Preacher Unknown - Good Friday Service Part 2 (April 12, 1968)
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| (processional orchestral music) | 0:04 | |
| (processional orchestral music continues) | 0:28 | |
| (gentle orchestral music) | 0:48 | |
| Speaker 1 | Let's pray. | 1:03 |
| Oh blessed Jesus who had compassion on my mother | 1:06 | |
| in her bereavement, | 1:10 | |
| and this a point for her a new home | 1:12 | |
| with thy beloved disciple. | 1:14 | |
| We beseech thee to bless us | 1:17 | |
| and all the duties of our home life, | 1:20 | |
| to sanctify all our friendships, | 1:23 | |
| and to grant us by consolation | 1:27 | |
| in all our sorrows and bereavements. | 1:30 | |
| That by faith in thee, | 1:34 | |
| we may rejoice in the communion of thy saints | 1:36 | |
| and may learn to look for the glories | 1:40 | |
| of our eternal home with thee. | 1:42 | |
| Although who art the life of all that lives, | 1:47 | |
| the strength of the weak, | 1:50 | |
| and the hope of those that be cast down. | 1:52 | |
| Inform our minds with thy truth, we beseech thee, | 1:56 | |
| and our hearts with righteousness. | 2:00 | |
| Strengthen our wills to choose the good | 2:04 | |
| and to refuse the evil. | 2:08 | |
| Help us to bear one another's burdens, | 2:11 | |
| to forgive one another's faults, | 2:15 | |
| and to forbear every defect of judgment and temper, | 2:18 | |
| and those with whom we live and work. | 2:23 | |
| Help us faithfully to fulfill our duties | 2:27 | |
| as members of our several households, | 2:30 | |
| but far from us | 2:34 | |
| all unkind thoughts, anger and evil speaking. | 2:35 | |
| Give us tender hearts full of affection and sympathy | 2:41 | |
| toward all. | 2:45 | |
| Grant us grace to feel the sorrows and trials | 2:47 | |
| of others as our own, | 2:51 | |
| and to bear patiently with their imperfections. | 2:54 | |
| Preserve us from selfishness, | 2:58 | |
| and grant the day by day walking in love. | 3:01 | |
| We may grow up into the likeness of thy blessed son | 3:05 | |
| and be found ready to meet him | 3:10 | |
| and to enter with him into that place, | 3:13 | |
| which he has gone to prepare for us, | 3:16 | |
| for his sake who liveth and reignth with thee, | 3:19 | |
| and the holy ghost ever, one God, world without end. | 3:23 | |
| Amen. | 3:29 | |
| (soft music) | 3:33 | |
| (soft music) | 3:50 | |
| (silence) | 5:02 | |
| (silence) | 5:49 | |
| (silence) | 7:07 | |
| Speaker 2 | Now there stood | 8:17 |
| by the cross of Jesus his mother, | 8:18 | |
| and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, | 8:22 | |
| and Mary Magdalene. | 8:26 | |
| When Jesus therefore saw his mother, | 8:29 | |
| and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, | 8:31 | |
| he saith unto his mother, "Woman, behold thy son!" | 8:35 | |
| Then saith he to the disciple, "Behold thy mother!" | 8:41 | |
| And from that hour, | 8:46 | |
| that disciple took her unto his own home. | 8:48 | |
| From the cross when Jesus looked down and saw his mother, | 8:57 | |
| he said unto her, "Woman, behold thy son!" | 9:01 | |
| Then he said to the disciple, "Behold thy mother!" | 9:07 | |
| And from that hour, the disciple took her unto his own home. | 9:12 | |
| Since Calvary, the cross itself for some individuals | 9:21 | |
| has become apart from the Christian doctrine. | 9:26 | |
| It has been veiled with mystery | 9:30 | |
| and no longer the end of a hard road questioningly followed. | 9:33 | |
| For many today, | 9:41 | |
| whether they exist in an affluent or non-affluent society, | 9:43 | |
| the cross has been taken out of the current | 9:49 | |
| of human experience. | 9:53 | |
| But the sorrow of Mary, | 9:56 | |
| as she stood beneath her son on the cross, | 9:59 | |
| can be felt still today. | 10:03 | |
| Our hearts in understanding, | 10:07 | |
| reach out for her undescribable heartache, | 10:09 | |
| for the son who's teaching in mission led him away | 10:14 | |
| from the family. | 10:19 | |
