Dear Friends,
Our reading for Good Friday is two entire chapters. Please settle in and read John 18:1-19:42, the story of Jesus’s Passion. It’s quite long and complicated, and I’m not going to go into all the theological questions it raises. It would be better, I think, to use our time this evening to read these chapters slowly and carefully. Put aside your questions, and use your imagination to experience this most solemn and painful of days.
Jerusalem was a walled city. It was destroyed in 70 CE when Rome nearly razed it to the ground. The city walls are lost, except where they are revealed through the rigors of archeological excavation and analysis, but a remnant of the Temple wall survives to this day. This is the wall you see in photos and news footage. Everyday citizens as well as world leaders pray by this wall and insert prayers on tiny slips of paper into its cracks and fissures. The Temple stood intact and magnificent in the city that Jesus walked. At the time of Jesus, Golgotha was outside the city walls.
So, now you have a picture of the place. It’s time to get to the swiftly-moving story. This past Wednesday, we read that after Jesus had confronted Judas, “[Judas] immediately went out. And it was night.” (John 13:30) The sun had set and night had fallen. Good Friday began with that sunset.
After Judas left the Upper Room, Jesus gave his final discourse – his final teachings – to his disciples. (John 13:31- 17:26)
And now we arrive at our reading for today. “After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden.” (John 18:1) That garden was Gethsemane. Try to imagine Jesus walking from the Upper Room in Jerusalem to the garden on the Mount of Olives. This was the place “across the Kidron Valley” that John describes. Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday from the Mount of Olives, and it was here that he was arrested on Good Friday.
He was then taken back into the city for an informal trial before Annas. Annas was the son-in-law of Caiaphas, who was the chief priest of the Sanhedrin, which was the ruling council in Jerusalem. The trial took place at the home of Caiaphas, located just north and east of the Upper Room.
From the High Priest’s home, Jesus was sent to Pilate’s headquarters, located in Herod the Great’s Palace at the northwest corner of the Upper City, sometimes marked on maps as the Royal Palace Praetorium. During his interrogation of Jesus, Pilate took him out of the palace to Gabbatha, the Stone Pavement (John 19:13).
After Pilate condemned Jesus to death by crucifixion, Jesus was forced to carry his cross to Golgotha, called the Place of the Skull in John. (John 19:17) It’s located outside of the city walls, north and east of the Royal Palace. He carried the instrument of his execution for approximately a quarter of a mile.
Here Jesus died. He was placed in a tomb just north of the site of the crucifixion. His crucifixion and burial were outside the city walls. Burials under Roman rule were never within city walls, and to this day in Rome, outside the city walls, we can visit catacombs that date to at least the first century.
Good Friday forces us to contemplate the torture and death of Jesus. It’s a day marked by deep emotional and spiritual heaviness for all Christians. And it’s a day marked by forewarnings and prophesies. Consider, for example, the single verse about Nicodemus’s gift of myrrh for Jesus’s burial in John 19:39. We’ve come across this costly spice before, in Matthew, when the Magi bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the newborn Jesus. And we’ve heard about gold and frankincense in Isaiah 60:6, which we consider a prophesy of the Messiah whom we know as Jesus the Christ, when we learn about costly gifts for a new king. In Isaiah, however, those gifts are only gold and frankincense; there is no myrrh.
What is the significance of these gifts, and then of the introduction of myrrh into the story of Jesus? All are costly, much like the perfume Mary used to wash Jesus’s feet. We know what gold is; it’s been highly valued since ancient times. Frankincense is an aromatic oil used to calm and soothe, appropriate for a newborn and for healing and comfort for all who suffer. Myrrh, on the other hand, is a bitter oil most commonly used as one of the herbs and spices for embalming at the time of Jesus. Thus, from the very beginning of Jesus’s earthly life, we have a hint of his kingship, with the gifts of gold and frankincense, and of his death, with the gift of myrrh from the Magi, and now, from Nicodemus. The same gift given at his birth is given at his death.
The story seems to have come full circle. “It is finished,” says Jesus in John 19:30 before he “bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” But the circle is not yet closed; Easter is yet to come.
I received an e-mail today from Ellen Davis, a professor at the Divinity School at Duke, as a Good Friday meditation. She reminded me of a compelling phrase from a Gregorian chant. “In the midst of life, we are in death.” Death is part of life, not the end of life. As Christians, we believe that though death may change our life in ways we cannot know, death is not the victor. Life is the victor. Today, we experience the death of Jesus. In the midst of Jesus’s glorification, he is dead. Yet be assured, my friends, the glory of Easter morning is fast approaching.
This evening, let us pray from the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship together,
O God, who gave us birth, you are ever more ready to hear than we are to pray. You know our needs before we ask, and our ignorance in asking. Show us now your grace, that as we face the mystery of death we may see the light of eternity. Speak to us once more your solemn message of life and of death. Help us to live as those who are prepared to die. And when our days here are ended, enable us to die as those who go forth to live, so that living or dying, our life may be in Jesus Christ our risen Lord. Amen.