In the name of God. Amen

Today we find our selves confronted, once again, by one of the central images and parts of the Christian faith—the death of Jesus on the Cross. Jesus’ death is never far removed from us. Every time that we celebrate the Eucharist or Baptism we remember the death of Jesus. The death of Jesus stands as one of the central points of the Church’s life and thus Good Friday is an integral part of who we are as Christians.

Today St. John recounts with vivid language the story of Jesus’ last hours, hours filled with rejection, pain, agony, injustice, fear, torture and ultimately death. And at the end we stand at the foot of the Cross, at the place where God, the incarnate creator of heaven and earth, suffered and died at the hands of humanity—the very humanity which he had called exceedingly good, on the sixth day of creation. We stand at the foot of that cross, some of us in deep grief, some of us numb, some of us in disbelief, some of us simply unsure why we are standing there in the first place. And as we stand at the foot of the Cross we struggle to understand God’s purpose in this death.

Somehow in the midst of that painful and unjust death the Church claims that the power and plan of God was made plain for all to see. In Christ on the Cross, God’s love and grace became visible. In Christ on the Cross God sanctifies and perfects humanity, God forgives us, justifies us, puts us in right relationship with God thus opening for us the door to life. Christ died at our hands, willingly, obediently for one basic purpose, to bring us back, to bring us back into a loving, intimate, relationship with our God, with each other, with ourselves, and with God’s creation.

To be brought back into right relationship with God, to be "made righteous" in theological terms, implies that something was broken beforehand. That brokenness, that sin, that disconnection from God can easily be seen throughout all of human history. This brokenness of humanity is made plain in the racism that continues to divide the human family, in the plan to build walls to keep the "other" out of "our land", the mass slaughter of other ethnic groups who are viewed as "unclean", or "defective", that continues throughout the world in places like Sudan. This human brokenness is made plain in the ever growing divide between those who have too much wealth and the more than one billion people who live in squalor on less than one dollar a day. This brokenness is found in families, friendships, your life and mine. Humanity’s brokenness was demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt by the fact that on this day nearly 2,000 years ago humanity, God’s beloved children created in the image of God, crucified him who knew no sin, crucified the very image of God who had been born into a manger, who grew up to love us, to heal us, to show us who it was that God called us to be as God’s children. On that day the brokenness and the hurt of the world was made utterly apparent as we mocked, beat, denounced and killed the author of life who had formed us and known us even before we were born.

The brokenness of the world is apparent, it is obvious. What we remember and celebrate today however is not that brokenness but instead what it is that God in Christ did to bring us back, to bring us back into right relationship with God, with others, and with creation. What we remember today is the way God has begun to heal and repair human sin and brokenness.

This bringing back of humanity into relationship with God fills today’s readings which speak in many different and difficult ways of how it is that God brings us back into right relationship. For example, Isaiah claims that in Jesus’ suffering all of the evils, all of the brokenness, all of the sins of the world are taken away from humanity and placed squarely upon Jesus in our stead. As Isaiah says, "upon him was the punishment that made us whole...by his bruises we are healed...the LORD has laid upon him the iniquity of us all." Somehow according to this prophetic texts Jesus stands in our place, and out of love is willing to "bear our iniquities" our sin, our brokenness so as to make "many righteous" so as to bring many back into right relationship with God and the creation.

Our reading from Hebrews also looks at the action of God on the Cross and tries to explain how God has brought us back into right relationship, and thus back into life. Hebrews does this from the point of view of Temple sacrifices which were meant to remove sin from Israel by the ritual killing of animals. No matter how hard it is for us to understand such an image, the fact is sin, the kind of brokenness that infects us, is something that is deadly. The sin of the world, that which separates us from our God and each others, is life destroying. For Hebrews Jesus’ death healed that sickness. Thus, through the blood of Christ human sin and brokenness has been dealt with in a way that can never be changed. If God has died out of love for us there is nothing, nothing whatsoever, that can separate us from God.

John shows yet another vision of how it is that God has reconciled us, and brought us back into relationship with God. Here it is through demonstrating the amazing, all encompassing love of God to a fearful and confused humanity. In John God acts not to shame humanity or to condemn humanity, but to show us beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are loved. Here Jesus suffers and dies to show humanity once and for all that sin can never separate us from God, for God loves us even to the point of death.

Christian conceptions of how God has brought us back to Godself are myriad. But no matter how it is that we understand God reaching out to us, the fact remains God is healing us, God is justifying us. God has reached out to us through the death of Jesus. Every last one of our readings today makes it clear that somehow, through the death of Jesus, God is bringing us back to Godself, back into right relationship with God. The images and the analogies of just how God does this rectifying of our relationship, this right-making, differs from one reading to the next, from one Christian to another, but the fact remains, God has reached out to us to bring us back home, to bring us back to life. God continues to beckon to us to follow Christ, to accept the new life of Christ, to find what it is to truly live, to live as Christ would have us live. God continues to call us into unity with each other and with God. God calls us into a unity which destroys all racial, economic, political or social barriers that could ever divide humanity. God calls us through this day to a unity and a form of life that is transformative, that is marked by love, holiness, and passion for justice and peace. God has gone to the utmost limit of love to bring all of us home, to make all of creation whole, to offer life, life filled with joy and hope, even in the midst of the pain that continues to be a part of our world. God has acted so as to give us courage and power to transform this world into a place where "God will truly be all in all." God has come, God has loved, God has given his life for us, God wants us back.