Clyde L. Manschreck - Maundy Thursday Service (April 14, 1960)
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| (intro music) | 0:03 | |
| - | I am reading for our scripture this evening, | 0:07 |
| a portion from the 22nd chapter, of Luke. | 0:10 | |
| "And he took a loaf of bread and thank God | 0:16 | |
| and broke it in pieces and gave it to them saying, | 0:20 | |
| "This is my body, | 0:23 | |
| yet look, | 0:26 | |
| the hand of the man who is betraying me | 0:27 | |
| is beside me on the table. | 0:29 | |
| For the son of man is going his way | 0:32 | |
| as it has been decreed, | 0:35 | |
| but alas for the man | 0:37 | |
| by whom he is betrayed." | 0:39 | |
| And they began to discuss with one another, | 0:43 | |
| which of them it was who is going to do this. | 0:45 | |
| Finally, Jesus said, | 0:50 | |
| "Oh, Simon, Simon, | 0:52 | |
| Satan has obtained permission to sift all of you like wheat. | 0:55 | |
| But I have prayed, | 0:59 | |
| that your faith may not fail. | 1:02 | |
| And afterward you yourself must turn | 1:05 | |
| and strengthen your brothers." | 1:07 | |
| Peter said to him, | 1:10 | |
| "Master, I am ready to go to prison and to death with you." | 1:13 | |
| But he said, | 1:17 | |
| "I tell you Peter, | 1:19 | |
| the cock will not crow today | 1:21 | |
| before you deny three times that you knew me." | 1:23 | |
| And he said to them, | 1:28 | |
| "When I sent you out without any purse or bag or shoes, | 1:31 | |
| was there anything you needed?" | 1:35 | |
| And they said, | 1:37 | |
| "No, nothing." | 1:38 | |
| Following is a description of Jesus | 1:42 | |
| in the garden of Gethsemane. | 1:44 | |
| And then they arrested him and led him away and took him | 1:48 | |
| to the house of the high priest. | 1:51 | |
| And Peter followed at a distance | 1:54 | |
| and they kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard | 1:56 | |
| and set about it. | 1:58 | |
| And Peter sat down among them. | 2:00 | |
| A maid saw him sitting by the fire | 2:03 | |
| and looked at him and said, | 2:05 | |
| "This man was with him too." | 2:07 | |
| But he denied it and said, | 2:10 | |
| "I do not know him." | 2:12 | |
| Shortly after, a man saw him and said, | 2:14 | |
| "You are one of them too." | 2:17 | |
| But Peter said, | 2:20 | |
| "I am not." | 2:21 | |
| About an hour later, another man insisted, | 2:24 | |
| "This man was certainly with him too, | 2:27 | |
| for he is a Galilean." | 2:29 | |
| But Peter said, | 2:32 | |
| "I do not know what you mean." | 2:34 | |
| And immediately just as he spoke, a cock crowed | 2:37 | |
| and the Lord turned and looked at Peter | 2:41 | |
| and Peter remembered the words the Lord had said to him, | 2:44 | |
| "Before the cock crows today, | 2:48 | |
| you will disown me three times." | 2:51 | |
| And he went outside | 2:55 | |
| and wept, bitterly. | 2:57 | |
| In this passage, which I have just read, | 3:06 | |
| we have the story of Peter's denial of Christ. | 3:10 | |
| And we could spend the next few minutes | 3:16 | |
| delving into the meaning | 3:17 | |
| of that famous story | 3:19 | |
| for it tells us a great deal about the many facets | 3:22 | |
| of Peter's character. | 3:26 | |
| But during this holy week, | 3:29 | |
| one thing in particular impresses me about Peter. | 3:31 | |
| And I should like to highlight that one thing. | 3:36 | |
| Perhaps it can be best emphasized | 3:41 | |
| by going completely outside the biblical narrative. | 3:43 | |
| So let your thoughts go back in American history, | 3:49 | |
| 268 years to the year 1692. | 3:53 | |
| In 1692 the Pilgrims had been in this country | 4:01 | |
| in New England, 72 years. | 4:06 | |
| They had settled Plymouth, Boston, Salem, | 4:10 | |
| Andover, Topsfield and the surrounding villages. | 4:12 | |
| They were for the most part, quite ordinary people, | 4:16 | |
| merchants, farmers, housewives. | 4:19 | |
| The Indian uprising which we now know as King Philip's war | 4:22 | |
| had recently ended. | 4:26 | |
| And the villagers could look forward to peace. | 4:28 | |
