EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Good Friday, April 10, 2020. This was the fourth digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.
We gather tonight, many of us with heavy hearts ... many of us, maybe, having the weight of Good Friday for the very first time sink in a very real and distinct way.
The news that surrounds us continues to be bleak. As we continue to progress toward Sunday. As Bishop Elizabeth Eaton said in a video that she released today: It is not lost on any of us that in a time that our very Christian church celebrates Christ rising from the dead, death has its grips on us now, and is trying to tear and render our faith. And so, however you come into service tonight, whether it is with a heavy heart, or with the anticipation of Sunday, we hope together as a Faith Family, as one large church body.
Interestingly today, as I thought about today's service, and I thought about that terrible oxymoron that we call "Good Friday," I wondered how many of you are thinking about that very name. I wonder how you are living in this time where we are to look forward to this wonderful day of the year, this joyous celebration of Easter. But yet we also know as a faithful people that we have to live through Friday as well.
There's a tension there that we hold in our faith. The cross has a double meaning to us, both in the sense that it was the cross on which Jesus was crucified but it also that cross that gives us life, that cross that Jesus conquered death upon, as well. And it was that cross, and that tension of our faith, which we will commemorate tonight.
Dear church, I do not know where you are in your journey of faith in this Holy Week. But, church, I can tell you that this is Good Friday. But I also encourage you to remember that although this is Good Friday, Sunday is coming. ... Amen.
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