[Editor's note: This is the first of a series of three reflections by Dr. Seitz.]
Good Friday Service
St Matthews Anglican Church
Toronto21 March 2008 The Revd Christopher Seitz
John 18:1-27
"And when he said to them 'I am He' they drew back and fell to the ground."
Good Friday provides us a second occasion-the traditional occasion-to reflect on the Passion of our Lord. The Gospel of John is exactly suited (designed) for this. For it too is a second and more in-depth look at the Passion, than what we had in Matthew on Palm Sunday.
It is possible to be too close to things to grasp their full significance. John does not offer a different story so much as one where the proportions are redrawn: this is true of the events themselves as he sees them, but also especially their significance. History is always more than a camera taking pictures, and in the case of this story, how much more that is true. John wants us to see the deep significance of what Jesus has done on these last days of his earthly life. Even through a lifeless body hanging from a cross-a man whose history is over-God will continue to speak forth his word of life and truth. History is more than one thing after another. It has a center and a Man on a cross is that center.
One could even say that Jesus most fully shows us who he is-not only as he approaches death; not only as he explains his death to Pilate, to Mary, to the beloved disciple, to the Jews, to Peter and to us. But as his body pours forth the water of the Holy Spirit and opens the eyes of the first church, the church he has created at the foot of the cross, to see in death a new kind of life, forever changing us and giving us a hope we dared not hope for before.
But that is getting ahead of things. Let us start at the beginning. It is important to get the sweep of events and understand their details, because in these details, God is doing his deeper and permanent work. That work is meant to edify and renew us, as we watch our Lord go to his death in a way no man has ever faced death before.
1. John's account begins with Jesus and the disciples going to the place where they had often met together, to a garden across the Kidron Valley. He goes there because he knows Judas will seek him there. Jesus has already prayed for and said goodbye to his disciples. Several chapters earlier he told Peter that he would deny him, and in chapter 16 he told the others "the hour is coming and indeed now is when you will be scattered, each to his own home." John does not see that as a tragedy, but as a necessity. As Jesus puts it: "Where I am going you cannot go."
So Jesus volunteers himself to Judas and the soldiers: he comes forward and asks who they are looking for. To underscore this boldness and resolve, Jesus speaks the words that God spoke to Moses at the burning bush-I am who I am-and which he has spoken through John's Gospel. "I am." The soldiers fall to the ground as did Moses before them. Such is the presence and power of God's word spoken by God's son.
It is made clear at the outset in this Passion Account. We are entering holy ground.
The first thing John wants to say is that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who cares for his sheep. He said not one of them would be lost, and here he makes good on that. "Let these men go." Jesus is not abandoned by us in John. He has come to rescue us and save us, and is stronger than we are and knows what we need better than we do. He asks us to submit to that truth, and let him lead the way. "I am not alone because the Father is with me" could almost serve as a title to hang over Jesus's cross, above the title Pilate writes.
2. John's second point is that this confrontation with Jesus at his death is one that ignites and exposes evil from two opposing forces. These forces are in a death grip with each other, and they unite against Jesus to show the extent of human trapped-ness and sin sickness in the heart. Judas comes with the Jewish police from the Sanhedrin, and with a cohort of Roman soldiers, both. The Jews mean to arrest Jesus and the soldiers mean to keep the peace. But they cannot know that they are about to be taken into a vortex where their weapons and peace keeping are useless. The civil and religious forces, Roman and Jewish, hate and loathe one another, but here they join forces. In the end, the religious leaders become good Roman citizens, and the Roman ruler is scared to the bottom of his soul because he is facing a man unlike any other he has ever faced and in so doing finds he has a soul after all - brutal and ill formed though it is.
John reports Jesus being taken first to Annas, the high-priest, and father of the high-priest Caiaphas. We know this family because they had a monopoly on religious leadership for 25 years. Caiaphas, John reminds us, is the one who advised that Jesus be killed after he raised Lazarus from the dead.
