Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Passion according to John   Jesus Stays   It is said that in the face of mortal danger a human will naturally react in one of two ways: fight or flight.   As the first Holy Week unfolded, in the Garden of Gethsemane, this was on full display.   Peter unsheathed his sword and took a swing.   Other disciples desperately scattered from the scene.   All acting, shall we say, naturally, in the face of danger.   All except Jesus.   Jesus didn’t fight; he commanded his disciple to put away the sword.   And Jesus didn’t fly away with the others.   In the face of mortal danger, Jesus stayed.      In the near future, as Thursday melted into Friday, Jesus would face bitter accusations.   Strangers would dismiss his goodness and smear his name.   The devoutly religious would batter him with Bible verses.   The apathetic would make light of his love and mock his r...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Good Friday 2023   The Body Burden   Jesus’ hands were tied.   In the garden, where they found him, they bound him, bound his wrists.   So much happens to Jesus’ body in this Good Friday story – so much pain, so much trauma, so much horror, even death.   But the first thing that happened to that body, on Thursday night, was that it was bound.     Those who hated Jesus, and those who simply needed the work, took hold and control of his body – a humble body in which dwelt, mostly unknown, the fullness of God; they tamed his bones; they subdued his muscles; they stopped his precious hands – from movement and miracle.   Before everything that happened on Good Friday, before the crown and the nails, they bound him.   But we know the Good Friday story and so we know that wasn’t enough.   It wasn’t enough to simply stop him; they wanted to punish, punish that body that encroached on their ...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Passion according to John   Good Friday: A Reflection   What now?   A hopeless disciple standing beside a woman watching her son die.   And he is dying.   The cause of death will be suffocation or excessive blood loss or maybe a broken heart.   But he will die on that cross.   The Son of God, brown skin stained with red blood, calloused hands pierced with spikes the color of gunmetal: he will die on a Roman cross with a charge of treason written above his head in three languages.   The breath that gave life to the world will run out.   The sacred heart that holds us will stop beating.   The eyes that wept over Jerusalem will close in eternal rest.   This is not a passion play.   This is passion in its truest and rawest form: immense human suffering.   This is not just a temporary setback on the way to Easter.   This is death – the most human of fates.   And it hap...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John’s Passion I am thirsty. Given the circumstances “I am thirsty” was not the most obvious statement to fall from Jesus’ dying lips, on that first Good Friday.   It seems much too small a thing.   One might think he would be preoccupied, instead, by the vast soteriological implications of his crucifixion, as many theologians have been throughout the ages.   This was, after all, an especially noteworthy moment in salvation, and human, history.   Thirst seems to be a rather mundane concern on such a cosmic stage. Or perhaps he might be expected to be fixated on more pressing earthly concerns: distracted by the nails that tunneled through his wrists and through his ankles.   And the crowds with their disrespectful taunting.   And his friends with their fleeing.   And the death on either side.   But as the air was strangled from his desperate lungs, it was the thirst, his parched tongue stuck to the r...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Good Friday 3-30-18 Good Friday: Dark I’ve only been buried alive once.   Now, the guide called it spelunking, but I know better.   The first thing you notice down there is the darkness. I had never before, and have never since, experienced that kind of darkness.   It was so thick I could feel the weight of it on my skin.   I felt like the air down there must be turning my lungs black.   It was as if the outside world no longer existed, like before God spoke “Let there be light.”   Under the earth, in that abyss, there was a complete absence of light.   It was so dark you almost forget what light is. Something else that I remember from the caves was the moment it occurred to me that this was all very real.   It was not an amusement park.   There were no neatly marked paths or guiding lights, no exit doors for the faint of heart.   It was just me and my head lamp in a vast unmarked, unmapped ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John's Passion It is Finished I make lists. And I check things off of lists. One-by-one, scratching out each task until all I see before me is a page of scribbles, no more words: I like that. I get a profound sense of satisfaction from gazing upon an accomplished to-do list. On the other hand, things left undone drive me crazy. Like an itch left unscratched, those things remaining, incomplete, unfinished weigh on my mind causing endless amounts of stress – stress that I know will only be quelled when I can finally look at my task list and sigh in relief: it is finished. The cross, that terrible instrument of death, it was always on Jesus' list. The cross, that terrible instrument of death, was the last thing between Jesus and his “it is finished.” Jesus' journey to the cross was much longer than anyone else realized, longer that anyone else could have imagined; it was always there. Long before he hung on the cross...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson The Silence Not so fast. I know there are colorful eggs to hide. I know there are baskets to fill. I know there are hams to honey. I know that Easter is just around the corner and there are just so many things to do. But before the trumpets announce the resurrection with their assertive brassy shouts, there is a rest; it is written into the music, into our song – a long indefinite pause that disrupts the frantic rhythm of our lives. Death does that. And this death more than any other. In the shadow of the cross, there are no words to say. There is only silence, and a stunning absence of life. Historical perspective and liturgical repetition tell us that this terrible cross does not have the last word, that this death is not final, but every death before and every death since, they were final – and those who witnessed Jesus' death did not have the luxury of skipping ahead in the story. So to all those standing by...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John's Passion Where Innocence Dies Young There is a sadness here – in this space we call Good Friday.   It hangs in the air, an innocence so brutally assaulted by the pain and the struggle, the envy and the prejudice, the hatred and the violence of our world.   And we pray that it will pass; we pray for the pain to be overcome by God's Easter answer.   And as we wait, we find ourselves confronted by the harsh reality that in this world innocence too often dies young.   And I am reminded of a poem a young black optometrist, Frank Horne, wrote in the deep South of the 1920's, a poem he called On Seeing Two Brown Boys in a Catholic Church: It is fitting that you be here, Little brown boys With Christ-like eyes And curling hair. Look you on yonder crucifix Where He hangs nailed and pierced With head hung low And eyes all blind with blood that drips From a thorny crown... Look you well, You shall know ...