St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by the Very Reverend Rowan Smith in the Cathedral Church of St George the Martyr at the Three Hours Devotion on Good Friday, 10 April 2009

“ And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.” John 19 v 42

The pattern of our devotion of these three hours now draws to a close and we welcome this final act - the body of Jesus is removed from the cross as was required by Deuteronomic law. Permission has still to be sought from Pilate because the Roman authorities intended death by crucifixion to be a deterrent in the same way that today, some people went to restore, capital punishment in our country, 'as a deterrent.'

It has been a harrowing experience standing here at Calvary because we needed to be here. We have come not as spectators but rather like Joseph of Aramatthea and Nicodemus, disciples who yes are timid so that we do not even have the courage to run away. We have no choice because:

“My song is love unknown
my Saviour's love to me,
love to the loveless shown
that they might lovely be ,,,” (AMR 102)

Timid, yet knowing that we are loved despite ourselves, despite our betrayals, our denials; despite our fear, despite our ingratitude. We are here with Mary, his mother, with the beloved disciple and the other women, who had ministered to him out of their means. St Luke says of these women:

“…they saw the tomb and how his body was laid.
Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.” 23 v 50

Perhaps that is why they left Joseph and Nicodemus to perform this rather hurried burial preparation; aware that the Sabbath was upon them, they went off to procure the spices, which they would use when Sabbath ended. In our day so much is handed over to others so for example we have wedding planners rather than the two families learning to work together; so too in many communities, and my maternal grandmother was one such, there were women who washed and prepared the body before the undertakers came. Today it is all done for us and we cannot perform this last 'mitzvah', a blessing. In the old Catechism this was described as a “corporal act of mercy.”

So we now join Nicodemus and Joseph in preparing the body of Jesus for burial. It is quite amazing how many artists have depicted this scene so very differently as can be seen in our Lady Chapel or the painting by Frank Spears at the High Altar for example. Here we are confronted with the Pieta, that is Our Lady holding the body of her son, Jesus. One hymn, in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary says:

“Thy Baby he lay upon thy breast'
To thee he cried for food;
Thy gentle nursing soothed to rest
The incarnate Son of God.” (AMR 515)

Now she nurses his dead body.

It is often said that the pain of a parent is greater when there is the death of a child. Sadly, in recent months we have seen too many 'Pietas', in Gaza; in Pakistan, in Darfur and more recently in Italy; women weeping over their son or daughter and crying out to God 'Why?' So too should we / because we stand not only alongside Mary and John but beside every other mother who mourns the death of a child. How different it has all turned out, it was not how the story was supposed to end. And as we look on this body, so disfigured we recall the words of Pilate as he presented Jesus to the crowd, comically dressed with a purple cloak and a crown fashioned out of a thorn bush: “Here is the man.” John 19 v 5 or a Latin “Ecce Homs”

Here is he who is the image of God, the Word made flesh. Do we recognise ourselves in him; do we see ourselves in this broken figure? It is hard to accept that what we are faced with is nothing but failure.

“And so because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.”

We can do no more and so we enter the tomb with Jesus Christ. Here we are called to total abandonment as we wait in eager hope, not anticipating what it will be, but as with Jesus so with us, saying;

“Father, into your hands l, commend my spirit.” Luke 23 v 4

There are those who object to Our Lord being depicted on the Cross saying that we believe in the resurrection. Yes we do but as those who love and follow Jesus we can do no other but allow ourselves to be embraced by God's love on the cross and so pass through death to life. So as we lay the body there, so also we lay all that has married and disfigured God's image in us. You see we are like the Prince in Beauty and the Beast, made ugly by our selfishness and self-centred. So too we must learn to love but more, we must allow ourselves to be loved, to be loved by God. We must all die to our false images of God, the God who burdens us with guilt. So today we need to die to our fear of letting go, because today God invites each one of us to dare to live, to dear to love, to become as Christ, who is the image of God. So we wait as we pray:

“O dearly has he loved
and we must love him too.
and trust in his redeeming blood,
and try his works to do.” (AMR 24)

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