357 The Death of Death

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “The Death of Death”, originally shared on April 30, 2025. It was the 357^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   We celebrate lots of things with a meal. One of them is the death of death. Today, we’re going to find out how that works.

   This coming Sunday, May the 4^th, will coincide with Star Wars Day, as in “May the ‘Fourth’ be with you.” The “Force”, in the Star Wars franchise, is presented as a unifying field that controls all things. It can be mastered by living beings to control thoughts and matter. The Jedi are sort of a religious order of beings who have gained control of the force for good, though later in the movies and serials what is “good” and “evil” is not always clear. Some are called Jedi knights, and are actually sort of like Buddhist/ wizards.

   I saw a meme a few months ago that said that people can identify what type of church it is by asking, “Do your pastors dress like hippies, rappers, businessmen, or wizards? 😊 I guess that does say a lot.

   In the Gospel text that will be read in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, John 21:1-19, Jesus has been crucified. Jesus has given his life and died, dead as a doornail. Jesus has taken his life back again. He rose from the dead. He has appeared to his disciples. Twice. OK, that is a lot to process.

   And then this happened, in John 21:1-8,

21 After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. ² Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. ³ Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

⁴ Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. ⁵ Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” ⁶ He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. ⁷ That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. ⁸ But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

   Sure, the disciples had a lot to process. But Jesus had appeared to them twice! They had been given the Holy Spirit. They had been sent into the world.

   And what did they do? Seven of the remaining eleven disciples had gone back to work. They went home. They made the nearly 80-mile trip from Jerusalem to their fishing grounds on the Sea of Tiberias (aka the Sea of Galilee), on foot, and they went fishing. They were commercial fisherman.

   They fished all night and they caught nothing. Nothing. What were they supposed to do now?

   What does that feel like, to work without results? And how do you think they felt, given their circumstances? Like they had let Jesus down? Like they couldn’t get anything right, including their jobs? Like they were being punished by God. Ready to just give up?

   Then, just after daybreak, they were coming in and there was someone on the beach. They didn’t recognize Jesus for who he was. How could they not recognize Jesus? He was dead.

   Well, he had appeared to them. Twice already. After his crucifixion, death, and burial. Was it not light enough yet? Were they just freaked out over seeing the impossible? Were they still in shock?

   Jesus knew what had happened in that fishless night. So, he told them to throw the nets out on the other side of the boat. Like, that would work! Did they all slap their forehead and say, “Oh! Why didn’t we think of that?!” But they did it, and in their obedience to Jesus, willing to do whatever he commanded, no matter how crazy it seemed, they caught so many fish that they weren’t able to haul them all into the boat.

   They weren’t too far from shore though, so the disciples just used the boat to drag the net to the beach.

   And here comes Peter. Peter had let Jesus down even after Jesus told him that he would. Three times! And yet Peter wasn’t so ashamed that he couldn’t fanboy over Jesus and he jumped into the sea to get to him.

   And then this happened, in John 21:9-14,

⁹ When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. ¹⁰ Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” ¹¹ So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. ¹² Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. ¹³ Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴ This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

   Some scholars say that the number 153 is the number of all the nations of the world known to the Jews at that time.

   And that makes sense, because this story includes references to God’s love for the whole world, such that Jesus died for the sake of the world, and of the disciples’ call to go into the world and make disciples.

   It’s kind of a Jesus’ greatest hits compilation. He reassures the disciples with references to where his divinity had been made plain to them in the past.

   Where else did Jesus preside over a meal of bread and fish? The feeding of the 5,000.

   Where else was there a miraculous catch of fish? The calling of the disciples to leave their nets and come and follow Jesus.

   And Jesus presided over this breakfast on the beach to show that he still cared for them. To respond to their guilt over their abandonment of Jesus with forgiveness and reconciliation.

   This is the resurrected Jesus. This Jesus is alive! He was there to do something familiar: share a meal. What was going on, they must have wondered? Was he there to get the old band back together? What was happening?

