March 25, 2005; Good Friday Readings: Isaiah 52:13-15--53:1-12; Hebrews 10:1-25; John 19:1-37; Psalm 22:1-11.   The Rev. Dr. Hilary B. Smith The Cross At the Center of It All Why did Jesus suffer and why do we suffer when we say that God is love? We claim, we proclaim, that God cares—that God loves us. And yet, suffering is part of life. The fact of suffering and our claim of God's love are difficult for some to reconcile. I have heard time and again of persons who stop going to church because something tragic happened in their lives. There are those who have never given the church a try because bad things happen, and they reason that if there were a God, God would stop the painful events. So God is either a disappointment or wishful thinking to many who say that they do not believe or that church is not for them. What have we to say about these things? How do we understand suffering? What is the Christian hope that we can share with our world? All of the answers can be found at the Cross. The Cross itself is the answer. There are a number of theological explanations as to why Jesus suffered and died on the cross. Put simply, God did not want to leave us alone in times of pain and in death; God loves us so much that God became one of us so as to experience all that we experience. God—in Christ—transformed suffering and death by taking away their power to posses us. This seems so basic to our faith, and yet, it does not seem to be understood as well as we might hope. If it were understood, why would a person turn from God when times get hard? God never said we would not suffer, only that suffering and death would not have the last word—they cannot own us. Good Friday is that day when we consider God's great act of love known through the cross and the place of the cross in our lives. In cultures where suffering is often present, among the poor and oppressed, Good Friday services are better attended than Easter services. Maybe all this talk of the cross is difficult for well-off US citizens because we live in a culture that discourages any thought that life cannot be what we want it to be. Our culture does not make it easy to understand a theology of the cross. Many are encouraged to think of their Christian faith as a path to success. There is no room for the cross in such thinking. We say that the cross is at the center of our lives. To say that the cross is at the center of our lives, is to say that the transforming love of God is at the center of life. On the cross, God accomplished the victory. We say that Jesus was and is the victory of God. The victory was not known on that day of great sadness, but it was accomplished. As we observe Good Friday, we cannot help but look to the resurrection. For in the resurrection, the point of Good Friday became clear. The two are linked. You cannot have one without the other, though so often it seems that Good Friday is forgotten and all it means for us is not considered—we do so at our peril. When we do so, our faith becomes a pale version of the truth—an incomplete version of the truth, which will not stand up when challenged by pain and suffering. The Christian hope is not that all will be well for us. How could it be? Death comes for all. The hope given to us through the cross is focused on relationship with God. God is with us always because Jesus suffered, died, and rose. Our hope, our belief, our faith is that all will be well, not necessarily in the present time, but in God's time. It was on the cross that God accomplished the victory. The victory continues to be experienced by those who experience the resurrection—the presence of the living God—the Risen Christ. Soon we will celebrate the feast of the resurrection, Easter Day. We will not celebrate how perfect or easy life is because of Jesus Christ. We will celebrate that God is with us in all of it—in the joy and the pain. We celebrate God’s victory over death. We will celebrate the resurrection, which cannot be separated from the cross. Today’s reading of the passion came from John's gospel. Earlier in John, chapter 12, Jesus gives a metaphor for the coming crucifixion: "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Amen.