| But instead of peace, | 4:32 | |
| the year 1692 brought horror. | 4:34 | |
| During the winter of 1691 and 92, | 4:39 | |
| a group of girls and women had been meeting in the parsonage | 4:43 | |
| every night, in the parsonage of the Reverend Samuel Parris | 4:48 | |
| in Salem village. | 4:52 | |
| The winters in New England then as now | 4:54 | |
| were long and dryly. | 4:56 | |
| And the parsonage meetings provided some excitement. | 4:59 | |
| Especially so because the Reverend Parris | 5:03 | |
| had recently come from the West Indies | 5:07 | |
| and he had brought with him two servants. | 5:09 | |
| A man by the name of John Indian | 5:13 | |
| and a woman named Tituba. | 5:15 | |
| Night after night, | 5:19 | |
| these two told strange stories about voodoo, | 5:21 | |
| wild animals flying, water turning into blood | 5:26 | |
| ghostly shapes appearing in the dark. | 5:30 | |
| And soon the meetings were characterized | 5:33 | |
| by hysterical actions. | 5:35 | |
| Some of the girls at the meeting, | 5:41 | |
| crawled under the tables and the chairs | 5:43 | |
| made weird sounds and experienced nightmares. | 5:45 | |
| Hysteria in that day was associated with evil spirits. | 5:50 | |
| And so experts, experts in the gospel | 5:55 | |
| we're called in | 5:59 | |
| from the surrounding villages | 6:01 | |
| to take a look at the afflicted girls. | 6:03 | |
| The verdict, witchcraft. | 6:07 | |
| Almost overnight, | 6:11 | |
| the bewitched children became celebrities. | 6:13 | |
| They were talked about from the pulpits, | 6:16 | |
| gossiped about in the homes | 6:18 | |
| written about in the newsletters. | 6:20 | |
| They rised and they convulsed, | 6:22 | |
| and otherwise demonstrated | 6:24 | |
| whenever experts came to observe. | 6:26 | |
| And the great question was, who bewitched them? | 6:29 | |
| On February the 29th, 1692 | 6:33 | |
| in the midst of a storm of thunder, | 6:37 | |
| lightning and high wind, | 6:39 | |
| three women, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba | 6:41 | |
| were arrested on the deadly charge | 6:45 | |
| of bewitching the children. | 6:47 | |
| The next day, magistrates, | 6:50 | |
| Hawthorne and Corwin, | 6:52 | |
| arrived and conducted hearings. | 6:54 | |
| All of Salem's swarmed into the courtyard. | 6:57 | |
| The children were there in the courthouse, | 7:01 | |
| moaning and groaning, riding and screaming. | 7:03 | |
| During the trial, | 7:06 | |
| pinch marks appeared on their arms and legs | 7:07 | |
| put there presumably by the accused witches on trial. | 7:10 | |
| One of the accused women, turned state's evidence | 7:15 | |
| and filled the courtroom | 7:18 | |
| with all sorts of tales of black dogs, | 7:19 | |
| red cats, yellow birds and horned toads. | 7:22 | |
| She had caused warts to appear. | 7:26 | |
| Once she had entered a house | 7:29 | |
| and held a man helpless on the floor | 7:31 | |
| in the shape of a whoopee all night long. | 7:33 | |
| As soon as the confessed woman, | 7:37 | |
| as soon as the accused woman, | 7:39 | |
| confessed that she was a witch, | 7:41 | |
| the black spirits, suddenly | 7:43 | |
| and entirely stopped tormenting the children. | 7:46 | |
| Giles Corey went home that evening | 7:51 | |
| a firm believer in witches | 7:54 | |
| and he excitedly discuss the events with his wife, Martha. | 7:56 | |
| She told him in reply | 8:01 | |
| that she thought the whole thing was humbug | 8:02 | |
| that the magistrates must be as blind as bats. | 8:04 | |
| Two weeks later, on March the 19th, | 8:07 | |
| Martha Corey was arrested, charged and convicted. | 8:11 | |
| So far no one had been hanged, | 8:16 | |
| but excitement began to mount. | 8:18 | |
| And on June the 10th, | 8:20 | |
| a woman of ill repute who operated a roadhouse | 8:21 | |
| solo rum, played shuffleboard | 8:24 | |
| and wore a costume consisting of a black cap, | 8:27 | |
| black hat and red bodice was arrested. | 8:30 | |
| In her defense, | 8:35 | |
| she said that she had never seen the devil | 8:36 | |
| but obviously, she lied. | 8:38 | |