   How does Jesus deal with us in our inadequacies, with our faithlessness, our divisions, our biting and scratching, in our utter lack of interest in the mission God has given all of us to make disciples of all nations, when none of us dare ask where Jesus is when we all know that he is right here in the midst of us,?

   Jesus reveals himself to us in a meal.

   Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:17-24,

  ²³ For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁵ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

   In Holy Communion we receive forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation. We receive the real presence of God. We commune with God!

   What is the most memorable, the most important, the most necessary meal for life?

   It’s Holy Communion.

   Jesus is present there for us in the forms of bread and wine.

   But wait, there’s more! Our text concludes in John 21:15-19,

¹⁵ When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” ¹⁶ A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” ¹⁷ He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸ Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” ¹⁹ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

   Remember how Peter, in spite of his strong protestations that it would never happen, had denied he even knew who Jesus was, not just once but, three times on the night in which Jesus was arrested and tortured? He was afraid. And I’m guessing that he was not 100% excited to see Jesus now again, alive.

   But how does Jesus approach Peter after the breakfast on the beach? He asks Peter if he loved Him. How many times does he ask him? Three times. One for every denial.

   And how does Jesus respond to Peter’s affirmations? He tells him to take care of those who also belong to Jesus. And he renews Peter’s call and says to him, “Follow me.”

   Peter would have a productive apostolic ministry and finally be taken to prison in Rome and be sentenced to death by crucifixion. Would you be OK with that? Peter wasn’t, but it wasn’t the death part that he objected to. Peter only objected to the method of execution, saying that he was not worthy to die as our Lord had died.

   So, they crucified him hanging upside-down.

   Death itself is not particularly concerning for Christians.

   Paul wrote, in Philippians 1:21-24,

²¹ For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. ²² If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. ²³ I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; ²⁴ but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.

   I saw the body of a dead squirrel in the road near our home a couple of weeks ago, and I felt a sense of loss. It occurred to me that the feral cat that we took into our home had probably chased that squirrel around at one time. We see our cat’s excitement when one of the neighborhood squirrel’s looks at her from a tree branch outside our picture window. We see the squirrels, too, as a part of our neighborhood, so I felt the loss of something that we had experienced as a part of our lives.

   Are they taunting our cat, now, thinking about old times, are they curious, tentative, friendly? All the things that we also feel about death?

    We visited the Joanne Fabric store in La Verne a couple of weeks ago to buy some white fabric for Easter. They were the first of the bankrupt chain’s stores to sell out their merchandise and fixtures and go out of business. We reminisced with the salespeople, agreed that it had been awhile since we had seen each other, and told stories of the people that we knew in common. We spoke like people do at a funeral.

   “Funeral” is a word that is used too much anymore, though. Today it’s more common to call it a “Celebration of Life”. People think funerals are sad or, worse, boring. They want a service that puts the “fun” in funeral.

   It is very discouraging to me when Christians, even people who have been Christians for a long time, abandon the very things that could sustain and comfort them for a service that celebrates the life of the dead, and not the victory of Jesus over death that gives life.

   We want to focus on the good times, not the resurrection, not new life. We think we are beyond that stuff. We are embarrassed by it in front of our friends.

   We want to escape grief for a celebration. That’s why it really hits us hard when the party’s over, and we are left grieving for ourselves, because someone who knew me over time is gone.

   Or at least seems to be.

   That’s why Christians celebrate a living relationship with the one true living God that cannot be taken away from us. It was given to us by God in our baptism. Paul writes in Romans 6:3-5,

³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

   Augustine of Hippo once said, “"There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future" 

Peter experienced this in the breakfast on the beach. And we experience it too.

   God heals the broken. God heals you. Turn to Him and live. Repent and be made whole. Receive baptism and believe. Know the death of death, and come and commune with Jesus. 

356 Why the Bible

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Why the Bible”, originally shared on April 23, 2025. It was the 356^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   This coming Sunday, most churches will experience both the biggest disappointment and the most important message of the year. Today, we’re going to find out what they are.

