Hope-filled Fear and Fear-filled Hope
a sermon for Easter in a time of pandemic
The Rev’d Rhona Waters
Good Friday – April 10, 2020
where we consider what “take up your cross” really means
a sermon for Good Friday
The Rev’d Rhonda Waters
Take up your cross and follow me. That’s what Jesus told his disciples and those who would be his disciples as they gathered around to watch him heal diseases and cast out demons and go toe-to-toe with the Pharisees. Take up your cross and follow me.
How many of them, do you imagine, understood what he meant before this moment? How many of them, as they watched in horror as Jesus was forced to carry the instrument of his execution – how many of them had to discard lovely poetic explanations for what he meant, for what the cross represented, for why they were right to follow him in the way they chose to follow him?
How many of them, as they watched in horror as Jesus was nailed to a cross and lifted up so that his death might be a sign and a warning – how many of them wept not only for Jesus but for themselves?
When Jesus chooses to speak in plain language, it is often too much to bear.
Take up your cross and follow me.
Even then, Jesus owned his cross. It was not imposed upon him by Rome or the Temple authorities, although they were the ones who passed sentence. He took it up as an act of self-giving – knowing that the life he was called to lead; the life he was inviting others to lead – would surely lead to suffering and death for the sake of that life.
Because a life faithfully lived for the love of other people, the love of the world, necessarily includes suffering – and all life necessarily includes death.
This truth is revealed with an unpleasant starkness on this particular Good Friday when we are all called to take up our cross and follow Jesus, albeit in different ways. And to name all the ways as participation in Jesus’ suffering is not intended to suggest that all suffering is the same; all risks equal; all sacrifices interchangeable. But there is no need for competition – there are crosses enough to go round.
People working with and for the sick and dying; people working with and for those living in shelters and rooming houses and under bridges; people working in grocery stores and pharmacies under stressful circumstances and not knowing who might be bringing disease into their places of work.
People living in fear for vulnerable loved ones; parents and grandparents who won’t stay home or who are in retirement residences or care homes; dear ones who already suffer from illness or disability.
People who contracted COVID-19 and are sick; some of whom are dying of a disease that seems to barely touch some while it kills others; people who are mourning those who have died but have to wait to gather for funerals.
People who have lost income; mental well-being; physical well-being; relationships due to social distance and isolation. People who have had to postpone weddings; cancel long-awaited travel; give up classes.
People who are working long hours to learn more; to find solutions; to reach decisions.
Even, simply, people who have lost the ability to gather for prayer and song and sacrament.
People are suffering for the sake of the well-being of all; for love of the world – so that the greatest suffering may be lessened, especially for the most vulnerable.
This is, fundamentally, the sign of the cross; suffering entered into for love’s sake.
Jesus did not live his life for the cross’s sake – he lived his life for love’s sake and so willingly took up the cross that such a life demanded. His love for the people he dwelt amongst – people suffering from illness and oppression and division and guilt – led to a life that led to the cross. God’s love for the whole hurting world, led to a life that led to the cross.
Our love, for a world endangered by a virus we don’t yet understand, leads to a life that leads to the cross.
And today we are reminded that we are not alone with our cross for suffering entered into for love’s sake is transformed by that love – not made easier, necessarily, or less risky – but made holy because it is God’s own suffering.
Take up your cross and follow me, Jesus said. He is with us as we struggle under our burdens, before and beside us to show us the way.
And, lest we forget, the way leads not simply to death but through death to life – this is our hope and our faith.
So, this Good Friday, as we contemplate the cross, I invite you to claim it for yourself. Unite yourself to Jesus in his compassion and his love and his suffering. Offer your own sorrows and struggles and fears as a sacrifice to be made holy by God’s love in and for you. And then I invite you to wait, in faithful hope and longing, for the life that is to come.
