trial and death of Jesus is not a tragedy. The story of the passion is not in order to parade before you the man Jesus to pity. It is the story of the God-man Jesus Christ having pity on you. It is the story of Jesus saying to the Father “Forgive them.” The Father saying “Only if I forsake you.” And Jesus saying, “Your Will be done.” It is the story of Jesus then saying to the penalty that hung over us: “It is finished.”

It is the story of what you deserved, and what Jesus took for you. Only then, can you see the good in Good Friday.

I’ll tell you the good I see in this Friday: In the cross of Christ, there is my judgment, as He takes my cross, the cross I earned, the cross I deserved, and He bares it in love for me and His Father.

The Trial of Jesus calls for a judgment. Who is the guilty one? My judgment: I AM guilty. What is your judgment?

Prayer: Father, for the sake of the Pure and Spotless Lamb of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen.

Joy and Sorrow

Then they also brought infants to Him that He might touch them; but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to Him and said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.” (Luke 18:15-17)

My focus lately has been so much on our coming baby, but I'm reminded of the wisdom of Solomon: "It is better to go to a funeral than a feast. For death is the destiny of every person, and the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, because sober reflection is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of merrymaking." (Ecc 7:2-4)

My thoughts today are with a man I greatly admire and appreciate, my mentoring pastor, whose daughter would have been four today. He penned a sublime entry after his daughter went home.

On Grief

I've worked as a Chaplain in a Hospital for about a year and have been present for, by my count, about 50 deaths. In processing and attempting to glean some spiritual fruits from the contemplation of death and the finitude of life I have not found very many good resources. I do have a new appreciation for the book of Job, Psalms 13, 22 and 88 and Ecclesiastes. The one exception of a good book outside of the Bible is "Facing Grief." This book was originally titled "A Token for Mourners," written by John Flavel. This English minister experienced the death of a child and his first wife, second wife and third wife. Flavel is one of the few to capture what I have seen with parents: "To bury a child, any child, rends the heart of a tender parent; for what are children, but the parent multiplied? A child is a part of the parent made up in another skin."

Flavel was a man acquainted with grief and so a man whom those in grief can expect not only a true and faithful voice, but one that is appropriately gentle. "Facing Grief" both affirms the necessary place for grief in the lives of believers as well as warning against excessively entertaining grief. As a person experiences the death of a loved one, Flavel gives comfort to the believer and warning to the unbeliever. It took me a while to find something, but if one is looking personally or has been asked for a book on grief, Flavel's book is a great one, especially after the shock has passed and the heavy-hearted reflections begin.

The first paragraph:

"To be above the stroke of passions is a condition equal to angels; to be in a state of sorrow without the sense of sorrow is a disposition beneath beasts; but duly to regulate our sorrows and bound our passions under the rod is the wisdom, duty, and excellency of a Christian. He who is without natural affections is deservedly ranked among the worst heathens; and he who is able rightly to manage them deserves to be numbered with the best of Christians. Though when we are sanctified we put on the divine nature, yet, till we are glorified, we put not off the infirmities of our human nature."

Facing Grief - John Flavel - wtsbooks.com

Facing Grief - John Flavel - Amazon.com

Original Sin, Pastoral Care, and the Courage to Speak Truth

I've met a similar scene multiple times: I enter a room where a mother is holding a small, blanket-wrapped package. The room is thick with grief; the mother crying and the husband with a look of stress on his face. I am there to talk about what they want to do with the remains of their miscarried child. It was in those moments that some of the discussions I had earlier in some seminary classrooms came back to mind, much to my displeasure and a bit to my anger.

In two theology classes, two different professors brought up the subject of infant death and salvation. In both professors, the doctrine of Original Sin loomed large, sufficient to damn from the moment of birth. When asked about infants that die, one replied, “I know you won't like it, but you have to have the courage to say that they are sinful, without faith, and therefore, under any criteria we can measure, condemned.” The argument was that if you allow for one instance of salvation without faith, you are soon on the road to universalism, then atheism, all over the question of if infants that die are damned.

The question I asked then was about 2 Samuel 12, where David's son dies at seven days old (a day before circumcision). When informed of the death, David replies “Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” (2 Samuel 12:23) I was then informed that was a bad text to use, partly because the son died for David's sin and David was merely talking about the place of the dead, and judgment occurs later, where we would assume they will be parted again with David heading heavenward and the infant, towards damnation. The answer seemed at the time a poor one, for it seemed to dismiss rather than explain the reaction of David. Who would be happy to briefly see their child again before they are ushered off to hell? Was that David's relief?

Here, I stood before a woman and father who had just lost a child, even before seven days. They did not care to hear about my former professor's “courage” in declaring the probable damnation of their child or dismissal of David's source of hope. The pastoral comment I often told believers was, with that most inappropriate text rolling around my mind, was something along the lines of: "though he won't return to be with you, know you will go to meet him someday."

