Good Friday 2019 – Second of three Sermons preached by the Revd. Canon Colin Williams – ex Archdeacon of the Diocese in Europe

Jack was aged about seven years old.  He loved going to school.  He had lots of friends there.  If you went past the school you could see him playing together with his friends in the school yard at playtime.

But his parents were worried,  Because he had so many friends, most weeks once or twice he was invited round to  one of his friends’ house to play and to have a meal with them and their family.  But he never invited any of his friends back to his house to come and play and eat. His parents noticed that.  And they got more and more worried.

Finally one day Jack’s dad took him to one side. ‘Son me and your mum have noticed that you never ask any of your friends back to come and visit you here and to have their tea. Is it because of your mum’s hands?  Jack looked a bit sheepish and just nodded.

You see Jack’s mum’s hands looked horrible.  They were black and scarred and misshapen.  And Jack had obviously worked out in his mind that if his friends came and ate with him and his mum and dad, then they were bound to see his mum’s hands. It couldn’t be avoided.  And so he never asked anyone to come.

 

It all went quiet for a few seconds.  And then Jack’s dad said well son I need to tell you how your mum’s hands got to be like that.  You see when you were a baby in the house we were living in we used to have a log fire.  And one day when your mum was busy she put you down in front of the fire whilst she was doing the ironing.  But she put you too close.  And a spark came out of the fire and it reached you and your clothes started burning.  And your mum didn’t think twice.  She ran up to you and put the fire out with her hands. And that’s how your mum’s hands got to be like that.

Jack took this all  in.  And his eyes filled with tears.  For the rest of the night he was very quiet. The next morning he went off to school.  Then about 3.30 there was a knock at the door.  It was Jack.  His mum let him in.  But Jack wasn’t alone.  He had one of his friends with him.  He asked if he could take his friend up to his room, of course son his mum said.  And up they went.  And his mum couldn’t help overhearing what Jack said to his mate as they got to the top of the stairs. When we go downstairs again Jack said when we go downstairs again take a look at my mum’s hands.  When you see them, you’ll see how much she loves me.

 

And they took Jesus to the Place of the Skull which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.  And there they crucified him. And Jesus stretched out his hands on the Cross.  we do well to remember that for Jesus the Way of the Cross is a Way of love – of his love for us,  that he follows the Way of the Cross out of love for us.  As Jesus walks that way he is already wounded. he has already been scourged – the crown of thorns has already been placed on his head and that too will have wounded him terribly.  And yet he walks willingly towards Calvary -the place where even more wounds will be inflicted on him. Wounds which will eventually lead to his death.  And yet laid on the cross as he is made ready to be crucified, out of love for us he stretches out his hand that nails may cruelly be knocked into them. Not neat little nails of the sort that we use in DIY – but huge nails of iron, which will tear painfully into his skin and leave him in agony.

 

Jesus walks the way of the Cross – he is wounded for us,   but wounded out as a sign of his love for us.  As we reflect today on Jesus’s hands – we do well to remember too that his wounded hands – show us how much he loves us.

We do well to reflect on our wounded saviour – because our appreciation of how he has been wounded for our sake is an important stepping stone towards our fully appreciating the great love which he bears for us. He has fully entered into our humanity – fully entered into what it is to be a human being alive in God’s world   He has done that to the extent that he has entered into our own woundedness and made it his own.  By his wounds we have been healed wrote St. Peter in the second chapter of his first Epistle.

And wounded for us for all eternity.  That sense of being wounded for all eternity is an extra dimension which the great hymn writer Charles Wesley give us in one of his greatest hymns. That idea of the wounded Jesus was clearly an important part is his own understanding of what Jesus did for us – because in several of his hymns he alludes to it. In his great Advent Hymn he refers to Jesus being pierced and nailed to the tree, And then he writes.  Those dear tokens of his passion still his dazzling body bears -the Jesus who lives for ever in heaven takes with him the wounds of our humanity. And so with what rapture gaze we one those glorious scars.

And following Charles Wesley’s lead, in his hymn ‘Crown him with many crowns’, the hymn writer Matthew Bridges too continues the theme of Jesus reigning from heaven as King of King and Lord of Lords but still being the wounded Jesus, wounded for us.  Crown him the Lord of Love he writes, behold his hands and side… those wounds yet visible above, in beauty glorified.

 

Jesus has taken our broken and wounded humanity with him into heaven – the Jesus who reigns at God’s right hand  -the Jesus who is King of the Universe and Lord of the Church – has taken with him into heaven our brokenness our  woundedness – so that it can be bathed in  the redeeming light of the glory of God with which heaven shines out – and  so  made glorious – bathed in the redeeming light of heaven and be healed.

Jesus’ wounded hands are the hands of love  stretched out to us for all eternity  . saying ‘Look, look what I have done for you – come to me and be healed through the love I have shown you on the Cross’.  And he longs for our response to be none other than that of Thomas, who when he was invited to put his fingers and hands into the wounds of Jesus could respond only by falling to his knees and saying ‘My Lord and my God’

So as this day we reflect on Jesus taking up His Cross and bearing it to the place of his death we do well to think of those wounded hands of Christ which are for us signs of love – signs that the  Christ who took on our woundedness,  reaches out his wounded hands to us as a sign that we can be healed from our own self-inflicted wounds. Wounds of greed, envy, selfishness, lust, anger – All those wounds which disfigure us and mar in us the image of God – in and through Christ’s healing work on the cross and in the tomb – in and through his reaching his wounded hands out to us, our wounds can and must be healed.

Jesus in love holds out his wounded hands to us.  See how much I have loved you he says – my wounds are a sign of how powerful is my love.

 

So as you come to the cross later in this service  bring with you in your hands your own sense of being wounded – your own woundedness.  Your worry,  your anger,  your guilt,  your fear whatever being wounded means in your life  – bring it with you this day to the cross.  As you touch the cross lay all of that into Christ’s wounded hands – knowing that those are hands of love which are stretched out to us so that in love Christ may share with us our sense of being wounded.  Lay those wounds in his wounded hands, hands wounded out of love for us.  That those hands may bear our wounds with us.  That he may begin to heal our wounds

 

For Christ when he died

Deceived the cross

And on death’s side

Threw all the loss.

The captive world awaked and found

The prisoner loose, the jailer bound