| People said that they had collected money on from her | 8:41 | |
| on several occasions, | 8:44 | |
| only on turning away from her | 8:45 | |
| to find that the money had disappeared. | 8:48 | |
| Bridget Bishop, was hanged. | 8:51 | |
| That execution opened the flood gates of mania. | 8:55 | |
| On July 19th, five more women were hanged. | 8:58 | |
| On August 19, five more. | 9:02 | |
| On September 22, 8 more victims were hanged | 9:04 | |
| making a total of 19, | 9:07 | |
| plus, two dogs that were tried and convicted. | 9:09 | |
| The 20th victim was Giles Corey. | 9:15 | |
| The same one who had quarreled earlier with his wife. | 9:19 | |
| At his wife's trial, he had testified, | 9:23 | |
| that Martha sometimes muttered things to herself | 9:26 | |
| and he did not always understand, what she said. | 9:30 | |
| Two sons-in-law bore witness against Martha, | 9:36 | |
| but after she was convicted, | 9:40 | |
| Giles Corey began to have doubts. | 9:42 | |
| He spoke out against this mania | 9:45 | |
| only to find himself accused | 9:48 | |
| because association with a convicted witch | 9:50 | |
| was almost a sure sign of guilt. | 9:55 | |
| He refused to plead his case in court | 10:00 | |
| because he said he would be convicted by ghosts anyway. | 10:04 | |
| So according to an old English law, | 10:07 | |
| they piled rocks on him | 10:09 | |
| until he should either plead guilty or not guilty | 10:12 | |
| or be crushed to death. | 10:16 | |
| He died, his chest caved in, | 10:18 | |
| two days before his wife, Martha was hanged. | 10:22 | |
| George Burroughs, Salem villages second minister | 10:27 | |
| was the most celebrated victim. | 10:32 | |
| He was accused, even though he was a minister. | 10:34 | |
| People testified that they had seen him do | 10:38 | |
| strange feats of strength. | 10:40 | |
| He could lift a heavy gun | 10:42 | |
| by putting his fingers in the barrel. | 10:44 | |
| He had married three times | 10:46 | |
| and several people testified | 10:49 | |
| that the ghost of his former wives, appeared to them | 10:51 | |
| declaring that he had murdered them. | 10:53 | |
| His greatest crime seems to have been | 10:56 | |
| that he believed that he did not believe in witchcraft. | 10:58 | |
| Much sympathy was aroused by his hanging | 11:02 | |
| but Cotton Mather, | 11:06 | |
| a famous minister of the gospel in that day | 11:09 | |
| was present at the execution. | 11:12 | |
| Riding back and forth on horseback, | 11:15 | |
| addressing the crowd, haranguing them | 11:18 | |
| and assuring them that Burroughs was an imposter, | 11:20 | |
| a certain witch. | 11:24 | |
| On the day that Burroughs died, | 11:26 | |
| four others were hanged along with him. | 11:28 | |
| Well, reaction set in. | 11:33 | |
| Some doubted the wisdom of the proceedings | 11:35 | |
| after all, why should a person be condemned | 11:37 | |
| simply because somebody pigs | 11:39 | |
| suddenly went to cirque, | 11:40 | |
| our fruit trees did not bear as usual | 11:41 | |
| or a child became a unexpectedly feverish. | 11:43 | |
| Or because someone said, | 11:47 | |
| he had talked with a ghost. | 11:48 | |
| Governor, Sir William Phips who had arrived in mid May, | 11:51 | |
| had been carried away by the excitement | 11:55 | |
| and out of respect for the Mathers, | 11:57 | |
| he had authorized the legal prosecutions. | 12:00 | |
| But now he had some second doubts. | 12:03 | |
| He turned to the clergy of Boston for advice. | 12:06 | |
| The clergy at that time was dominated by the Mather family. | 12:11 | |
| Richard Mather, an English nonconformist | 12:15 | |
| had immigrated to America in 1636. | 12:17 | |
| He settled at Dorchester. | 12:21 | |
| where in 1639, his son Increase Mather was born. | 12:22 | |
| Increase became a distinguished scholar, a theologian | 12:27 | |
| and a most influential preacher in Boston. | 12:30 | |
| In 1685, he was named president of Harvard college. | 12:34 | |
| His son Cotton Mather, | 12:40 | |
| was born in Boston in 1663. | 12:41 | |