My first professor may not be happy that I used the very text he warned us not to use, but he wasn't in the room. I do remember the same discussion in another class with a bit of a different answer from my other professor. He said faith seems to be what the Scripture always tells us we ought to have to be assured of salvation. Yet, salvation also involves God's election/choice and his grace. This other professor ended the question by saying he wouldn't answer the question definitively, because it wasn't his decision to make. Original Sin is sufficient to damn, God's grace is sufficient to save.

The question seems not to be between “courage” and "weakness" but between presumption and humility. The second seems much more appropriate for pastoral care. It is also where the Westminster Confession comes out where in Ch 10.3 it states: “Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth:” No observable faith is mentioned and I don't think the Westminster Confession is an inclusivist document or on the road to universalism because it allows for salvation without observable faith. God needs no permission or logical justification from us to save whom he will, whether we see faith, or give the child the sign of the covenant.

Indeed, Jesus often seems to welcome children and especially the children of believers well before they have an observable faith by which to respond. Mothers bring, carry even, babies to Jesus to touch/bless (Luke 18:15-17). Fascinating to me is that Jesus did not reject these little heathens. He did not ask the mothers to delay until they had faith and could be proven disciples, but just blessed the babies as these mothers wanted. Would we wish to say that Jesus lacked the courage to correct these mothers in their ignorant theology which valued the children of believers as blessable and valuable, and as belonging to the kingdom of heaven?

David's words about going to his son were spoken before his son was circumcised, before his son had observable faith, and with a hope that was unexplainable if he thought his son to be damned. The same man who declared his culpability from conception (Psalm 51) also declares his hope for his son (2 Samuel 12). And when walking into a room of grieving parents, when being a pastor to those parents that lose children, I can't say that God saves all children. But I can't say God damns them either. I can say: David had a hope, Christ welcomed the children of believers and we are called to trust God's goodness and election. These together give me a strong inclination to share David's hope for the reunion of believers and their departed infant children.

Death is not your Friend

Over the past 6 months, I have seen a lot of death. I've seen people seem to drift off quietly, like into a deep sleep. I've seen seemly endless chest compressions on someone drifting in and out of consciousness, scared and begging not to die. I've seen a man gag as the last breaths will not come into his lungs.

I've also seen many reactions to death. Seeming acceptance, perhaps hiding a denial. I've seen a raging at the world, God, or the random forces of nature. I've seen cheerful demeanor that accompanies words of celebration.

And in these times, I've heard many words about death. And of all the words I've heard, a certain class always makes me cringe. It is not the despair over death. It is not the anger over death. It is the belittling and minimizing of death. “He looks so peaceful.” or “death can be healing.”

Death is not your friend. Death is never good. Death is not peaceful, but the most violent thing that befalls man. Death is the ultimate curse (Gen 2:17). Death is last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). Death is what we look forward to ending (Rev 21:4).

When we see tears in the eyes of a mourner, my desire is that we will not belittle the reality of death. We ought not try to say that death is good. (inverse of Rom 14:16) We ought not call what is our curse and enemy good. But we can look forward to the end of death. Good may follow, but will never be death. Mourning and anger are not to be corrected when facing death, but truly expressed and addressed with a hope that is not death, but life.

Death is never good.

Death is not your friend.

Chaplain Resources

As you have probably noticed, I have been quite busy and unable to post much lately. The reason I have been busy is that I am participating in a Summer Chaplaincy program at a Hospital. The experience has been very ecumenical, for good or ill, working at a Methodist Hospital with Baptist and Presbyterian supervisors, serving alongside others of all backgrounds.

I'm a confessional Presbyterian and love the homiletical and theological resources of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches. However, so far, most of resources that I actually find useful on a daily basis are Anglican. I thought I might offer what I find helpful to others who may be doing hospital visits or chaplaincy work.

I began caring with me a Book of Common Prayer (BCP) into rooms. Yes, this is the 1979 version that everyone thinks is liberal, but it is actually very helpful, filled with prayers largely based on the services of Thomas Cranmer, the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury that nearly made the Church of England Reformed. It contains a large number of prayers for the sick. If one is nervous about what to pray for, reading these prayers before entering the room can help the pastor know what might be good to pray for (healing, skill in nurses and doctors, comfort, salvation, etc.) The BCP also has a service/prayers for the family upon death, which helps if one is struggling for good words at this time. One of the best parts is the Psalter. Many who are sick wish to hear their favorite Psalms (23, 40, 46, etc) and this has a modern language version based on the NRSV, which is 98% the same as the ESV.

I recently picked up a combination Book of Common Prayer and NRSV Bible. If a patient, instead of a Psalm wishes to hear Romans 8 (or Romans 9 if they're Presbyterian), John 10, or something different, you are not scrambling for the Gideon or leaving and coming back with a Bible, or carrying multiple books awkwardly into the room. Again, yes this is the NRSV, but it is largely similar to the ESV except for some gender neutral language that is easy to change back while reading. This is better than lugging around the 1928 and trying to change all the "eths" and "thous" in reading which sounds overly formal and detached at a time that needs to be intimate.