| Her life had been a hard one. | 10:22 | |
| She was born a peasant's child. | 10:25 | |
| Her husband died early. | 10:28 | |
| Her oldest son had to support the family. | 10:31 | |
| And then he, Jesus, was off to fulfill his mission. | 10:35 | |
| Yet at Calvary, | 10:41 | |
| Mary, | 10:44 | |
| the other women, | 10:45 | |
| and the disciple alone stood beneath Jesus on the cross. | 10:47 | |
| Here in Jesus' words, we find the human touch, | 10:54 | |
| always characteristic of Jesus, | 10:58 | |
| in the practicum, as well as the human. | 11:02 | |
| In the very act of redeeming the world, | 11:06 | |
| he was not so absorbed as to be unmindful of his mother. | 11:10 | |
| He made lasting provision for her. | 11:16 | |
| These words have profound theological implication | 11:21 | |
| and a particularly practical one. | 11:26 | |
| Christianity and our fidelity to it should carry us | 11:32 | |
| in thought and service, | 11:37 | |
| far a field of our personal selfish desires. | 11:40 | |
| But it ought never to result in our overlooking | 11:46 | |
| or neglecting the true claims of home and family. | 11:50 | |
| The basic and very simple act of Jesus | 11:57 | |
| in this third word was at the very end | 12:00 | |
| to express to Mary, his mother, | 12:04 | |
| his lasting appreciation and affection. | 12:07 | |
| The circle of the few women | 12:13 | |
| and the unidentified man, probably John, | 12:15 | |
| was not a circle of bitterness and strife, | 12:19 | |
| but a circle of faith and friendship, | 12:23 | |
| which also expressed a vow | 12:27 | |
| of lasting appreciation and affection. | 12:30 | |
| Jesus' few friends at the end provided a message | 12:35 | |
| of true love with all its ramifications | 12:40 | |
| for the individual's relationship with his fellow man. | 12:45 | |
| This love was deep and lasting | 12:51 | |
| with no concern about it going away. | 12:55 | |
| But we say today that life is not like that. | 13:00 | |
| We don't understand one another. | 13:05 | |
| There is just one frustrating thing after another. | 13:08 | |
| Where are our hopes of enduring friendship? | 13:14 | |
| Why should I give? | 13:18 | |
| Why is his difficulty my problem? | 13:21 | |
| We can live that way and curse God if we want to. | 13:27 | |
| We can say this world may an everlasting place | 13:34 | |
| in which wars may never cease, | 13:37 | |
| a place of betrayal and denial. | 13:40 | |
| But there is something that cannot be crucified | 13:45 | |
| and there is something that cannot be killed all the way. | 13:49 | |
| And that is love. | 13:54 | |
| It is this love given by the grace of almighty God | 13:56 | |
| that provides the human ability for groups, | 14:01 | |
| for individuals, for man and woman, | 14:05 | |
| to be able to stand by one another and to uphold one another | 14:09 | |
| when they are no longer a family, | 14:15 | |
| when they are in pain, | 14:19 | |
| and when they are in the very depths of hell. | 14:21 | |
| This we do with lasting appreciation and affection | 14:25 | |
| for one another. | 14:32 | |
| The pain of the cross, | 14:34 | |
| with a command of the third word from Christ, | 14:37 | |
| made that small group a family. | 14:40 | |
| Ever since Christ uttered these words, | 14:45 | |
| Christians have felt a family bond | 14:48 | |
| whenever there was a need to stand together under his cross. | 14:51 | |
| As a family under his cross, man becomes kind | 14:55 | |
| and is bound to it. | 15:01 | |
| In the shadow of the cross, | 15:04 | |
| how can a man see himself as self made? | 15:06 | |
| How can he see himself to be hostile | 15:11 | |
| and filled with animosity? | 15:14 | |
| The family of Christ created by this word binds us all | 15:18 | |
| inescapably together | 15:23 | |
| to a family association | 15:26 | |
| with all its ups and downs, | 15:28 | |
| its moments of pain and non-understanding | 15:31 | |
| by the interweaving bond of love. | 15:36 | |
| Christ's third word created the family of Christianity | 15:41 | |