   This coming Sunday is known as the Second Sunday of Easter, sometimes called “Low Sunday”, or what I call the Sunday of Disappointment!

   It’s the Sunday when we all look around and ask, “Where is everybody?” In Western Christianity it’s also known as Divine Mercy Sunday, the Octave Day of Easter, White Sunday, and Quasimodo Sunday.

   Yes, that’s right, “Quasimodo” Sunday, the name of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, so named because he was found at the cathedral as a hunchbacked infant on “Quasimodo Sunday”, which is named after the first words of the antiphon of the Latin introit in the Mass for this day, 1 Peter 2:2, “quasi modo geniti infantes…” or “Like newborn infants…” It’s also the name of a surfing position. But I digress. 😊

   Last Sunday, The Sunday of the Resurrection of Our Lord, aka Easter Sunday, or to some the Last Sunday after Coachella, our churches were as full as they get.

   Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! We celebrated that in full churches, and this coming Sunday it will be like it never happened.

   There are some people who don’t keep the sabbath holy every Sunday. But if there is one when they do, it is Easter. Others are dragged or guilted-in by insistent friends and relatives. Some are bribed with the promise of candy and, for adults, food afterwards. Some come just because it is what they and/or their family have always done and has become part of their identity. They, as Steely Dan said, “suit up for a game they no longer play”.

   Our churches will have put out their best of everything in the hope that some visitors will come back. And maybe some will but, if you had never been to a church and you were there last Sunday, you’re probably going to be just as flummoxed as everybody else if you come next Sunday.

   Our Gospel text for next Sunday, however, is even more disappointing!

   How do you witness the resurrected body of Jesus after he had told you that he was going to rise from the dead, and not know what to do? The disciples of Jesus were that confused.

   The disciples are gathered on the evening of the Resurrection. They were still processing what had happened in the morning. Then this happens in John 20:19-23,

¹⁹ When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²² When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

   The disciples were all Jews. They were afraid of the Jewish leaders. They were afraid that what had happened to Jesus could happen to them.

   Yet, it’s been said that the Bible says “fear not” or “don’t be afraid” or something like that 366 times, one for every day of the year plus one for a leap year, for a reason! Jesus said these or similar words himself many times.

   So, when Jesus suddenly appears, in a locked room with them, the very first words out of his mouth are “Peace be with you”, sholom aleichem, a common, even casual greeting. Don’t be afraid!

   Then things get weirder. He shows them his wounds, the crucifixion wounds in his hands and on his side. He commissions them with a mini-Pentecost, just for them. He breathes on them.

   What else in the Bible begins with a breath?

   How were human beings created? We see in Genesis 2:7,

⁷ then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

   What is the authority of the Bible? We see in 2 Timothy 3:16-17,

¹⁶ All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

   Other translations replace “inspired” (a word with the same root as words like “respire”) with “God-breathed”. In the Bible, our life comes from God’s breath and God’s breath is the means by which God comes alive for us.

   Put these two together, and you get the last verses of this week’s Gospel reading, the most important message of this or any year. We’ll see how that works in a minute. 😊

   But one disciple, who had ventured out, was not present when Jesus breathed life and power on the disciples. We see who in John 20:24-25,

²⁴ But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

   Then, a week went by, a week from Easter Sunday, like this coming Sunday will be, as our Gospel reading continues in John 20:26-29,

²⁶ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸ Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

   So, there’s a doubter? There will be more. Jesus will send people out anyway.

   Remember how the Great Commission at the end of the Gospel Matthew is given, in Matthew 28:16-20,

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

   These are his disciples! “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” Jesus sends them out to baptize and to teach anyway. What’s new? What matters is that Jesus is with us. Together. That’s all that matters.

   We live in an increasingly secular age. We live in a time when people are skeptical and isolated and estranged and, I believe, are hungry for the real community that God gives.

