Good Friday Stories

I found this first story in a sermon I wrote and preached at Holy Trinity in Nashville in 1998.  I failed to footnote it in the manuscript and an hour or so of searching through "the usual suspects," i.e. Will Wilimon and Fred Craddock, failed to turn up anything.  All I can say is, it's a good story and I know I didn't make it up.  I also researched Catholic churches in North Myrtle Beach, and found Our Lady Star of the Sea, which had a Father Ed briefly in the 1970's.

"Father Ed was pastor of the Catholic Church on the strip in North Myrtle Beach, SC.  Several years ago on Good Friday morning, he removed the purple Lent banners from the three wooden crossses in the church yard and draped the crosses with black shrouds.

He took a few minutes to pray and enjoy the sunshine, then it was back to the office to write sermons and prepare worship folders for Good Friday, Easter Vigil and Easter morning.

Early in the afternoon, Father Ed received a phone call from the North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce.  A vocie said,

Look preacher, we've been getting some complaints about those crosses out in your churchyard.  Now inside the church, who cares? But out front, where everybody can see them, they're offensive.  The retired people here don't like them - they're depressing.  The tourists won't like it either.  IT WILL BE BAD FOR BUSINESS! People come down here to get happy, not depressed."

The cross was, and still is, offensive, depressing and bad for business.

And that simple fact is both the burden and the treasure of the church.  To embrace the cross tightly and to proclaim it boldly is a sure and certain way to place ourselves outside the mainstream of much of what passes for spirituality and religion in our modern and postmodern world.

Yet, any attempt to avoid the scandal of the cross in our life together as the people of God will inevitably lead to a case of spiritual anemia.  Our souls will shrivel up and die unless we are willing to embrace the offensive symbol that stands defiantly at the center of our faith; the scarred and bloody Cross of Christ.

The cross reminds us of the awful reality of sin and evil in the world.  Whenever we become too complacent about the significance of our faults and failures; whenever we shrug off public and private immorality with a sigh and a wink and a mild protest that, after all, "we're only human;" the Cross of Christ looms up to confront us with the profound and deadly result of sin in our lives. It will not let us forget that evil exists, evil touches all our lives, and we are all a part of that evil.

But the cross not only offends and depresses and calls us to an awareness of evil.  By a great and glorious paradox it also comforts and redeems us.

Maggie Ross in THE FIRE OF YOUR LIFE  tells the story of Emma, a holocaust survivor.  Everyday, rain or shine, Emma stood outside a Manhattan church and screamed insults at Jesus.  She blamed Jesus and the Christians for Hitler's atrocities.  Finally the pastor, the Rev. Myers, went outside and said to her, "Why don't you go inside and tell him?"  Emma nodded and disappeared inside the church and the pastor went back to his office.  An hour went by and he began to get worried and looked in on her.  She was lying perfectly still, face down in front of the lifesize crucifix over the altar.  When he touched her shoulder, she looked up with tears in her eyes and whispered, "After all, he was a Jew too."

Turning away from and ignoring the harsh realities to which the cross points will only keep us mired in our sins and deadly illusions; but turning to the cross will both open our eyes and set us free; free from our sins, free from our foolishness and free from wallowing in our suffering.

To turn to the cross is to weep at the suffering of Jesus and to recognize that our own suffering is transformed by what happened there.

To turn to the cross is to embrace the mystery that lies at the heart of God; the mystery of God's weakness being strength, the mystery of God's foolishness being wisdom,  the mystery of God's offensiveness being the most proper thing in the world.

So yes, the Cross is offensive, depressing and bad for business.  It is also our hope and our salvation.

Delmer Chilton