| as the true family transcending all ties. | 15:45 | |
| Any man or woman in need becomes our son | 15:49 | |
| or our mother. | 15:53 | |
| But we, practically minded people in our affluent society, | 15:56 | |
| say this is a strange way to look at the world today. | 16:01 | |
| But let us remember that from the moment Christ spoke | 16:06 | |
| to that disciple, | 16:10 | |
| that disciple took the world home | 16:13 | |
| with all its sorrow, | 16:16 | |
| with all its problems, | 16:18 | |
| with all its grief, | 16:20 | |
| and with all its joys. | 16:22 | |
| The true Christian can never turn the world out again | 16:25 | |
| since Christ's creation of this family | 16:29 | |
| in his utterance from the cross. | 16:32 | |
| The third word deals with a very human situation. | 16:36 | |
| There is no such thing as abstract sorrow or loss. | 16:40 | |
| These are aspects of human experience. | 16:44 | |
| Each individual has very definite problems | 16:49 | |
| and each group has its definite problems. | 16:53 | |
| All want help in definite situations. | 16:57 | |
| We are all bound in the bundle of life and our relationship | 17:02 | |
| and to God and to one another. | 17:06 | |
| Love must take this into account. | 17:10 | |
| And most of all, | 17:14 | |
| when what we do or leave undone affects the lives of others. | 17:15 | |
| Love is thus sometimes placed in a most searching dilemma. | 17:22 | |
| Each person has his definite tasks of fulfillment, | 17:27 | |
| depending upon his God-given talents. | 17:32 | |
| The sacrificial cause followed by each | 17:36 | |
| may inflict pain upon others, | 17:39 | |
| which is often very deep and searching. | 17:43 | |
| For many, it is hard to find one's way | 17:47 | |
| through a region of divided loyalties. | 17:50 | |
| When groups are bound together as true Christian families, | 17:55 | |
| the strong and the weak will take their share of the cost. | 18:00 | |
| The loss of Christ to his small band of friends | 18:07 | |
| beneath the cross generated sorrow beyond description. | 18:11 | |
| This third word suggests | 18:17 | |
| in its founding of the Christian family the way | 18:20 | |
| of meeting sorrow and comforting sorrow. | 18:24 | |
| The healing of in a sorrow is in new relationships | 18:30 | |
| and responsibilities. | 18:35 | |
| The broken bonds of lasting appreciation | 18:38 | |
| and affection can never be left loose and bleeding. | 18:42 | |
| Loss must not become emptiness | 18:48 | |
| or else sorrow is a corroding thing, | 18:52 | |
| nourishing bitterness and eating the heart out of life. | 18:55 | |
| Comforting of one another by the early Christian family | 19:01 | |
| was not merely an affair of sympathetic and consoling words. | 19:05 | |
| It was strength sharing. | 19:11 | |
| Putting what strength one had | 19:14 | |
| alongside the strength of those who sorrowed, | 19:16 | |
| and so helping them to a fortitude | 19:21 | |
| to which each alone might not have been equal. | 19:23 | |
| No love is so wise as a love which has suffered. | 19:29 | |
| No binding friendship is so strong | 19:35 | |
| as one ripened through searching experiences. | 19:38 | |
| For each of us, with our different problems, | 19:43 | |
| with our different missions to fulfill, | 19:48 | |
| Christ's third word established the true family of man. | 19:51 | |
| These words reach over the centuries | 19:58 | |
| to tell us to simply look at our total family | 20:01 | |
| with love and love alone. | 20:06 | |
| Despite our many frailties, our failures, | 20:10 | |
| our misunderstandings, | 20:14 | |
| can we, as the unnamed disciple, | 20:17 | |
| take the world home to never turn it out again? | 20:22 | |
| In doing so, | 20:28 | |
| can each change his life through the eyes of love | 20:30 | |
| and lasting appreciation and affection | 20:36 | |
| for our friends and fellow man? | 20:40 | |
| Can we bound ourselves together as a Christian family, | 20:44 | |
| despite our inadequacies and the problems about us? | 20:50 | |