   Pastor Will Willimon is a Methodist pastor who has also been a seminary professor, university chaplain, the Methodist equivalent of a bishop and is a fine preacher. He tells the story of a young woman who was a member of a congregation he served who made an appointment to see him during the week. She came by his office and said, “Pastor Willimon, I just wanted to say that I won’t be coming to church anymore. I’ve been struggling with my faith for a while, and I just realized that I can’t do it anymore. I appreciate everything that you and the church members have done for me, and I didn’t want to just drift away. I just came to say goodbye.”

   Pastor Willimon tried to address her struggles and encourage her to continue, but she was having none of it. And the next Sunday she was back at worship. And the Sunday after that. And the Sunday after that.

   Finally, Pastor Willimon asked if she could stop by his office again, and she agreed. Pastor Willimon said, “Aren’t you the same person who came by and said that she no longer had faith and wouldn’t be coming to worship anymore?” She smiled and said, “Yes.” “Well then, I’m happy to see you, but could you tell me what happened?” he said.

   “Well,” she answered, “It came to me that sometimes, if you can’t believe for yourself, you have to be with people who will believe for you.”

   So, when people tell me that they are having doubts, I ask them to be consistent in their doubting and to question their doubts as well. Doubt their doubts. And I ask them to continue to be a living part of their Christian Community.

   Thomas came to belief because he saw the risen Christ and put his hand in his wounds. That’s not something that happened to us. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” Jesus said. That’s us, all of us are a part of a Christians community of faith.

   How do people come to believe today?

   According to The Barna Group, 94% of people who come to Christ do so before their 18^th birthday. Study after study has shown that 80-85% of all people who come to Christ do so because of the influence of a friend or a relative. They come to Christ because we share our stories, and they believe that we are believable.

   Each of us has a story to tell of how we became a Christian or why we remain a Christian. Why our consciences are captive to the Word of God.

   Why the Bible?

   This passage from John for next Sunday ends by describing the purpose of the whole Gospel of John with the most important message of this year or of any other year, what I think are two of the most important verses in the Bible. They tell us about what the Bible is, and why it was written, in John 20:30-31,

³⁰ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹ But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

   This is the key to understanding the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

   Before pop-tops, beer and soda cans had rims on both ends of the can and had to be opened with a special pry-tool that made a triangular hole on one side of the can to drink from and another hole on the other side to allow air to flow in in order to let a person drink from the can.

   When pop-tops made their appearance, my grandfather on my father’s side didn’t like them. He said they made the beer taste funny. So, he would drive all over town looking for the places that still sold beer in the plain old cans. One day, my dad said to his dad, “Why don’t you just turn the can upside down?”  😊

   Do you remember, or know, what people called the tool used to open soda and beer cans before pop-tops? A church key.  😊

   What’s the key to understanding the resurrection? Turn it upside down. It’s the cross!

   Without the meaning of the cross, the resurrection is just a happy ending for Jesus. But the cross means that Jesus gave his life for us, and then he took it back again! Therefore, because he lives, we shall live also.

   The cross was the death of death. We who were baptized into Christ have already died in him. Death is a past-tense experience. We only await the continuation of life in Jesus Christ.

   We are a new creation, transformed by the living reality, the name, of Jesus!

   Two little boys were eating the pancakes that their mother had made for them for breakfast one day.

   When the mother stepped out for a few minutes and came back again, she found them fighting over the last pancake. “Boy, boys”, she said. “What would Jesus do?”

   The older brother said, “She’s right, Billy. You be Jesus.”

   Everybody wants to be like Jesus, until it’s time to be like Jesus.

   The plain fact is that all human beings are a mess. We have always been a mess. We sin, we separate ourselves from God. We can make no claim to righteousness of our own.

   Our only witness to ourselves and to the world is the cross, that Jesus gave his life for we sinners, and then he took it back again in the Resurrection to validate the power of the cross. We live to proclaim our gratitude and to live lives that praise God because Jesus has reconciled us to God!