Finally, driving to work can be intimidating each morning. So to help on the drive in, I have started listening to Morning Prayer put out by an Anglican Church in podcast form. It is mostly a reading of an Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel passage with prayer. The Scripture passages help form my prayer language throughout the day.

Reformed Spirituality: The Angst of a Fallen World

We live in a religious culture of immediate gratification. We rarely feel hunger without grabbing a Snickers bar or driving through a McDonalds. We avoid books for television. 30-minute programs, cut up into 7-minute segments with 1-minute distractions to keep us from getting bored. Our gospel can be like that too. We want to reflect on grace and the victory of Christ without feeling the effects of a world with sin, suffering and death...without feeling the world we currently live in. We don't recognize Good Friday, we run to Easter. Yet the world maintains its journey in a perpetual Friday, a world in a journey to decay, of the aging of our bodies that are “born towards death” as Neuhaus said. Often, our shouts of praise and victory in the church are heard as feats of self-delusion by a world that itself has sought sex and mind altering substances to escape. Yet, when the world awakes to deal with the night before, it looks to the church and sees another self-delusion. Our gospel can sometimes morph into a denial of effects of sin, an avoidance of suffering, and an ignoring of death.

The true gospel, however, does not deny sin (or that we are sinners), avoid suffering and ignore death. The true gospel begins with the acknowledgement that such things are real, are terrible and are the bane of the existence of man in his time on earth. The true gospel must be longed for through sin, suffering and death. The true gospel will never be sweet to the one who denies he is a sinner. The true gospel will not be relief to the woman who avoids relationships to avoid suffering. The true gospel will not be deliverance to the one who avoids funerals and pretends they will never die. The true gospel feels the fallen state of the world and first acknowledges its existence and disappointment and frustration before it runs to Easter, or it never would run to Easter. The true Gospel knows that the only way to Easter is through Good Friday. The true Gospel can sympathize and sit with Job as he cries out to God:

"Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not. And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one. Since his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass, look away from him and leave him alone, that he may enjoy, like a hired hand, his day.

"For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old in the earth, and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant. But a man dies and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is he? As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up, so a man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep.

"Oh that you would hide me in the grave, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come. You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands. For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.

"But the mountain falls and crumbles away, and the rock is removed from its place; the waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth; so you destroy the hope of man. You prevail forever against him, and he passes; you change his countenance, and send him away.

"His sons come to honor, and he does not know it; they are brought low, and he perceives it not. He feels only the pain of his own body, and he mourns only for himself."

-Job 14

Henry Lyte's Final Hymn

Henry Lyte holds a high place as one of my favorite hymn-writers. Indelible Grace recently released their fifth album (buy here), including an amazing version of Lyte's "Abide with Me." [sheet music here] Lyte wrote this hymn while dying of tu­ber­cu­lo­sis. He finished it the same Sunday he gave his final sermon. He urged his parishoners:

"O breth­ren, I stand here among you to­day, as alive from the dead, if I may hope to im­press it upon you, and in­duce you to pre­pare for that sol­emn hour which must come to all, by a time­ly ac­quaint­ance with the death of Christ."

Such circumstances give more meaning to lines such as "Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes." I've highlighted the lines that always hit my affections when I read them:


Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea—
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Augustine on Friendship

For a class, I am (re)reading Augustine's Confessions. It has been four years since I last read them (way too long!). His life story drips with perception and deep insight while he bleeds Scripture in every turn of phrase. In book 4, a close friend of Augustine dies. The experience created a "tettered bleeding soul" and then Augustine pens what must be one of the greatest descriptions of friendship in Western Civiliation:

"There were other joys to be found in my friends' company which more powerfully captivated my mind - the charms of talking and laughing together and kindly giving way to each other’s wishes, reading well-written books together, sharing jokes and delighting to honor one another, disagreeing occasionally but without rancor, as a person might disagree with himself, and lending more excitement by that rare disagreement to our much more frequent accord. We would teach and learn from each other, sadly missing any who were absent and blithely welcoming them when they returned. Such signs of friendship sprang from the hearts of friends who loved and knew their love returned, signs to be read in smiles, words, glances and a thousand gracious gestures. So were sparks kindles and our minds fused inseparably, out of many becoming one.

This is what we esteem in our friends and so highly do we esteem it that our conscience feels guilt if we fail to love someone who responses to us in love or do not return the love of one who offers love to us, and this without seeking bodily gradification from the other save signs of his goodwill. From this springs our grief if someone dies, from this comes the darkness of sorrow and the heart drenched with tears because sweetness has turned to bitterness, so that as the dying lose their life, life becomes no better than death for those who live on. Blessed is he who loves You [Oh, Lord], and loves his friend in You and his enemy for Your sake. He alone loses no one dear to him, to whom all are dear in the One who is never lost. And who is this but our God, the God who made heaven and earth and fills them…Your law is truth, and You Yourself are Truth. "