John does not dwell on the trial in the Sanhedrin because for him the real trial is yet to come: where Pilate and the religious leaders get in a contest of hate and so expose one another as they seek to demonstrate power in the face of the Man who knows everything about them both. So the meeting with the high priest serves only to move the matter forward to Pilate.
There is a fly in the ointment in the prosecuting of their evil designs. The Jews cannot put a man to death, except by stoning, according to their law, and even that right of capital punishment has been taken from them by the Romans. But all that has its own sense in the plans of God, because Jesus has said, "I, when I am lifted up I will draw all men to myself." Only the hatred of the religious leaders and the brutal efficiency of the Romans together can conspire to bring about the death Jesus has predicted. Death on a Cross. By this kind of a death, the Jews believe Jesus will be, according to Deuteronomy, a curse: cursed is he who hangs from the tree. But in this death, Jesus sees a lifting up that will draw us all to him, to see in him and in his brutal death a taking upon him all our worst deeds and thoughts: here displayed in sharpest relief in the designs of Jew and Gentile both.
The high priest is supposed to ask for witnesses, for two can testify and so bring a guilty verdict. Instead he seeks to get Jesus to condemn himself. At issue is secret enticing of Israel away from the worship of God - a capital offense according to Deuteronomy. False prophesy. But Jesus has done nothing in secret. So the ploy of Annas fails. All they can do is strike out in frustration and hand Jesus over to Pilate.
3. Our lesson ends with Peter's denial. For John it lacks the tragic element because it was always going to be this way. Jesus is about his Father's business. It was foolish for Peter to think that he could share in the Father's work at this hour. His hour will come later, when, empowered by this work of Christ, he is given new life and strength. For now, he, like us, is to watch. Like the Israelites at the sea, it is the time for God to do his work. "You have only to stand still, and see the mighty work of God," Moses says. John is about to take us to the heart of the matter, across a sea of death and foreboding. But Jesus has said: "I am not alone for the Father is with me."
Let us stand still, then, and watch his mighty work.
Continue to part 2 of these reflections....
Good Friday Service
St Matthews Anglican Church
Toronto21 March 2008 The Revd Christopher Seitz
John 18:1-27
"And when he said to them 'I am He' they drew back and fell to the ground."
Good Friday provides us a second occasion-the traditional occasion-to reflect on the Passion of our Lord. The Gospel of John is exactly suited (designed) for this. For it too is a second and more in-depth look at the Passion, than what we had in Matthew on Palm Sunday.
It is possible to be too close to things to grasp their full significance. John does not offer a different story so much as one where the proportions are redrawn: this is true of the events themselves as he sees them, but also especially their significance. History is always more than a camera taking pictures, and in the case of this story, how much more that is true. John wants us to see the deep significance of what Jesus has done on these last days of his earthly life. Even through a lifeless body hanging from a cross-a man whose history is over-God will continue to speak forth his word of life and truth. History is more than one thing after another. It has a center and a Man on a cross is that center.
One could even say that Jesus most fully shows us who he is-not only as he approaches death; not only as he explains his death to Pilate, to Mary, to the beloved disciple, to the Jews, to Peter and to us. But as his body pours forth the water of the Holy Spirit and opens the eyes of the first church, the church he has created at the foot of the cross, to see in death a new kind of life, forever changing us and giving us a hope we dared not hope for before.
But that is getting ahead of things. Let us start at the beginning. It is important to get the sweep of events and understand their details, because in these details, God is doing his deeper and permanent work. That work is meant to edify and renew us, as we watch our Lord go to his death in a way no man has ever faced death before.
1. John's account begins with Jesus and the disciples going to the place where they had often met together, to a garden across the Kidron Valley. He goes there because he knows Judas will seek him there. Jesus has already prayed for and said goodbye to his disciples. Several chapters earlier he told Peter that he would deny him, and in chapter 16 he told the others "the hour is coming and indeed now is when you will be scattered, each to his own home." John does not see that as a tragedy, but as a necessity. As Jesus puts it: "Where I am going you cannot go."
