Message.

I wonder how many of us shut our eyes while we’re watching the news on television? I do, and it’s not necessarily because I’m nodding off. No; it’s because I cannot bear to see many of the horrific scenes that are shown. Quite apart from the tragic consequences of earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters, we have seen so many scenes of warfare: apartment blocks – peoples’ homes – toppled in a single blast, hospitals amazingly still treating the maimed and blinded in the most appalling conditions, the pathetic queues of people in cars, lorries and donkey-carts laden with possessions seeking to find a place which might just be a little safer … you’ve all seen them, you don’t need me to spell out the details. What I find most chilling of all are the aircraft cockpit videos: we might see a lorry trundling along a road or a small boat chugging across the ocean when – wham! – it is obliterated. One has to remind oneself that it’s not just equipment or hardware that’s been destroyed; we are seeing human lives being wiped out. It is, of course, good to know what’s going on in our world: but should we be watching this as we munch our dinner, or is that slightly obscene?

I’m sure that all of us, as we’ve seen the death and destruction in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, the Ukraine or wherever, have asked ourselves, “Where is God in all this?” We may have prayed for peace – as I have – while at the same time being unable to banish the niggling thought in our head which says, “Is there really any point?” Or we may have looked with aching hearts at those injured, bereaved or dispossessed people and thought, “We say that God cares, but is that actually true? If it is, why doesn’t he do something for these desperate folk?” I know that wars are started and fought by humans and can’t be thought of as “acts of God”; nevertheless seeing the plight of so many, apparently abandoned by God, challenges and tests our faith to its core.

In July 1943 a 17 year-old Air Force Auxiliary was stationed at an ant-aircraft battery in the centre of Hamburg when the Royal Air Force launched its “Operation Gomorrah” bombing raid. Hundreds of aircraft dropped thousands of tons of bombs; these caused firestorms which destroyed much of the city centre. The lad survived the raid unharmed although the friend standing next to him was torn to shreds. Although he had not had a Christian upbringing, the young man cried out to God for the first time that night: “My God, where are you?” The question “Why am I not dead too?” haunted him for the rest of his life, driving him to God and turning him into one of the most celebrated theologians of his day. Jurgen Moltmann died two years ago at the age of 98; his book “The Crucified God” has much to say to us on Good Friday.

And what it’s saying is basically this: as Jesus suffers on the Cross, he doesn’t only suffer for us but with us. Let me unpack that a bit. The Cross tells us that God does not observe our suffering from a safe distance, he’s not looking at our world as a mere spectator. No; God comes into our world and fully participates in it, even to a ghastly and painful conclusion. The Cross shows us God’s total solidarity with humanity in this world of suffering; it shows us God allowing himself to suffer as we do. He didn’t do that because he was obliged to; it’s something he chose to do out of love for the people he had created. So, as Jesus dies, he takes on the pain and anguish of the whole world.

This is perhaps a different way of thinking about the Cross to the one you are most used to. For we tend to think of Jesus’s death in very personal terms: he died on my behalf, he nailed my sin to the Cross, Good Friday means that I am forgiven. We see this emphasis in many devotional hymns, such as this one by Isaac Watts:

Alas! and did my Saviour bleed, and did my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?

Or this verse from “Man of sorrows” by Philip Bliss:

Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood,
sealed my pardon with his blood: Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

And this longer verse from Stainer’s “Crucifixion”:

Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me,
while he is nailed to the shameful tree;
scorned and forsaken, derided and cursed:
see how his enemies do their worst!
Yet, in the midst of the torture and shame,
Jesus, the Crucified, breathes my name!
Wonder of wonders, oh! How can it be?
Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me!

There’s nothing wrong, of course, in having a deep personal faith; and those hymns are thoroughly Biblical in what they’re saying. But they paint too small a picture, they offer us too limited a view of what Jesus achieved on the Cross. It’s not just about him taking away our personal sin and guilt. It’s about him bearing the totality of the world’s sins, all its sadnesses and suffering which, quite apart from the physical pain Jesus endured, was an unimaginably crushing load – which he bore willingly. His death was good news for the entire created order.

I hope that you have found these thoughts helpful. However they don’t do away with all the doubts and questions I asked at the start of this message. Indeed you might be thinking, “Jesus suffered, God suffers, with the world – so what? That doesn’t seem to make any difference to the way things actually are; people are still suffering and dying and God-talk won’t help them. What we want to see is action but that’s we don’t seem to be getting it”. Well, if that’s what you’re thinking, you’re not alone: those are my questions too. And my only answer to them can be, “Good Friday is followed by Easter, death is followed by new life, darkness is followed by light, despair is followed by hope and joy”.

As Christians we believe that there’s a new world coming; that’s the Easter promise. But it does seem to be taking an interminably long time! For the moment – indeed, for the last two thousand years – we have been and still are living in that in-between period between the Cross and Resurrection. Somehow we must believe that victory truly has been won. It’s not easy. But perhaps the thought of the Christ who suffers and weeps with us can offer us some encouragement. In these dark times, that may be the best I can offer you.