The dawning light of resurrection
It is finished.
One Easter morning, in my first country parish in South Australia, I had an encounter at the door of the church that I will never forget. It was a moment that gathered me into the way that the good news of the resurrection of our Lord changes us to be people of hope. At the church door before that Easter Sunday service, I was met by an older member who announced, ‘Pastor, I felt Easter!’ She continued, ‘I felt the resurrection of our Lord Jesus for the first time.’ What had happened to this faithful member, that she would make such a declaration?
That story began with Good Friday just days before. For our worship service in the parish, we had used a form called ‘Tenebrae’. This order of worship is focused on light in the darkness. During the service, candles are extinguished one by one, as relevant scriptures are read. The last candle is hidden behind the altar, and then the people leave the church in darkness.
Since the congregation’s worship committee had decided to use this Tenebrae-style service for Good Friday, they had to deal with a bit of a problem. A worship service at 9am in the morning, in the South Australian countryside, is very bright and sunny, so it would be easy for the significant symbol of extinguishing candles and of darkness to be lost. A couple of the men in the congregation came up with a creative solution. They decided that as each candle was extinguished, they would cover each of the six church windows one by one with specially prepared cardboard.
And their idea worked. When all the candles were extinguished, and we had put up their cardboard, we had a very dark church indeed. After putting the last candle behind the altar, we all left in silence. It was like walking out of a tomb.
That was the experience of the parish member who had met me at the door on Easter morning. She was rostered on church cleaning that weekend, so the day before, when she went to clean, the cardboard hadn’t been taken down yet, and she found herself entering the empty darkness. As a Christian, she knew the good news that the empty tomb at Calvary meant for all humankind and it was those ‘tidings of great joy’ that she had discovered.
Only from the darkness of Good Friday can our eyes recognise the dawning light of Easter resurrection.
When the Apostle John recorded the story of Jesus in his gospel nearly 2000 years ago, he told us his purpose was that we would believe that Jesus is the Christ and, by believing, we would have life in his name.
John is the only gospel writer to record certain words of our Lord from the cross – ‘When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished”.’ What has been finished? John has given the parameters to understand these words, from the very beginning of his gospel. It is another John, the Baptist, who sees Jesus and proclaims: ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’
When Jesus was crucified, he declared that his work taking away the sin of the world was complete. ‘It is finished.’ We gather for worship on Good Friday to hear Jesus’ response to our struggle for God’s acceptance: ‘It is finished. Sin is forgiven once and for all. I have done all that is required for you to have peace with God.’ He does this for me out of love.
At the beginning of John’s Gospel, we hear the deepest assurance of Good Friday faith: ‘In him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’ In the Tenebrae service, the light of the last candle is hidden behind the altar to remind us that behind the darkness of sin and death of Good Friday, there was always God’s purpose to forgive sin and defeat death and the power of the devil.
In our Lutheran witness, we confess that this message of Good Friday is the first and chief article of faith, out of which comes all other teachings of faith. This truth that, on the cross, Christ Jesus finishes what is required for faith, can never be watered down or modified.
Only from the darkness of Good Friday can our eyes recognise the dawning light of Easter resurrection.
In Christ,
Bishop Paul Smith
This message was first published in Bishop Paul’s column ‘Because we bear your name’ in The Lutheran.