   Life, forgiveness, and salvation are gifts that come from God and that can only come from God. It is the faith in Jesus Christ that is from God alone that saves us forever.

   The purpose of the Bible is to proclaim Christ, and Christ crucified, as proclaimed in John 20:31,

³¹ But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

   Christ has overcome sin, death, and all the forces that defy God. He is Risen. He is Risen, Indeed. We are not disappointed, we have been redeemed.

355 Seven

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Seven”, originally shared on April 16, 2025. It was the 355^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   I have a t-shirt that says, “Body Piercing Saved My Soul”. Today, we’re going to find out why that’s the most important message in history.

   Last Sunday used to be called Palm Sunday in the Christian Calendar and, in some places, it still is. But in many churches, it’s now Palm and Passion Sunday.

   There has always been a shadow of the cross over Palm Sunday, but the emphasis has shifted to making it a flat-out combo now. 😊

   In some places it’s called Palm/Passion Sunday but, technically, the Revised Common Lectionary (the standard three-year cycle of Sunday worship Bible readings used in mainline churches throughout the world), calls it Passion/Palm Sunday.

   That’s right, Palm Sunday doesn’t even get top billing now!

   The reason given for the change of emphasis is the importance of connecting the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem with the shouts of “Hosanna!” to shouts of “Crucify him!” and his execution in the same town on the cross days later.

  The rest of the days of Holy Week, including Maundy Thursday (the beginning of Holy Communion, the giving of the new commandment to love one another as God has loved us, and Jesus washing his disciples’ feet), Good Friday (Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross, bad for Jesus but good for us), and Holy Saturday (the final inner preparations for Easter, and the bridge to Easter Day), used to do that. But that’s changed.

   It’s all combined today, in my opinion, because it’s the admission and fear that people aren’t’ going to show up to worship on Good Friday. Expectations that people will be there for Maundy Thursday to worship have been totally abandoned in many churches. Holy Saturday? Maybe a day to set up the decorations for Easter Sunday.

   But, following the law of intended consequences, naming the Sunday before Easter “Passion/Palm Sunday” takes the focus away from the days in Holy Week, and weakens the perceived connection between Good Friday and Easter.

   I once heard of a local pastor who pointed out the importance of Good Friday to his congregation with a shocking outcome. More about that later.

   I mentioned that I have a T-shirt that says, “Body Piercing Saved my Soul”.

   It’s a reference to Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah in Isaiah 53:5,

⁵ But he was wounded for our transgressions,
    crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
    and by his bruises we are healed.

   (Some translations replace “wounded” with “pierced”.)

   Body piercing saved my soul. And yours.

   It refers to Jesus giving his life on the cross. Jesus gave his life. No one took it from him.

   Jesus said in John 10:17-18,

¹⁷ For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. ¹⁸ No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

   Good Friday, the cross, is the main event. Almost a half of the entire gospel of John is about the last week of Jesus’ life. The resurrection validates that Jesus was who he said he was, that his death on the cross could reconcile God and humanity. There’s no Christianity without the resurrection of Jesus.

   However, that does not detract from the fact that the crucifixion of Jesus is the central event of all human history. His death is what brings life for all humankind.

   And as it was happening in real time, Jesus said seven things as he died. They are known as the seven last words. Here they are:

The First Word:  "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."  Luke 23:34

   I spent a summer when I was in seminary doing a quarter of Clinical Pastoral Education. CPE is a program training prospective pastors to do hospital visits and counseling. It’s very intense and exposes seminarians to a lot of different kinds of life experiences, including preparing them for gross and disfiguring illness and injury.

   The program I was a part of was held at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois.

   One night, there was a humongous thunderstorm, and a lightning bolt hit a transformer that knocked out the power to the hospital. The emergency generators kicked in and all essential services like the operating carols, the Natal Intensive Care Units, respirators, and so on, received power.