| Cotton's accomplishments in the academic world | 12:45 | |
| and in the ministry, surpassed those of his father. | 12:47 | |
| In 1689, Cotton had written a book about witchcraft | 12:52 | |
| entitled, "Late Memorable Provinces | 12:55 | |
| Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions." | 12:58 | |
| People were reading that book in 1692. | 13:01 | |
| Now in the summer of 1692, | 13:04 | |
| governor Phips turned to Cotton Mather especially, | 13:06 | |
| asking him to write another book | 13:10 | |
| justifying what had happened at Salem. | 13:13 | |
| The result, one of the classics, | 13:16 | |
| "The wonders of the Invisible World." | 13:19 | |
| An account of seven trials, at Salem. | 13:21 | |
| Plus the doings of witches in other parts of the world | 13:25 | |
| along with an elaborate description | 13:28 | |
| of witchcraft in general. | 13:30 | |
| It was published in October 1692 in Boston. | 13:32 | |
| Cotton Mather declared | 13:37 | |
| that God had loosened the devil | 13:39 | |
| to bring evil upon the land, for its sinfulness. | 13:41 | |
| And that sorcery would have to be guarded against | 13:43 | |
| lest more evil, be licensed by God. | 13:47 | |
| Now other circumstances discredited the mania. | 13:52 | |
| In October, Mrs. Hale, | 13:56 | |
| the wife of a minister at Beverly, was accused | 13:57 | |
| and no person of same sense thought she was guilty. | 14:00 | |
| Her husband had zealously prosecuted | 14:03 | |
| or promoted the prosecutions, | 14:06 | |
| but the predicament of his wife | 14:09 | |
| caused the Reverend Mr. Hale to think that | 14:11 | |
| he might have been an accomplice in an injustice. | 14:15 | |
| Other ministers were less willing | 14:19 | |
| to believe that they had heard in any way. | 14:22 | |
| They did not deny that Mrs. Hale was a good woman, | 14:26 | |
| but they argued that a good woman could be bewitched | 14:30 | |
| and could be used by the devil. | 14:34 | |
| Increase Mather, the president of Harvard | 14:37 | |
| was called in for consultation. | 14:40 | |
| He published a book, | 14:42 | |
| a further account of the trials of the New England witches, | 14:44 | |
| to which he's added, | 14:47 | |
| cases of conscience concerning witchcraft and evil spirits, | 14:48 | |
| impersonating men. | 14:51 | |
| Increase Mather, president of Harvard, | 14:53 | |
| said the devil could assume the shape of a good woman | 14:54 | |
| and the good person would have to be treated as a witch. | 14:58 | |
| Then the accusers aimed at the wife of the governor | 15:03 | |
| and they lost the governor support. | 15:07 | |
| Other people of character took action against the accusers, | 15:09 | |
| bringing lawsuits against them | 15:12 | |
| for defamation of character. | 15:14 | |
| One Boston man laid damages at a thousand pounds. | 15:16 | |
| And now the accusers | 15:21 | |
| affected in the pocket book, took fright. | 15:24 | |
| By April of the following year, 1693, | 15:28 | |
| when governor Phips was recalled to England, | 15:31 | |
| the witchcraft hunt had nearly subsided | 15:33 | |
| and people in general were lamenting their errors. | 15:35 | |
| But not Cotton and Increase Mather. | 15:40 | |
| They looked upon the calm | 15:44 | |
| as a reactionary triumph for Satan. | 15:46 | |
| In the years that followed, | 15:49 | |
| they reasserted their belief in the Salem witches. | 15:51 | |
| On September the 10th, 1693, | 15:55 | |
| a Boston girl by the name of Margaret Rule | 15:57 | |
| was seized with convulsions. | 16:00 | |
| And she saw shapes, | 16:01 | |
| of the people who had been condemned at Salem. | 16:03 | |
| Cotton Mather immediately visited her | 16:06 | |
| and declared his conviction that she spoke the truth. | 16:08 | |
| Robert Calef, a merchant, | 16:11 | |
| published an account of the Boston girl | 16:13 | |
| and boldly declared that she was either deluded or imposing | 16:15 | |
| and a good whipping might cure her of her convulsions. | 16:19 | |
| Partisans of the Mathers, publicly burned the book. | 16:23 | |
| And years later, | 16:26 | |