Holy Week – Scattered but Together
This year, Holy Week will not be what we are used to. Ours is an incarnational faith, celebrating and relying on our bodies and the world we encounter with those bodies. We will miss the comfort of one another’s presence. We will miss the physicality of our corporate worship – shared food, shared touch, shared movement, shared breath. Some of us will be grieving our inability to participate in the Eucharist, especially on Maundy Thursday and Easter morning. Some of us will be grieving our inability to sing and speak in audible chorus together. Some of us will be grieving our inability to embrace one another.
These griefs are real and reasonable. This is not Holy Week as we want it.
But might it be Holy Week as we need it? Might this Holy Week help us focus on something about our Christian faith that we particularly need to understand right now – that it is not only an incarnational faith but also a faith capable of transcending and transforming the limitations of the flesh?
This Holy Week, we will need to rely on our imaginations more than ever before. We will need to rely on the power of the Spirit – the Holy Breath of God that enlivens each one of us – to join our very breathing to one another. We will need to rely on the unseen communion of saints, living and dead, to sweep us up into the mystery of the Passion of Christ.
We need this Holy Week to teach us how to peer behind what the world shows us to see the greater truth of communion with Christ in God, so that we might be ready greet the Risen Christ in a world still bound, still scared, still isolated – but also still made new.
Below are a number of ways to enter into the Holy Week we have been given this year, some alone or with other members of your household and some in communal on-line worship. Whatever you choose to do, I pray that you will be open to the gifts of this particular Holy Week and that you will feel the presence of the Spirit as near as your own breath.
The Story
Holy Week
Matthew 26:14-27:66
John 18:1-19:42
As we are in Year A of the lectionary cycle, we will be reading the Passion according to Matthew on Palm Sunday (although not quite all of it) and, as in every year, we read the Passion according to John on Good Friday. Both are too long to copy into this post but the links above will take you to the Oremus Bible Browser site. Or, better still, pull out your own Bible and work your way through the story in your own time this week.
Self-guided Retreats
Holy Week Story with Symbols (for kids)
Prepared by the Rev’d Susan Oliver Martin, Rector of Christ Church in Edmonton, this story is designed to be told bit by bit over the course of Holy Week. It requires a little advance preparation but is a beautiful option for households with children under the age of 6 or so.
Contemplative and Creative Arts
Prepared by members of the Art and Spirituality Practice Group, this resource provides options for Scripture based meditations and creative responses, including visual art, movement, writing, baking, and music. It makes use of materials you likely have at home and is easily adaptable for use with younger children.
Encountering Jesus in the Gospel of John
Our Lenten Quiet Day has become a Lenten Very Quiet Day as we will not be gathering to read the Gospel of John but instead reading it on our own. A simple pattern for organizing your time can be found here.
Music for Holy Week
The Contemplative and Creative Arts Kit, above, includes suggested songs to sing or listen to (all findable on Youtube or similar services). In addition, our music director, Aude has created three Youtube playlists to accompany your prayer time.
- Contemporary Christian Music for Holy Week
- Traditional Hymns for Holy Week
- Classical Music Selections for Holy Week
Praying Holy Week
The Society of St. John the Evangelist, an Episcopal monastic order, provide a resource page for each day of Holy Week with readings, prayers, reflections, and music.
Prayer Services – online or in private
Good Friday
Love is Stronger than Death: Stations of the Cross for All-Ages – 10am
This moving service uses simple language and the hope-filled refrain that love is stronger than death to tell the story of Jesus’ journey to the cross in a way that is suitable for young children as well as their elders. Unlike a traditional Stations service or the Liturgy of Good Friday, we end the service with the (quiet) good news of the Resurrection in order to ensure our youngest members feel safe and reassured as they wait for Sunday.
How to join the service:
This service will take place on Zoom at 10 am with time for people to interact with one another. This service will no longer be available as a recording.
Join the Zoom service with a computer or smartphone or call in to Zoom by dialing 1-647-374-4685 and entering the meeting ID 301 177 504. We will not be livestreaming this service.
Liturgy of Good Friday – 12pm
Set up your worship space with just a cross – perhaps one you make for the occasion by tying two found sticks together.