So Jesus volunteers himself to Judas and the soldiers: he comes forward and asks who they are looking for. To underscore this boldness and resolve, Jesus speaks the words that God spoke to Moses at the burning bush-I am who I am-and which he has spoken through John's Gospel. "I am." The soldiers fall to the ground as did Moses before them. Such is the presence and power of God's word spoken by God's son.
It is made clear at the outset in this Passion Account. We are entering holy ground.
The first thing John wants to say is that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who cares for his sheep. He said not one of them would be lost, and here he makes good on that. "Let these men go." Jesus is not abandoned by us in John. He has come to rescue us and save us, and is stronger than we are and knows what we need better than we do. He asks us to submit to that truth, and let him lead the way. "I am not alone because the Father is with me" could almost serve as a title to hang over Jesus's cross, above the title Pilate writes.
2. John's second point is that this confrontation with Jesus at his death is one that ignites and exposes evil from two opposing forces. These forces are in a death grip with each other, and they unite against Jesus to show the extent of human trapped-ness and sin sickness in the heart. Judas comes with the Jewish police from the Sanhedrin, and with a cohort of Roman soldiers, both. The Jews mean to arrest Jesus and the soldiers mean to keep the peace. But they cannot know that they are about to be taken into a vortex where their weapons and peace keeping are useless. The civil and religious forces, Roman and Jewish, hate and loathe one another, but here they join forces. In the end, the religious leaders become good Roman citizens, and the Roman ruler is scared to the bottom of his soul because he is facing a man unlike any other he has ever faced and in so doing finds he has a soul after all - brutal and ill formed though it is.
John reports Jesus being taken first to Annas, the high-priest, and father of the high-priest Caiaphas. We know this family because they had a monopoly on religious leadership for 25 years. Caiaphas, John reminds us, is the one who advised that Jesus be killed after he raised Lazarus from the dead.
John does not dwell on the trial in the Sanhedrin because for him the real trial is yet to come: where Pilate and the religious leaders get in a contest of hate and so expose one another as they seek to demonstrate power in the face of the Man who knows everything about them both. So the meeting with the high priest serves only to move the matter forward to Pilate.
There is a fly in the ointment in the prosecuting of their evil designs. The Jews cannot put a man to death, except by stoning, according to their law, and even that right of capital punishment has been taken from them by the Romans. But all that has its own sense in the plans of God, because Jesus has said, "I, when I am lifted up I will draw all men to myself." Only the hatred of the religious leaders and the brutal efficiency of the Romans together can conspire to bring about the death Jesus has predicted. Death on a Cross. By this kind of a death, the Jews believe Jesus will be, according to Deuteronomy, a curse: cursed is he who hangs from the tree. But in this death, Jesus sees a lifting up that will draw us all to him, to see in him and in his brutal death a taking upon him all our worst deeds and thoughts: here displayed in sharpest relief in the designs of Jew and Gentile both.
The high priest is supposed to ask for witnesses, for two can testify and so bring a guilty verdict. Instead he seeks to get Jesus to condemn himself. At issue is secret enticing of Israel away from the worship of God - a capital offense according to Deuteronomy. False prophesy. But Jesus has done nothing in secret. So the ploy of Annas fails. All they can do is strike out in frustration and hand Jesus over to Pilate.
3. Our lesson ends with Peter's denial. For John it lacks the tragic element because it was always going to be this way. Jesus is about his Father's business. It was foolish for Peter to think that he could share in the Father's work at this hour. His hour will come later, when, empowered by this work of Christ, he is given new life and strength. For now, he, like us, is to watch. Like the Israelites at the sea, it is the time for God to do his work. "You have only to stand still, and see the mighty work of God," Moses says. John is about to take us to the heart of the matter, across a sea of death and foreboding. But Jesus has said: "I am not alone for the Father is with me."
Let us stand still, then, and watch his mighty work.
Continue to part 2 of these reflections....