| Can we rise above ourselves and work | 20:55 | |
| with understanding, love, and strength-sharing | 20:59 | |
| to mold the Christian family of tomorrow? | 21:05 | |
| May we pray. | 21:11 | |
| Our heavenly father, we pray for strength | 21:16 | |
| to rise above our personal ambitions and desires | 21:21 | |
| to achieve true love for others, | 21:26 | |
| for strength to try harder | 21:30 | |
| to achieve wisdom and understanding of others. | 21:33 | |
| And may each of us be transformed by thy love | 21:38 | |
| to play our own proper role | 21:42 | |
| in Christ's family. | 21:46 | |
| Amen. | 21:48 | |
| (silence) | 21:53 | |
| (soft orchestral music) | 22:05 | |
| (soft orchestral music continues) | 22:39 | |
| (soft orchestral music continues) | 23:15 | |
| (soft orchestral music continues) | 24:01 | |
| (orchestral music) | 24:24 | |
| (orchestral music continues) | 24:51 | |
| (orchestral music continues) | 25:18 | |
| (silence) | 25:54 | |
| (silence) | 26:14 | |
| Speaker 3 | Let us pray. | 26:42 |
| Today, | 26:48 | |
| and yesterday, | 26:50 | |
| and perhaps even tomorrow, | 26:53 | |
| our prayers may be silent cries for assurance | 26:55 | |
| of your presence, | 27:00 | |
| oh God of hurting, swaying, confused men. | 27:02 | |
| The turmoil | 27:08 | |
| and our own frenzy business | 27:11 | |
| drowned out our thoughtful understanding of life | 27:14 | |
| and gloss over our loneliness. | 27:18 | |
| The programs of our organizations are their irrelevance, | 27:23 | |
| get us so caught up in action or reaction | 27:29 | |
| that we have forgotten | 27:33 | |
| if we ever knew the excitement and demand and freedom | 27:35 | |
| of more ultimate commitment. | 27:41 | |
| Here we sit, | 27:45 | |
| each of us, | 27:47 | |
| a combination of self-satisfaction | 27:48 | |
| and uneasy self condemnation, | 27:51 | |
| a mixture of love and fear knowing some of what's wrong now, | 27:55 | |
| but little of what's better later. | 28:02 | |
| Here we sit in the midst of the tension of life | 28:06 | |
| with death, | 28:10 | |
| in the trauma of becoming | 28:12 | |
| and cry, | 28:15 | |
| "My God, my God. | 28:17 | |
| Why has thou forsaken me?" | 28:20 | |
| Give us humility, we earnestly pray in our experience | 28:23 | |
| in these days and in this place. | 28:28 | |
| Give us humility to see something of your power | 28:31 | |
| and your peace, and your quietness, and your purpose, | 28:35 | |
| so that our cry may not only be a falling dying shriek, | 28:40 | |
| but may be an opening of our selves | 28:45 | |
| to the redemptive, demanding, empowering affirmation | 28:47 | |
| and appropriation of life abundant through Jesus Christ, | 28:52 | |
| the one whom we want to know as Lord and master. | 28:58 | |
| Amen. | 29:05 | |
| (orchestral music) | 29:11 | |
| ♪ Break my heart in bitter grieving ♪ | 29:23 | |
| ♪ It break in twin with deepest grief ♪ | 29:34 | |
| ♪ Grief unending, never leaving ♪ | 29:44 | |
| ♪ Unceasing grief without relief ♪ | 29:55 | |
| ♪ Never thou shaking ♪ | 30:05 | |
| ♪ For a moment weaking ♪ | 30:11 | |
| ♪ Oh grief ♪ | 30:15 | |
| (vocalizing) | 30:20 | |
| ♪ Jesus my Lord is dead ♪ | 30:27 | |
| ♪ My savior dead ♪ | 30:37 | |
| ♪ Jesus did my life undoing ♪ | 30:48 | |
| ♪ My heart I bring toward he ♪ | 30:57 | |
| ♪ That it might the world foregoing ♪ | 31:07 | |
| ♪ The men and the weak unsparingly ♪ | 31:17 | |
| ♪ And wildest throbbing ♪ | 31:27 | |
| ♪ Break out in sobbing ♪ | 31:34 | |
| ♪ Oh grief ♪ | 31:39 | |
| (vocalizing) | 31:43 | |
| ♪ Jesus my Lord is dead ♪ | 31:50 | |
| ♪ My savior dead ♪ | 32:01 | |
| (soft music) | 32:22 | |
| (silence) | 32:36 | |
| (silence) | 32:56 | |
| (silence) | 33:35 | |
| (clears throat) | 34:38 | |
| Speaker 4 | Now from the sixth hour, | 34:42 |
| there was darkness all over the land until the ninth hour. | 34:46 | |
| And about the ninth hour, | 34:54 | |
| Jesus cried with a loud voice, | 34:56 | |
| "Eloi, | 35:00 | |
| Eloi, | 35:03 | |
| lema sabachthani?" | 35:05 | |