This simplified Good Friday service includes the reading of the Passion of Christ according to St. John, the solemn intercessions, and a time of meditation on the Cross of Jesus. The Zoom service will make use of a contemplative video.
How to join the service:
Download the order of service.
Pray the service on your own, knowing you are not alone, or join others on Zoom with a computer or smartphone or call in to Zoom by dialing 1-647-374-4685 and entering the meeting ID 301 177 504. We will not be livestreaming this service.
Easter Sunday
Claiming the Hope of the Resurrection
Easter is coming, friends, even if it’s going to feel a little weird.
Easter Morning Greeting
Join in a phone chain to spread the Good News of the Resurrection with the traditional Easter greeting: Alleluia! Christ is risen! Sign up here to give permission for your number to be shared with your designated Easter Greeter and to be assigned a number to call in your turn. Calls will be made betwee 9 and 9:45 on Easter morning. Deadline to sign up is Tuesday, April 7.
Easter Service – 10 a.m.
Our Easter service (on Zoom and streamed to Facebook) will include some of the stories of God’s saving work, presented with poetry, song, and imagination by different members of our community. We will release the *lleluias and ask God to set our hearts free to soar after them as we proclaim the Easter Gospel. We will renew our baptismal vows and be reminded of who we are called to be in a world that is crying out for rebirth.
Prepare to join in the celebration by setting up your worship space with :
- your Good Friday cross, now decorated with lights, flowers, or streamers
- a candle ready to light
- Alleluia streamers or banners to wave (perhaps this familiar butterfly)
- a big bowl of water
How to join the service:
Download the order of service. Join Zoom or watch on Facebook with a computer or smartphone or call in to Zoom by dialing 1-647-374-4685 and entering the meeting ID 301 177 504.
Good Friday Services
Love is Stronger than Death:
Stations of the Cross for All Ages – 10am
This moving service uses simple language and the hope-filled refrain that love is stronger than death to tell the story of Jesus’ journey to the cross in a way that is suitable for young children as well as their elders. Unlike a traditional Stations service or the Liturgy of Good Friday, we end the service with the (quiet) good news of the Resurrection in order to ensure our youngest members feel safe and reassured as they wait for Sunday.
How to join the service:
This service will take place on Zoom at 10 am with time for people to interact with one another.
We regret that no video recording will be available.
Liturgy of Good Friday – 12pm
Set up your worship space with just a cross—perhaps one you make for the occasion by tying two found sticks together.
This simplified Good Friday service includes the reading of the Passion of Christ according to St. John, the solemn intercessions, and a time of meditation on the Cross of Jesus. The Zoom service will make use of a contemplative video.
Service Booklets
To follow along with readings, hymns, and prayers, download the order of service. The print booklet is formatted for printing out at home:
Get the mobile format scrolling on your smartphone:
How to join the service:
Pray the service on your own, knowing you are not alone, or join others on Zoom with a computer or smartphone or call in to Zoom by dialing 1-647-374-4685 and entering the meeting ID 301 177 504. We will not be livestreaming this service.
Maundy Thursday Service
Thursday, April 9 at 6pm
Whether you decide to join in the Zoom prayer service or to have a private home service, a little preparation will help you enter into a sacred time and space.
Set up your worship space at your table, if possible, and have a candle to light and a simple meal such as bread, cheese, fruit, hummus, olives, and wine (or its substitute) set out. We will give thanks for our food and one another and hear the call to self-giving love before disconnecting from the internet to eat our suppers and strip our homes in preparation for Good Friday.
The Service Booklet
To follow along with readings, hymns, and prayers, download the order of service. The print booklet is formatted for printing out at home:
Get the mobile format for scrolling on your smartphone:
The Gospel of the Watch
Jesus prayed in the garden and asked his disciples to watch with him. Listen to the Watch Gospel, read by The Rev’d Rhonda Waters.
How to join the service:
Pray the service on your own, knowing you are not alone, or join others on Zoom with a computer or smartphone or call in to Zoom by dialing 1-647-374-4685 and entering the meeting ID 301 177 504. We will not be livestreaming this service on Facebook.