| when Samuel Mather wrote the biography of his father Cotton, | 16:27 | |
| he sneeringly denounced the views of Calef. | 16:31 | |
| Nevertheless, | 16:36 | |
| the people of Salem were humbled and repentant. | 16:38 | |
| They deserted their minister, Mr. Parris, | 16:41 | |
| with whom the persecution had begun. | 16:44 | |
| And they actually drove him out of the village. | 16:47 | |
| Most of the people, | 16:50 | |
| officially associated with the trials, | 16:51 | |
| declared their regret. | 16:53 | |
| The jurors signed a paper expressing repentance | 16:56 | |
| pleading that they had labored under delusion. | 16:59 | |
| Many of those who had confessed that they were witches | 17:03 | |
| or who had accused others, | 17:06 | |
| retracted everything they said | 17:08 | |
| and confessed that they were led on by terror. | 17:11 | |
| The colony of Massachusetts attempted to make restitution | 17:14 | |
| and paid out a total of 578 pounds | 17:18 | |
| to the heirs of the unfortunate victims. | 17:21 | |
| But the vanity, | 17:25 | |
| of superior intelligence and knowledge | 17:27 | |
| was so great in the two Mathers | 17:30 | |
| that they resisted all conviction. | 17:33 | |
| In Magnolia, published in 1700 | 17:36 | |
| an ecclesiastical history of New England, | 17:39 | |
| advertised only last Sunday in the New York Times, | 17:42 | |
| as one of America's literary classics. | 17:45 | |
| Cotton Mather, repeated his original views | 17:48 | |
| on the doings at Salem. | 17:52 | |
| He showed no regret for his part in the affair. | 17:54 | |
| He made no retractions of any opinions whatsoever. | 17:57 | |
| In 1723, 31 years later, | 18:01 | |
| he repeated his views again | 18:04 | |
| in a chapter on the Remarkables of his father. | 18:06 | |
| This can be said, | 18:10 | |
| of these staunch pillars of the New England society. | 18:12 | |
| They both acted conscientiously. | 18:15 | |
| Today now, | 18:20 | |
| we can congratulate ourselves | 18:22 | |
| that we are no longer superstitious. | 18:24 | |
| We have been blessed with the discoveries of science. | 18:27 | |
| We know that there are no witches. | 18:30 | |
| We know that demons do not fly about at night | 18:35 | |
| in the shapes of yellow dogs and black pigs. | 18:37 | |
| In this day of enlightenment | 18:41 | |
| and due process of law, | 18:43 | |
| we can hardly conceive of hanging a person for witchcraft. | 18:45 | |
| But if we do not have superstitions, | 18:51 | |
| we do have our prejudices. | 18:53 | |
| We still condemn a man because of the color of his skin. | 18:57 | |
| And we often treat him economically and juridically | 19:02 | |
| as if his status were no more than that of a animal. | 19:04 | |
| We cook here, why can't we eat here? | 19:10 | |
| We still condemn a man because of the shape of his nose. | 19:13 | |
| Thousands of real estate contracts | 19:18 | |
| exclude those of Jewish origins. | 19:23 | |
| The Nazi concentration, | 19:27 | |
| camps in which thousands upon thousands of Jews | 19:29 | |
| suffered and died. | 19:32 | |
| Did not happen 268 years ago in Salem village. | 19:34 | |
| This inhumanity of man to man | 19:39 | |
| is the product of the enlightened 20th century, | 19:41 | |
| our century. | 19:44 | |
| No, we're not superstitious. | 19:47 | |
| In our intelligence, | 19:50 | |
| we have been lured into the comfortable feeling | 19:51 | |
| that nothing is wrong with us, | 19:54 | |
| or at least not very wrong. | 19:57 | |
| By telling ourselves that nothing much is really wrong | 20:01 | |
| after all, we do not hang people | 20:05 | |
| as they did back in Salem village. | 20:07 | |
| We have subtly placed ourselves | 20:10 | |
| on the throne of absoluteness. | 20:12 | |
| We have trapped ourselves in the feeling | 20:15 | |
| that we are normal, good people | 20:18 | |
| about as good and right as the next person. | 20:22 | |
| After all, no one finally knows what is right or wrong. | 20:25 | |
| And in this sin of presumption, | 20:29 | |
| we have placed ourselves in the place of God. | 20:31 | |