| which means, | 35:08 | |
| "My God, | 35:11 | |
| my God. | 35:13 | |
| Why has thou forsaken me?" | 35:15 | |
| These are awesome, shocking, terrifying words. | 35:20 | |
| Jesus was expressing a feeling | 35:25 | |
| of abandonment, | 35:28 | |
| alienation, | 35:31 | |
| helplessness, | 35:33 | |
| loneliness. | 35:34 | |
| While our hearts might be wrong | 35:37 | |
| by the suffering of ordinary mortal, | 35:39 | |
| our minds are not offended | 35:46 | |
| because we know | 35:49 | |
| that men are involved in situations | 35:52 | |
| while they can in extreme cases feel a sense | 35:56 | |
| of divine decision. | 36:00 | |
| When individuals face in great suffering, | 36:05 | |
| feel a sense of divine decision, | 36:11 | |
| we're not surprised | 36:17 | |
| because that is a part of the human condition. | 36:20 | |
| Man was born to do that. | 36:25 | |
| Or even when groups suffer greatly, | 36:29 | |
| when they react to inhumanities and brutalism of history, | 36:33 | |
| when they feel a sense of divine abandonment, | 36:39 | |
| we're not surprised because groups, too, suffer. | 36:45 | |
| One can sense in moments | 36:51 | |
| of deep reflection and ethical sensitivity, | 36:53 | |
| the loud cry of Jews and him in Germany, | 36:55 | |
| saying, "My God, my God. | 36:59 | |
| Why has thou forsaken me?" | 37:03 | |
| The same may be said of other groups | 37:06 | |
| that experience the lash and yolk of oppression. | 37:08 | |
| To feel that we have been abandoned by our fellows | 37:14 | |
| is a source of great moral agony and spiritual terror. | 37:18 | |
| But to feel deserted by God, | 37:24 | |
| the ground and end of our being, | 37:29 | |
| is supreme and inevitable agony of sorrow. | 37:33 | |
| The ultimate terror of the fourth word is disclosed | 37:40 | |
| by the knowledge that it was spoken, | 37:43 | |
| not by individual or collective humanity, but by our Lord. | 37:45 | |
| When the son of God reveals his insecurities, | 37:52 | |
| doubts and fear, mind of man is offended, | 37:56 | |
| staggered, | 38:01 | |
| mystified. | 38:03 | |
| It is clear that Jesus, | 38:06 | |
| rather than his institutional followers, | 38:07 | |
| uttered the fourth word. | 38:10 | |
| His followers would have been too tempted to doctor it up, | 38:13 | |
| and to conceal some of the shock and start | 38:17 | |
| and make a terror of it. | 38:21 | |
| It's also beyond question that the fourth word | 38:24 | |
| has not been touched by the public relation man | 38:29 | |
| of biblical faith. | 38:32 | |
| It is hardly your selling point for Christianity. | 38:34 | |
| No wonder to all the evangelists | 38:39 | |
| left the fourth word out altogether. | 38:42 | |
| Dean Kellen is right when he says | 38:46 | |
| that the fourth word is not the kind of comment | 38:48 | |
| which the church would have invented for its Lord. | 38:53 | |
| It was a shock to the hearings | 38:57 | |
| that this God-conscious man should be bereft | 39:00 | |
| of his divine mainstay. | 39:05 | |
| According to Matthew and Mark, | 39:09 | |
| the fourth gospel was the only thing of Jesus | 39:11 | |
| from the cross. | 39:14 | |
| The first word is also the only one remembered | 39:17 | |
| that Jesus said in his native tongue, Aramaic. | 39:23 | |
| What does Jesus mean in his loud cry? | 39:29 | |
| Biblical scholars have given many interpretations. | 39:35 | |
| His words are a deep mystery indeed. | 39:39 | |
| (indistinct) cause them a profoundest mystery | 39:44 | |
| unfathomable heart rendering. | 39:48 | |
| James Starker says in the entire Bible | 39:52 | |
| that there's nothing, | 39:55 | |
| there is no other saidth so difficult to explain. | 39:56 | |
| The first thought of a preacher on coming to wet | 39:59 | |
| is to find some excuse for passing it by. | 40:04 | |
| And after doing his outmost to expound it, | 40:08 | |
| he must still confess that it is quite beyond him. | 40:11 | |
| An apparent feeling of despair, | 40:16 | |
| desertion, doubt, abandonment and loneliness | 40:20 | |
