Good Friday 2009

A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on Good Friday evening at Hope House, 1410 Charleston Ave., Huntington, WV.

At this hour of the evening, Christ would have already been taken down off the cross and laid in the tomb, so that his body would not have remained on the cross on the Sabbath, which started at 6pm in the evening by the Jewish reckoning of time.

At the request of the Jewish leaders Pilate’s soldiers had broken the legs of the two criminals so that they would die quickly. But Jesus was already found to be dead, so they pierced his side with a spear just to make sure. At that moment, when blood and water came out of Jesus’ side, the Church was born.

You see, God the Father had it in his mind from the very beginning to create a people for himself – a people that would live in close community with Him and who would delight in obedience to their Lord. We read in Genesis about the Creation of Adam and Eve, and how they fell away from their high calling by virtue of their disobedience. We witness God promising them a Savior and then calling Abraham into covenant with Him in order to be a blessing to all the world. We see the covenant renewed in God’s dealings with Jacob (Israel). And in the Exodus, Moses leads the people out of Egypt after the various plagues which culminated in the Passover.

As the people of Israel leave Egypt and make their way into the desert, they are given the Law and the sign of the circumcision to mark their covenant with God. And while the Law demanded sacrifices in order to cover the sin of the people, yet God’s heart was not so much interested in sacrifice as He was in finding a people with whom he could fellowship – a covenant people.

Now according to something called ‘The Standard Canonical Narrative’, biblical history should be understood in terms of a linear ‘creation –fall-redemption-consummation narrative. In other words, “The Fall disrupted God’s original purpose, while the work of Christ is to redeem the fallen creation and bring to final consummation God’s original purpose in creation.” (Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology, pg. 21.)

Author Simon Chan calls this an ‘instrumentalist’ view of the church – the church is only an ‘instrument of God’s will”. Within this view the church is a means to an end and our value as Church is the extent to which we fulfill or mission. You meet your quota and God likes you, miss the quota, and you’re in trouble.

However, there is another way to understand the Bible’s narrative, and that is to start with the realization that “The church precedes Creation…” (Chan pg. 23). Creation forms the backdrop for God’s elective grace and covenant relationship rather than vice versa.:” (Chan pg. 22). In this view…”The church does not exist in order to fix a broken creation; rather, creation exists to realize the church” (Chan pg. 23).

“God’s highest intention for the world should be seen as [being] the means by which God’s grace of election could be realized. (pg. 22). Alexander Schmemann says it this way: “The Church is not for the world, the world is for the church.”(For the Life of the World). “God made the world in order to make the church. (Chan pg. 23). This means that our basic identity as the church is to be found not in what we do, but in what we are.

So think with me now about Heb. 10:5,6:
“… when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.”

This body that is mentioned is usually understood as Christ’s Human body, but I can’t also help but think of the church. Jesus is called the Head and the Church his Body; we are held together by the work of the Holy Spirit. There is an organic unity between head and body and this unity is designated by the term totus Christus- the total Christ.

The total Christ is not something external to God, but internal. It is a ‘divine-humanity’. The church precedes Creation because it is the body of Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity. The historical existence of the church begins with the Passion of Christ, but again, God is not so much interested in the sacrifice as sacrifice, but in Christ’s willing obedience. As Christ dies in his liturgy of Passover Lamb, His obedience creates the promised Covenant People of God, who are the Body of Christ, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit – what God had in mind all along.

Simon Chan again: “We are not saved as individual first and then incorporated into the church; rather to be a Christian is to be incorporated into the church by baptism and nourished with the spiritual food of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Failure to understand this fact has led to a reduction of the church’s role to a largely sociological one of a service provider catering to individual believer’s spiritual needs.” (pg. 24.)

Application
Going back to our text in Hebrews: Since we are the covenant people of God, we are admonished to … draw near with a true heart …to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, to stir up one another to love and good works, and to encourage one another …

The Four Practices
This past fall, I introduced the Four Practices, which were based on Acts 2:42: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Now we can also tie this in with our scripture for today: Hebrews 10: 22-25: The Four Practices were: Worship, Formation, Mission and Community.

Again, it’s important to remember that it is because we are organically linked to Christ that these practices are not ‘works of the law’, but functions of the body –activities which both make the body and build it up.

I’d like to hand out a (see attached) chart that shows how all this links together in our life as All Saints Anglican Church.

At the bottom of the page we show Company of Jesus, meaning that the monastic spirituality of Benedict and Francis are the wellsprings of spiritual vitality for Anglicanism in general and this congregation in particular.

Our Formation as disciples is based on the Apostle’s teaching as guided by the wisdom of generations of monastics, and over the next several months, we will be studying this more in depth.

We have talked previously about Hope House becoming the center of an Urban Third Order ‘mother House” of the CoJ, in which Company members would move into the immediate area and gather at Hope House for prayer and spiritual friendship (Anam Chara). Our small groups will come to function as ‘priories’ as it were, small communities devoted to encouragement, intercessory and healing prayer, fellowship and Mission.

Worship in this Community centers around the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread in which we ‘draw near’ to God and ‘become what we are” – the body of Christ in our public worship services. The Offices of prayer will also be held at Hope House daily and our Memorial Services reach out to the community to heal the wounds of violence and oppression.

That of course, is Mission. We don’t normally think of it this way, but our Worship is Mission. But Hope House is the focus of our outreach. The Neighboring Initiative is centered here and our outreach to the young people of our community and Victims’ families will take place from this location.

This is the Spiritual DNA of All Saints Anglican Church.
And it’s all because of what happened on Good Friday, some 2000 years ago at Calvary, when Jesus bled and died for us, His body.

I said at the beginning of Lent that on Easter we would ask ourselves to stand and make a Public Commitment to these Four Practices. I do apologize to everyone as I was overly optimistic about visiting with you all individually and developing your own Rule of Life. But that can come in the days ahead. For now, let’s review what it is we are asking you to commit to. Here are the questions I will ask you on Sunday:

Liturgy of Public Commitment
Do you trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

Have you been baptized in water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?

Do you believe the Christian faith as revealed in Holy Scripture and as set forth and summarized in the Apostles Creed?

Do you take up your cross daily and follow Jesus Christ as his disciple?

Do you desire to embrace the 4 Practices of Worship, Community, Formation and Mission as your Rule of Life?

Will you practice Mission; committing yourself to love and serve God’s world in word
and deed.

Will you practice Community: intending to know, serve and love other participants in
All Saints Anglican Church?

Will you practice Formation; intending to use spiritual disciplines to cooperate with the
Holy Spirit in order to grow into Christ-like character?

Will you practice Worship; committing yourself to participate well in the public worship of All Saints Anglican Church?

As we voice our commitment to these practices, may God confirm and strengthen us as His body, His very presence here on earth, born through his blood and nourished at His Table. May he renew His covenant with Him, and may we be found faithful stewards of the Grace of life found within us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.