| We act as if there is no God | 20:35 | |
| except our own desires and wishes | 20:38 | |
| and property rights. | 20:41 | |
| The inability of modern man to confess his sinfulness | 20:45 | |
| to fall on his knees in penitence | 20:50 | |
| is indicative of the absoluteness | 20:55 | |
| that modern man has assumed. | 20:57 | |
| Now in this, | 21:01 | |
| we are not like the vast majority of the people in Salem. | 21:02 | |
| We are like Cotton and Increase Mather, | 21:05 | |
| who refuse to admit any error at all. | 21:08 | |
| We like to identify ourselves with Peter. | 21:14 | |
| He was human, very human. | 21:18 | |
| Ignorant, narrow-minded and weak, yes. | 21:20 | |
| He was unwilling to welcome the Gentiles into the communion. | 21:24 | |
| He denied Christ three times before the cock crowed once. | 21:27 | |
| We are like Peter in these matters, that's true. | 21:32 | |
| Except that, Peter remembered something that we forget. | 21:35 | |
| We remember Peter, | 21:41 | |
| and we take a kind of pride | 21:43 | |
| in pointing to that early disciple | 21:45 | |
| who was no better than we are. | 21:47 | |
| But, Peter couldn't take any such pride. | 21:52 | |
| He went out into the garden and wept bitterly. | 21:56 | |
| He remembered that he was a sinful human being | 22:01 | |
| who could boast of nothing before God. | 22:03 | |
| That night long ago, | 22:06 | |
| when it looked as if some trouble might fall up on him, | 22:07 | |
| Peter said, | 22:11 | |
| "No, no, I don't know this man." | 22:12 | |
| Nothing was so important to Peter | 22:15 | |
| in those moments of pretense, as Peter himself. | 22:17 | |
| He presumed to be the measure of all things | 22:22 | |
| in that situation. | 22:25 | |
| But Christ looked at him, the cock crowed, | 22:27 | |
| and Peter went out into the garden and wept bitterly. | 22:30 | |
| It's hard for us to confess | 22:36 | |
| our intellectual pride is far from Peter's penitence. | 22:39 | |
| It is very close to the spiritual pride | 22:43 | |
| of the leaders of the witchcraft hunters. | 22:45 | |
| But tonight, let us take a lesson from Peter. | 22:50 | |
| And as we kneel at the communion table, | 22:55 | |
| not say to ourselves, | 22:58 | |
| "Oh Lord, I will never betray you." | 22:59 | |
| Let us rather acknowledge that we have already betrayed him | 23:04 | |
| and humbly beseech him to forgive us our sins. | 23:09 | |
| And more than that, | 23:13 | |
| to forgive us, | 23:15 | |
| the intellectual pride | 23:16 | |
| that whispers to us, | 23:18 | |
| we have committed, no sin. | 23:20 | |
| (solemn music) | 23:40 | |
| The last words of our Lord | 25:39 | |
| Father into thy hands, I commend my spirit. | 25:42 | |
| In the name of the father | 25:49 | |
| and of the son | 25:50 | |
| and of the holy ghost, amen. | 25:51 | |
| Friend of mine has wisely observed | 26:01 | |
| that our time is perhaps the first time in 150 years, | 26:05 | |
| when it is really possible, | 26:10 | |
| really possible to believe the gospel. | 26:13 | |
| Why is this so? | 26:18 | |
| Because it seems to me that in our time, | 26:21 | |
| every man, every man is truly | 26:24 | |
| and really and finally up against it. | 26:28 | |
| Up against it. | 26:33 | |
| Which is to say, | 26:38 | |
| modern man has come to a new and startling awareness | 26:39 | |
| that he did not get himself here. | 26:44 | |
| That there is that mysterious, | 26:48 | |
| outer and final reality of the universe, which is not him. | 26:52 | |
| Perhaps the physicist, | 27:00 | |
| the frontier physicists are the only people | 27:02 | |
| who have really come to a deep inner awareness | 27:05 | |
| of this fact and this reality as they stare | 27:09 | |
| deeply into the darkness of outer space, | 27:14 | |
| and they've had to devise a new mythology and new imagery | 27:17 | |
| to speak about their up against us, | 27:23 | |
| The modern man as he finds himself | 27:31 | |
| squarely up against the not me, | 27:33 | |
| has given to him in our time, | 27:36 | |