| on the part of the son of God. | 40:25 | |
| What a mystery. | 40:28 | |
| Condemned and crucified by man | 40:31 | |
| and seemingly deserted by God, | 40:33 | |
| what a moment of supreme agony, | 40:36 | |
| absolute loneliness, | 40:39 | |
| physical, mental, spiritual. | 40:42 | |
| A cross is always alone the place. | 40:47 | |
| It was meant to be lonely. | 40:52 | |
| Jesus was human, | 40:55 | |
| as well as divine. | 40:57 | |
| The fourth word of our Lord is interpreted | 41:01 | |
| by many biblical scholars as abandonment, | 41:03 | |
| as a cry of faith, | 41:08 | |
| as a cry of failure, | 41:10 | |
| and as a cry of moral perplexity. | 41:13 | |
| I do not know what Jesus had in mind. | 41:18 | |
| I do not know what message he was trying | 41:23 | |
| to communicate. | 41:27 | |
| But this I know. | 41:30 | |
| His fourth word is symbolic of | 41:32 | |
| and discloses an essential dimensional | 41:35 | |
| of the human condition. | 41:38 | |
| It tells us something about the ultimate character | 41:42 | |
| of the human spirit. | 41:46 | |
| It tells us that the human soul | 41:49 | |
| in moments of intense, moral and spiritual agony, | 41:53 | |
| egos is cry. | 41:59 | |
| At some point, | 42:02 | |
| if we live long enough, | 42:05 | |
| we are likely to feel deserted, | 42:07 | |
| abandoned, | 42:11 | |
| alone. | 42:13 | |
| We sometimes feel cut off from the very ground of being, | 42:16 | |
| the source of life's deepest value. | 42:23 | |
| We feel alone. | 42:27 | |
| Jesus spoke for the tortured and agonized self | 42:30 | |
| at the deepest level of being. | 42:36 | |
| We, too, | 42:39 | |
| in moments of agony of soul, cry, | 42:42 | |
| "My God! | 42:46 | |
| My God. | 42:48 | |
| Why has thou forsaken me?" | 42:51 | |
| It may not be the God of biblical faith. | 42:54 | |
| It will be whatever we consider to be the center and source | 42:58 | |
| of meaning and value, | 43:01 | |
| some vision of ultimate reality, | 43:04 | |
| but the cry is the same. | 43:07 | |
| It has been well said | 43:12 | |
| that the cry of the savior points | 43:13 | |
| to the loneliness of all true suffering, | 43:15 | |
| that we must each thread the wine press alone, | 43:19 | |
| that no one can bear for us in the hour of agony | 43:24 | |
| and suffering our being. | 43:28 | |
| What if it may be? | 43:30 | |
| All true suffering is lonely, | 43:33 | |
| single, | 43:37 | |
| individual. | 43:39 | |
| It is impossible for another to bear it. | 43:41 | |
| All 10,000 came to offer sympathy, | 43:45 | |
| the smitten heart must still bear his bitter pains. | 43:48 | |
| Though, the nearest and dearest friends are relatives, | 43:53 | |
| stand by your side in an hour bereavement, | 43:56 | |
| all true suffering must be born alone. | 43:59 | |
| Its weight cannot be shifted. | 44:02 | |
| Failure to understand this make so many rested | 44:06 | |
| under discipline, trial, sorrow, bereavement, suffering. | 44:09 | |
| Yet, if God spared not his son... | 44:15 | |
| If that son had himself to bear his sorrow | 44:19 | |
| could not shift it off to another, | 44:23 | |
| make you we can do so. | 44:26 | |
| God had one son without sin, | 44:30 | |
| but never one without suffering. | 44:34 | |
| And that sinless one, | 44:38 | |
| while made pretty big through suffering, | 44:41 | |
| all true suffering must be individual. | 44:45 | |
| There is no escape. | 44:51 | |
| Describing the movement of Jesus | 44:55 | |
| to his inevitable crucifixion, | 44:58 | |
| (indistinct) tells us that Jesus said, | 45:02 | |
| "This is the way the world must be saved. | 45:08 | |
| I on our own will must die." | 45:13 | |
| At first, I didn't understand it myself. | 45:18 | |
| God sent me signs in vain, | 45:22 | |
| sometimes visions in the air, | 45:26 | |
| sometimes dreams in my sleep, | 45:29 | |
| or the goats' caucus in the desert | 45:32 | |
| with all the sands of people around his neck. | 45:36 | |
| And since that day I quit my mother's house, | 45:41 | |
