Good Friday

The Passion story never gets easier to hear. There’s part of me that says we just need to let that terrifying story speak for itself while we rest here for 12 minutes in stunned silence, taking it all in. I’ve been an Episcopalian all my life — long before I was ordained a priest now almost seven years ago — so I’ve heard, and read, this story for as many years as I am old, and it always just knocks me back. One time at All Saints’ Atlanta, where our family worshiped for 35 years or so, a woman in the congregation was so moved during the reading of the passion that she began to weep and wail, howling with the fresh grief of someone experiencing the passion story for the first time. While it’s also true that she was part of a significant unhoused population in All Saints’ urban neighborhood, and had emotional and behavioral health concerns that contributed to her distress, was her response out of measure with the horror we’ve just heard again? Do we grow numb to the violence, the injustice, and the steadfast, aching, shining presence of Jesus’ perfect integrity even unto death through the passage of years, translations, history, and cultural change? Maybe. It’s horrible, and we can’t lose sight of that. 

Elaine Pagels, renowned historian and scholar of early Christianity, describes the different issues at stake in the Passion story told in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, versus the Passion story in John. They all tell the same story, but bring out different details and emphases. John’s version, Pagels writes, is “deliberately theological” and therefore “more resistant to straightforward historical reading… .” In John, the passion is not just an execution story but part of a cosmic drama in which Jesus is clearly presented the divine controller of the events as they unfold, fulfilling prophecies from Exodus, Zechariah, and the Psalms. John’s gospel interprets the crucifixion as a revelation of Jesus’ identity, rather than simply the culmination of suffering and abandonment. 

Well, that’s a very meta view. But all the same, there has to be something in this story that is both horrifying and all about Jesus’ faithfulness and steady insistence on love. There has to be something here that points us back to Galilee, moving us out of the tomb and into the steady work of God’s good news of belonging and inclusion. Let’s just agree with the eminent Dr. Pagels’ academic assertion that the project of John’s gospel is to tell the story of Jesus’ divinity. But now, let’s lean in close to the text to find the hope and the trail of holy breadcrumbs that lead us back to Galilee, to Jesus’ life of loving, feeding, sharing, and radical inclusion that he suffered and died for in order to show us what God looks like in human skin. 

While there’s a glimmer of hope in each gospel’s passion story, in John’s gospel, I think it’s all about the charcoal. Now, are you with me here? We read in John’s Passion, Now the servants and the guards made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself. REALLY? A charcoal fire to warm themselves? We all know that charcoal burns hot and fast, and is and always has been an ideal cooking fuel. Charcoal is not what we would put in our fireplaces on a chilly winter night (or an early spring night in Newport). And even though the passion story in each of the gospels is one of the longest readings in our church year, there is not a wasted word. Every detail is important. 

The word for charcoal in New Testament Greek, anthrakia, is used only twice in the New Testament, both times in John’s gospel. The first time is here, when the text tells us that the servants and guards made a charcoal fire because they were cold. The second is later in Galilee, when Jesus shows up on the beach, risen from the dead, to give the disciples some fishing advice and then cook their catch for breakfast over a charcoal fire. Coal fires are set apart in the Hebrew Bible, for the burning of incense, and for purification. In Chapter 6 of Isaiah, just for example, a seraph uses a pair of tongs to touch a live coal taken from the altar to Isaiah’s mouth, purifying him for prophecy. And just in case we didn’t notice the first time, John’s gospel repeats  that Peter is warming himself by the charcoal fire — first when he denies Jesus for the first time, and again as the cock crowed after his second and third denials. 

Fast forward to the charcoal fire on the beach, which is not just to roast the disciples’ abundant catch for breakfast. We are meant to remember Isaiah, the seraph, and the burning coal that prepared Isaiah to speak for God. On the beach, Jesus asks Peter the same question three times, as many times as Peter had denied him at Gethsemane:  Do you love me, Simon Peter?  Peter answers, You know I do, Lord, his distress and conviction increasing with each repetition. By the end, Peter is not simply being forgiven. He is restored, purified, and prepared for the work ahead. We can see the trail of holy breadcrumbs from the glow of the charcoal embers in Gethsemane, leading us from the cross back to our own Galilees, back to the main point of Jesus’ ministry: inclusion, welcome, sharing, feeding, and caring for each other. Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs. Today, we stand before the cross. But even here — flattened by the dark horror of the passion — we can see our way by the light of the glowing coals, and follow the familiar aroma of the charcoal cooking fire, back home to Galilee. 

Going back to our Lenten Episcopalian orthodoxy for a minute, remember we fast from Alleluias until Easter. The Book of Common Prayer codifies this practice, adding after every Alleluia — just check it out if you don’t believe me — [In Lent, Alleluia is omitted.]. After divinity school, I had a fellowship at St. George’s College in Jerusalem, where I walked through the Church’s liturgical year with Christians of all denominations, learning their traditions.   I learned — with delight and amazement — that our Orthodox Christian friends in Jerusalem don’t fast from Alleluias during Lent! In fact, like people who already know how the story ends, they say Alleluia more during Lent than any other time of year, remembering the resurrection even at the cross. Now, especially after Bishop Knisely’s excellent sermon from this very pulpit Tuesday extolling obedience as the primary feature of a good priest, I’m not recommending that we should just break out the Alleluias on Good Friday. I’m just saying that the horror of this moment on the cross is not the final word. We find our way back to Galilee around the table, in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers, by the glowing embers of the charcoal fire. And now we wait in hope. Amen