[RCL]: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25 or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42 Today is a day that weighs heavy on the church. Each year during Holy Week, we hear the passion narrative; each year we resuscitate those familiar feelings, the anguish and disbelief, that accompany Jesus’ death. And yet, each year it strikes differently….

[RCL]: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25 or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42 From noon on Good Friday through Easter Sunday morning is the Christian Passover. In these three days, Jesus passed over from death into life and opened the way for us to follow. The two stories of the Passover and Jesus’ death are…

All week, we have grappled with our dual nature. It began on Palm Sunday. We started by shouting Hosanna to the Son of David and ended shouting for his crucifixion. It’s bewildering and exhausting, being knocked from pillar to post, being confronted with our best selves and our worst selves, hardly knowing from one minute…

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. Today we have heard some of the most beautiful, painful, heart-wrenching passages of scripture, juxtaposed with one of the holiest, most beautiful, painful, heart-wrenching moments of the Christian story. Jesus, our…

“What is truth?” That famous question Pilate asks, stares us in the face every year on Good Friday. The fact that it seemingly is left unanswered remains a challenge to us. Jesus doesn’t seem very interested in verbally defining truth. He says that He IS the way, and the truth, and the life, and Jesus…

Holy dying. There is a truth about the phrase “holy dying,” which seems to come from the title of Jeremy Taylor’s work, The Exercises of Holy Living and Holy Dying, written in the 1600s. The truth is this: dying is often holy – from time to time, when dying becomes beautiful, when it is astonishingly a…

“Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to his disciple, “Here is your mother.” Jesus hangs on the cross. Crowds of people stand around watching the spectacle—some watching in horror, others with indifference, still others with a sense of triumph. “That annoying and dangerous prophet is in the last throes of death, thank God,”…

The Chapel of the Holy Cross is built high into the side of a remote Arizona mountain. A pilgrim facing the chapel from the valley floor immediately sees the tall, narrow stone cross that literally is the building’s structural foundation. The rest of the façade is glass, giving the pilgrim who enters the chapel a…

A priest has told the story of a group of parochial high school students on their way to church to go to confession. As they walked along, they were discussing the Sacrament of Penance, and one among them had very strong views. He considered the notion of confessing one’s sins to be, at best, irrelevant—and,…

After Jesus had washed the feet of all the disciples, then Jesus turned their attention back to the table. He took bread and wine into his hands, blessed them, and shared them with these, his closest friends. “Do this in remembrance of me,” he said. We can imagine the disciples beginning to look questioningly at…