| a shadow has followed me, | 45:45 | |
| followed behind me like a dog, | 45:49 | |
| or at times has run in front to show me the road. | 45:51 | |
| Which road? | 45:57 | |
| The cross. | 46:02 | |
| Let us pray. | 46:04 | |
| Heavenly father, when we feel abandoned, | 46:08 | |
| alone, | 46:13 | |
| deceited, | 46:15 | |
| and cut off even from thy love, | 46:17 | |
| help us to understand that such moments are the divine, | 46:22 | |
| as well as the human heritage. | 46:28 | |
| We ask this in the name of the father | 46:31 | |
| and the son, | 46:36 | |
| even Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 46:39 | |
| Amen. | 46:43 | |
| (silence) | 47:00 | |
| (silence) | 47:40 | |
| (soft orchestral music) | 48:07 | |
| (orchestral music) | 48:37 | |
| (orchestral music continues) | 49:41 | |
| Speaker 5 | Let us pray. | 50:10 |
| Oh almighty God who are the most strong tower | 50:14 | |
| to all those who put their trust in thee, | 50:18 | |
| to whom all things in heaven, in earth, | 50:23 | |
| and under the earth do bow and obey, | 50:27 | |
| be now and evermore our defense | 50:31 | |
| and make us to know and to feel | 50:34 | |
| that there is none other name under heaven given to man | 50:36 | |
| in whom and through whom we may receive health | 50:40 | |
| and salvation, | 50:43 | |
| but only the name of thy son, our Lord Jesus Christ. | 50:45 | |
| Oh thou forgiver of sin, | 50:54 | |
| thou healer of sorrow, | 50:57 | |
| thou vanquisher of death, | 51:00 | |
| draw us now unto thy self who art our salvation | 51:04 | |
| and our all conquering hope. | 51:10 | |
| Make us to be citizens of thy kingdom, | 51:14 | |
| man of invincible good will, | 51:18 | |
| builders of a world where righteousness shall reign, | 51:22 | |
| and the law of love shall triumph over hate and strife. | 51:26 | |
| Oh Lord increase our faith, | 51:33 | |
| renew our courage, | 51:37 | |
| and by thy spirit, | 51:40 | |
| make us victors over the things that beset us | 51:41 | |
| by giving our utmost to the highest. | 51:45 | |
| May thy blessing rest upon all who give cups of cold water | 51:50 | |
| to others because they belong to Christ. | 51:54 | |
| Show us that in every world, thou art still with us, | 52:00 | |
| that in every sorrow, thou art still loving us, | 52:05 | |
| even under the uttermost. | 52:08 | |
| And may our faith stand firm in thy righteousness. | 52:11 | |
| Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, | 52:17 | |
| amen. | 52:20 | |
| (singing evangelical song) | 52:31 | |
| (continues singing) | 53:01 | |
| (vocalizing) | 53:36 | |
| (continues singing) | 53:58 | |
| (continues singing) | 54:19 | |
| (continues singing) | 55:04 | |
| (silence) | 56:29 | |
| (silence) | 57:22 | |
| Speaker 6 | From the gospel of St. John: | 58:28 |
| After this, | 58:32 | |
| Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, | 58:34 | |
| that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, "I thirst." | 58:39 | |
| Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: | 58:46 | |
| and they filled a spunge with vinegar, | 58:50 | |
| and put it upon hyssop, | 58:52 | |
| and put it into his mouth. | 58:55 | |
| "I thirst", | 59:05 | |
| he said. | 59:07 | |
| So they gave him vinegar to drink, | 59:09 | |
| and he died. | 59:12 | |
| Seven times he spoke from his cross, | 59:15 | |
| the scriptures tell us. | 59:18 | |
| Seven simple stark | 59:20 | |
| and troubling words. | 59:24 | |
| And of these, the simplest, the starkest, | 59:27 | |
| and not the least troubling were "I thirst". | 59:32 | |
| We do not know if he cried them, | 59:39 | |
| spoke them resonably, | 59:43 | |
| or just barely managed to get them out. | 59:46 | |
| And if we are inclined to doubt, | 59:50 | |
| we do not even know if it was he who said them. | 59:53 | |
| "I thirst," a sentence paired to the bone, | 1:00:00 | |
| a most likely utterance for a dying man to make. | 1:00:06 | |
| So poignantly simple that even we who call | 1:00:11 | |