   Almost immediately, the switchboard was lit up with calls from very agitated air traffic controllers from the nearby O’Hare International Airport asking what had happened to the florescent cross on the top of the hospital.

   Pilots coming in for landings had used that cross as a visual reference point as they descended and, seeing no cross, had been thinking that they were coming in from the wrong side of the airport. They were pulling up and flying in stacks over O’Hare. They were lost without the cross.

   From that night onward, the cross was included in the emergency power network.

   The cross is our reference point. We see the love of God on it. Forgiveness is what God did to restore the living relationship with God for which we were created.   

 

The Second Word:  "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."  Luke 23:43

   Did you know that there is a local connection to the crucifixion?  Jesus was crucified between two thieves. One taunted Jesus and the other asked Jesus for mercy and received salvation right there. The traditional name of the repentant thief on the cross is “San Dimas”.

    The city of San Dimas, not far from here, gets its name from… well there’s a probably historical story and there’s a more colorful, but less likely, story.

   First, the colorful version the way I heard it.

   When San Dimas was a part of the land grant given by Spain to two Spanish Dons, the area was called Rancho San Jose. It was plagued by horse thieves and cattle rustlers. One of the Dons, Señor Ignacio Palomares, is said to have taken a group of men to search for his stolen property as well as the men who were robbing him. They stopped in what is now San Dimas Canyon, which was filled with remote hiding places. He didn’t find the men, but he knew they were out there, so he prayed loudly that they would repent like the repentant thief on the cross next to Jesus whose traditional name is San Dismas (or a variant) and return his cattle and horses. The name stuck and was taken-on by the town that grew nearby.

   The more likely version is that Don Palomares was from Sonora, Mexico, and there was a village nearby named San Dimas.

   San Dismas, St. Dismas, and San Dimas are all variants of the name. The Lutheran congregation in the Maryland State Correctional System is called The Community of St. Dysmas. Why? Because they wanted to be reminded of something:

   There is no time in which it’s too late to turn to Jesus and be forgiven, no matter how great the sin or how late in life you are because of what Jesus did on the cross for us.

 

The Third Word:  "Woman, behold thy son!"  "Behold thy mother."  John 19:26,27

   Jesus had a mother, and he loved her. One of his last dying concerns was for her security, and he arranged for it from the cross.

   The night that Sally and I had learned that she was expecting our son was a happy night. We went to bed filled with joy. But then the next morning we found that the young man who lived across the street from us when we lived in another town had gone up the street and around the corner to buy cigarettes for his mom around midnight. On his way back, he encountered another young man whose car had a flat tire and stopped to help him.

   Meanwhile, a gang was out looking for the young man with the flat tire, angry over some offense and when they saw him, gunshots rang out. They missed the driver but hit the young man who had lived across the street from us instead. He managed to stumble back to his front lawn and died there. Sally later said that she had felt that someone had died that night.

   In the midst of new life, we were in death. But the message of the cross is that Jesus took the bullet of sin for us, so that in the midst of death, we might be in life, eternal life in a living relationship with the one true living God.

 

The Fourth Word:  "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"  Matthew 27:46

   We are all undergoing a lot of stress, and death is our theme for the coming few days. We are worried about the effects of tariffs, how long they will last, and whether war will come. Some immigrants don’t see a way forward. We are all filled with uncertainty. Will we be OK?

   But on Good Friday, we celebrate the victory of life over death for all who believe and are baptised.

    On Good Friday, we will mark the death of our death, because Christ died for us.

   Good Friday is especially meaningful, therefore, because it gives us insight into one of the big questions: Where is God in my suffering?

   We see part of the answer through the events in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed the night before he died.

   Would you want to know the time that you would die? Jesus knew about his suffering and death that was coming next. He prayed so intensely that he literally sweat blood, asking God if there might be another way. But, nevertheless, he offered himself to the will of God.          

   In addition to his enormous physical pain, he felt that he had been forsaken by God.

   Many scholars believe that it was that moment when the sins of the world were placed upon him.