| the possibility of really believing the gospel. | 27:38 | |
| And when one comes to this point in his life and experience, | 27:44 | |
| there are but two alternatives, | 27:48 | |
| only two. | 27:51 | |
| One of them is the alternative, | 27:55 | |
| the conclusion, at which, | 27:59 | |
| the great modern playwright Tennessee Williams has arrived | 28:03 | |
| in suddenly last summer. | 28:08 | |
| When as you will remember, | 28:11 | |
| it is reported that the poet Sebastian | 28:14 | |
| saw the face of God, | 28:16 | |
| which is to say the face of the final mystery | 28:18 | |
| of the universe, | 28:21 | |
| the ground of all being. | 28:22 | |
| In this fantastic episode between | 28:25 | |
| the vultures and the turtles, | 28:29 | |
| where every year, | 28:31 | |
| when the turtles returned from their nesting, | 28:32 | |
| they are devoured, | 28:35 | |
| by the vultures. | 28:39 | |
| Which is to say that, | 28:44 | |
| here at least there's one modern man | 28:47 | |
| who has come up against it. | 28:49 | |
| And who has said, | 28:50 | |
| with a kind of a leap of faith, | 28:52 | |
| The ground of being is utterly and finally chaotic, | 29:00 | |
| meaningless and absurd. | 29:06 | |
| And then as much as we know where at least one man stands, | 29:14 | |
| it is a kind of courageous affirmation. | 29:17 | |
| Now the other alternative, | 29:21 | |
| is the alternative offered to us in the gospel of God. | 29:24 | |
| As we apprehend it and are apprehended by it | 29:31 | |
| in the event of Jesus Christ. | 29:36 | |
| Which is say that alternative | 29:40 | |
| in which I conclude and then grasp by the fact | 29:44 | |
| that the final mystery of the universe, | 29:48 | |
| the ground of my being | 29:53 | |
| is ultimately concerned about me. | 29:56 | |
| Gives me life and sustains me even now, | 30:02 | |
| as I find myself up against it, | 30:05 | |
| This does in our time take a gigantically leap. | 30:12 | |
| When it has come to this, | 30:18 | |
| we may say with Christopher Fry affairs are now soul size. | 30:19 | |
| Indeed one wonders how is Christian faith possible? | 30:28 | |
| And it is here with this question | 30:34 | |
| that we are brought squarely to, the cross | 30:36 | |
| and to the last words of our Lord. | 30:41 | |
| There has been at this point | 30:46 | |
| of the Good Friday drama | 30:48 | |
| much misunderstanding among Christians | 30:50 | |
| who have reflected on the cross | 30:54 | |
| and have seen this to be the symbol of evil. | 30:55 | |
| To see this as the symbol of what, | 31:00 | |
| in some kind of ultimately dualistic cosmic drama | 31:03 | |
| stands for the evil forces. | 31:09 | |
| Now this is false and unbiblical | 31:12 | |
| and is an intrusion from some kind of modern Gnosticism. | 31:16 | |
| And we must get this, | 31:21 | |
| straight in our minds and hearts. | 31:25 | |
| The cross is the gift of God. | 31:27 | |
| It is the very key to his purposes | 31:31 | |
| and he would not have it any other way. | 31:34 | |
| Justice Eliot reminds us | 31:43 | |
| that in Murder in the Cathedral, | 31:47 | |
| that the cross is a part of the design of God, | 31:48 | |
| just as the blood of every martyr, | 31:51 | |
| that is shed, | 31:54 | |
| is a part of the design of God. | 31:55 | |
| The cross, the crucifixion, | 31:58 | |
| it's the gift | 32:02 | |
| of the very ground of our being | 32:05 | |
| wherein we may be apprehended | 32:07 | |
| by the fact that life is good. | 32:11 | |
| And we may live, | 32:15 | |
| even in a world where there are continually, | 32:18 | |
| crosses to be borne and shared. | 32:22 | |
| It is in our Lord at this, moment | 32:33 | |
| on the cross at which | 32:39 | |
| the gospel writer says, | 32:41 | |
| the veil or the curtain | 32:42 | |
| of the temple was literally torn in two. | 32:46 | |
| One of the gospel writers says, | 32:51 | |
| in case we miss the point from the top to the bottom. | 32:53 | |
| Which is to say anybody could have walked in and torn it | 32:58 | |
| from the bottom to the top. | 33:00 | |
