Based on: John 18:1 - 19:42

Last night we stripped the altar and church of ornaments. We slowly carried out the things that help to make this beautiful building a testament and a triumph to our Lord. We carry them out and we spend Good Friday in bleakness and darkness to remind us just how broken and needy we are.

It's easy for most upper-middle class folks to forget how broken and needy we are. We go along from day to day with enough to eat and enough to drink and really, if we would admit it, more than enough to buy most of what we want. We need reminders of just how broken and how needy we are, how near death we are, how close to end of our ropes and how very, very close we are to denying both that and the Savior we claim to love. Because underneath this sweetness and light lies bitter darkness, darkness so deep only one thing can penetrate it.

What can penetrate that darkness is a death, a death on the cross. But first we have to admit that we are indeed standing in darkness. We could admit we stand in darkness more easily if we were not so all-fired cheerful, so determined to keep smiling and act as though everything is all right. We could admit we stand in darkness if we were, oh say, homeless, or shirtless, or hungry, or even poor black or Latino, or battered or alcoholic. It would be so much easier if we could admit we were powerless over the darkness, but we just keep smiling. You'd almost think we were all British - instead of just a few of us - because we just keep repeating, "Let's get on with it."

This is the time to sit in the darkness. This is the time to admit we don't know all the answers and our smiling "get on with it" attitude has gotten us exactly nowhere and nothing. It is empty and so are we.

We need to take a nod from the poor, the disabled, the hungry, those who are drinking or seeking solace in drugs and admit we are hungry still. Even though our bellies may be full and our bank accounts may only be slightly overdrawn. We need to forget we know the end of the story. We need to put ourselves so fully in the story that we go a little crazy in the darkness.

Even the mentally ill can challenge and teach us about darkness. One Good Friday when the Passion Gospel was being read in a cathedral, a mentally ill woman who frequented the place was sitting in the back. People were used to her. She was usually quiet and well-behaved. She didn't stay to chat, or for coffee, which was just as well because no one liked her personal hygiene habits anyway. But then that Good Friday she listened to the priest read the Passion Gospel. And when the priest got to the part where Jesus is crucified, and paused, the woman screamed, "Noooooooooooooo!!!!" And then she began to sob and ran out the door.

That's where we need to be, this night of nights, with Christ on the cross. This is where we need to be when we have been the betrayers with our cheerful smiles and our complacent lives. We need to let in the darkness. And we need to wait in the darkness until Christ comes risen, freeing us from our pain and sorrow, and letting in the light. AMEN.