   Sin separates us from God, and Jesus died to overcome that separation for us.

 

The Fifth Word:  "I thirst."  John 19:28

   I remember reading a story about a congregation that asked people to donate money for easter lilies for its spectacular easter cross display to decorate the altar area and back wall for Easter Sunday. The flowers remained for weeks and drew visitors. One year, a woman decided that she wanted the lily that she had donated back to take to a shut-in. She didn’t think that anybody would miss one lily.

   After the church had cleared out, she crept up to the altar and discovered that almost all the lilies were fake! She confronted the pastor who said that years earlier, the leadership had decided that it was not good stewardship to buy flowers and then throw them away, that they could buy artificial lilies and then keep them every year and use the donated money for good causes. And besides, the pastor said, artificial flowers are a better symbol of the resurrection anyway, because they never died.

   The thing is, though, that they never died because they were never alive. Jesus lived among us, gave up his life, and then took it back again, but gave it up to bridge the gap of separation from God, to reconcile human beings with God. And living things need water.

   Jesus was fully God and fully human being. He needed water as he hung on the cross as the result of time, and torture, and the loss of blood. He was thirsty. But he did not give up.

    “Living water” in at the time of Jesus meant moving waters, like rapids, or a swiftly moving stream.

    “Living water” is the metaphor found in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible to describe the work of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the one God, the ongoing presence of God for good in the world.

   “Living water” points to God’s action in our baptisms. It is an eternal gift from God, and it means that we will never be thirsty for God.

   We belong to God, God has died for us, and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.

 

The Sixth Word:  "It is finished."  John 19:30

  Elie Wiesel in his book Night tells the story of a group of men who were sentenced to death by hanging for trying to escape the Auschwitz prison camp, where Elie Wiesel was also a Jewish prisoner during World War II. There were 9 men and a teenager. When the lever was pulled, each of the men died, but the neck of the teenager, perhaps because of its suppleness, did not snap. Instead, he hung there, dying on the gallows. Elie Wiesel said that he heard a voice, not being sure whether it was from within him or from someone else around him saying, “Where is God?”

   After several more moments a voice said, “Where is God now?” And, another voice said, “He is there, hanging on the gallows.” Any other answer, Wiesel said, would have been blasphemy.

   What does that story mean? Is it about the end of hope, the end of belief; or is it about God always being present with us in our suffering? Part of the message of Good Friday is that God enters into our suffering, that God suffered and died for us that we might have life.

    I’ve heard it said that we are living in uncertain times but, I wonder, are events in any time certain? What can we hold on to that is sure? Jesus answered that question with his seventh word.

 

The Seventh Word:  "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!"  Luke 23:46

    A pastor who served not far from us told the story of having gone in to start his church’s Good Friday service one year, expecting the regular 30-40 people, but finding the place packed, wall to wall, standing room only.

   He said to an usher, “Wow! This is unbelievable!” The usher said, “What do you mean?” The pastor said, “Well, everybody’s here!”

   The usher said, “But you told us that we had to be here.” “What?” the pastor replied.

   “You said that we couldn’t come to church on Easter Sunday if we didn’t come to church on Good Friday.”, the usher said. “What?”, the pastor said.

   The pastor tried to think of what he could have said that the people interpreted in this way.

   And then he remembered that the theme of part of his sermon the previous Sunday, Palm Sunday, was that you can’t know Easter without first knowing Good Friday. The people had taken that to mean, “You can’t come to church on Easter unless you come to church on Good Friday”! 😊

   The message of the cross is that God redeemed the world because God so loved the world.

   What’s so good about Good Friday? It was terrible for Jesus, but it was really good for us.

   I’m not saying that you have to go to Good Friday worship before you can go to church on Easter Sunday, but Easter doesn’t make much sense without it.

   I encourage you to go to a Good Friday service to experience the depth of the riches of the love of God for you on the cross, because body piercing saved your soul.