| But this rending of the veil, | 33:02 | |
| which fall once, once, | 33:04 | |
| and for all disclosed the Holy of Holies, | 33:07 | |
| or as you know, in the Jewish temple, | 33:11 | |
| one progressed from the outer court | 33:14 | |
| where anybody might sit even a Gentile | 33:16 | |
| through the middle courts and finally to the inner court | 33:19 | |
| where only the high priest | 33:23 | |
| and he only once a year might go. | 33:25 | |
| And how with this event | 33:29 | |
| and simultaneously with the last words of our Lord, | 33:31 | |
| the curtain of the temple, | 33:37 | |
| which hid the Holy of Holies, | 33:39 | |
| the inner mystery of God, | 33:41 | |
| and what he was doing | 33:44 | |
| was literally ripped apart from the top to the bottom. | 33:46 | |
| So that everybody, | 33:52 | |
| even the Gentiles in the outer court | 33:55 | |
| might now have access to this inner, fact. | 33:57 | |
| That God, | 34:05 | |
| is for us. | 34:08 | |
| That it is he who gives us, the cross. | 34:11 | |
| That it is he who gives us, death. | 34:16 | |
| And that therefore, since death is the final threat to life, | 34:23 | |
| life is good. | 34:26 | |
| Jesus receives the cross, | 34:30 | |
| primarily I think and only because | 34:34 | |
| He has, the faith. | 34:38 | |
| He has been apprehended by, | 34:43 | |
| throughout his life the fact, | 34:47 | |
| that God is ultimately and finally trustworthy. | 34:50 | |
| Worthy of his trust. | 34:57 | |
| And it is in the complete union, | 35:01 | |
| of his will with the will of the one who sent him, | 35:07 | |
| who got him here, | 35:12 | |
| that we may indeed calling him | 35:16 | |
| the Christ, the son of the living God. | 35:18 | |
| Which is to say the one | 35:20 | |
| in whom the word about the true meaning of life, | 35:24 | |
| is once and for all delivered into history. | 35:29 | |
| Father, into they hands I commend my spirit. | 35:36 | |
| D.T. Niles, the great Indian evangelist. | 35:44 | |
| When speaking to, | 35:51 | |
| groups of simple Indian people | 35:54 | |
| who have never heard the gospel, | 35:57 | |
| reflects, this kind of faith. | 36:00 | |
| For he tells them, | 36:05 | |
| And we, I'm sure in our sophistication, | 36:06 | |
| we'll say that this is a gross oversimplification | 36:08 | |
| of the word that comes to us in the Christ event. | 36:13 | |
| D.T. Niles says simply this, | 36:17 | |
| as he tries to explain his own faith | 36:20 | |
| and the faith of our Lord. | 36:25 | |
| God made you, | 36:27 | |
| God loves you, | 36:30 | |
| God died for you. | 36:32 | |
| And when you die, | 36:34 | |
| you will be with him. | 36:36 | |
| Now, whatever that means | 36:40 | |
| is up to us to work out, in our style of life as Christians. | 36:44 | |
| It may mean that I go here. | 36:50 | |
| It may mean that I go there. | 36:52 | |
| It may mean that I do this. | 36:54 | |
| It may mean that I do that. | 36:55 | |
| It may mean that I never know exactly what I am to do. | 36:57 | |
| But that in all of this, | 37:04 | |
| a one thing I can be certain, | 37:08 | |
| that the one who gives me life | 37:12 | |
| and the one who gives me death | 37:15 | |
| is finally and utterly trustworthy. | 37:17 | |
| Let us pray. | 37:25 | |
| Almighty God grant that we may | 37:35 | |
| not flee from the cross. | 37:37 | |
| Deliver us from calling this | 37:41 | |
| an evil event and looking forward to, Easter day. | 37:45 | |
| For some kind of triumph over it. | 37:52 | |
| Grant that we may see in this, | 37:55 | |
| mysterious event, | 37:58 | |
| by gift to us. | 38:02 | |
| grasp us by the inner meaning of this event | 38:07 | |
| that we in turn may be able indeed, to participate, | 38:14 | |
| not just in some false resurrection, | 38:21 | |
| but in the glory of thy cross. | 38:25 | |
| Grant that in all things, | 38:30 | |
| we may lay hold, | 38:34 | |
| of the word about, thy love | 38:39 | |
| that we may know above all else, | 38:46 | |
| that thou are worthy, of our trust. | 38:52 | |
| Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 39:00 |