| to question the fables of his living, | 1:00:15 | |
| turn to this and feel he lived. | 1:00:19 | |
| He lived among us. | 1:00:24 | |
| Before it in the holy writings come high sounding words, | 1:00:27 | |
| that for all their art do not reach us. | 1:00:32 | |
| And afterwards, more words, which may or may not have been. | 1:00:37 | |
| But in the words "I thirst" is none of man chicanery, | 1:00:45 | |
| none of his inventive craft. | 1:00:50 | |
| It is bones and flesh. | 1:00:55 | |
| It lives. | 1:00:58 | |
| It is. | 1:00:59 | |
| We feel he said it. | 1:01:02 | |
| And though we have nothing more than our hearts | 1:01:04 | |
| to prove its truth, | 1:01:07 | |
| are we too cold a generation ever to trust in feeling? | 1:01:08 | |
| "I thirst." | 1:01:15 | |
| And from two words, rise desperate worlds of meaning. | 1:01:18 | |
| We cannot decide if it was water | 1:01:22 | |
| or something of the spirit that he thirsted for. | 1:01:26 | |
| If water, we marvel that the son of God should have wanted | 1:01:31 | |
| for such a simple need. | 1:01:35 | |
| Marvel though this same Jesus in another time, | 1:01:38 | |
| a time of hunger is reputed to have had the devil tempt him | 1:01:43 | |
| to turn stones to bread. | 1:01:48 | |
| Marvel as we marvel, | 1:01:52 | |
| he should have looked to heaven and called out a father | 1:01:54 | |
| who had forsaken him. | 1:01:57 | |
| Pleadingly, as if he no more than joke could grasp in full | 1:02:00 | |
| the mystery of God. | 1:02:07 | |
| That he suffered thirst, | 1:02:11 | |
| that he wanted for understanding, | 1:02:14 | |
| we will not say, | 1:02:17 | |
| we cannot say for these are ours, | 1:02:19 | |
| these failings, these longings. | 1:02:24 | |
| And should we have a God know better than ourselves? | 1:02:28 | |
| If slow to call him God, is he not still the perfect man? | 1:02:34 | |
| Then should we have him share such basically human things | 1:02:38 | |
| as unslate thirst, profound despair? | 1:02:42 | |
| So we say he did not thirst for water. | 1:02:48 | |
| We say he thirsted for our perfection | 1:02:54 | |
| for a thousand thousand lapses man is heir to. | 1:02:58 | |
| And as with so many words beyond the seven last he said, | 1:03:02 | |
| we endow with tangled meaning these words of his. | 1:03:07 | |
| We struggle that we may understand | 1:03:11 | |
| and then at every turning, fall on paradox. | 1:03:15 | |
| Is it that he spoke too clearly for us to hear, | 1:03:21 | |
| wove parables too concretely for us to grasp? | 1:03:25 | |
| And in our craft, | 1:03:30 | |
| we miss the truth | 1:03:31 | |
| that this God was more a man than men themselves are. | 1:03:33 | |
| The wise men smile at us | 1:03:40 | |
| who say that he did thirst for water. | 1:03:43 | |
| They say he wanted higher things. | 1:03:47 | |
| But why should he want it all, this very son of God? | 1:03:51 | |
| Shall he escape us then in these his dying words? | 1:03:58 | |
| For what is here, perhaps we know him best. | 1:04:02 | |
| His birth, a likely tale, | 1:04:07 | |
| becomes for us a frenzy time we would respite from. | 1:04:09 | |
| The miracles of vestige of our childhood | 1:04:14 | |
| when we held fancy dear and yet in vile it | 1:04:17 | |
| from the waking science we did not know. | 1:04:21 | |
| But the season of his death, | 1:04:26 | |
| no spree of thoughtless giving has become | 1:04:27 | |
| nor has our science explained away the mystery of dying. | 1:04:31 | |
| We reach yet to find him there. | 1:04:37 | |
| No less his ancient chronicles fed on those final hours | 1:04:40 | |
| and told of his death more than of his life, | 1:04:45 | |
| so go his science. | 1:04:49 | |
| At times the fish, but far more often, | 1:04:52 | |
| the fatal cross. | 1:04:56 | |
| In death, we feel he is among us, | 1:05:01 | |
| though we are told his death was for us and not with us. | 1:05:04 | |
| He dies. | 1:05:12 | |
| He thirst. | 1:05:13 | |
| He is a man. | 1:05:15 | |
| And in the final moments, he has found our hearts. | 1:05:18 |