*Welcome!
Happy to have the Chinese Congregational Church with us tonight—
Dul-Tones and readers
*CCU Good Friday services; Easter Sunrise and YMCA Easter Breakfast
*Our traditional service includes the reading of 10 passages describing the passion of Christ. Normally, we don’t have the chance to read these Scriptures but tonight we do. It’s a discipline so that we, regardless of how few we might be, represent the understanding between the triumphant entry of Jesus on Palm Sunday and when we celebrate the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday.
When I was growing up in Boston, we celebrated this service of tenebrae, the extinguishing of each candle until the entire room is darkened. We leave with the image of God’s great sacrifice and to return on Good Friday to experience the crucifixion. Only from such practices would we sense the joyous miracle of the Risen Christ. I pray that tonight you will receive a blessing of the new covenant established in Christ, our Lord.
At the end of the service, we ask that you leave quietly until we meet again.
Benediction
We have received the mandate to love one another.
Christ sends us out as disciples of love.
The love of God goes with us everywhere we go.
In Jesus Christ, we are strengthened to love. Amen.
The Old Rugged Cross
Maundy Thursday, March 28, 2013
Message by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church, San Francisco.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross.” Author and composer, the Rev. George Bennard completed the hymn in 1913 and it was publicly sung in a Methodist church in Pokagon, Michigan. Bennard said that he was having a “real soul struggle” and that he was “praying for a full understanding of the Cross and its plan in Christianity.” After spending many hours in study and prayer about this, he finally could say, “I saw the Christ of the Cross as if I were seeing John 3:16 leave the printed page, take form and act out the meaning of redemption.”
Tonight being Maundy Thursday is preparation for Good Friday tomorrow when the Cross takes center stage. The cross is the literal wooden object to which Jesus was nailed and upon which he died—this meaning cannot be escaped. But also, the Cross as the symbolic emblem is now the most recognizable mark of the Christian faith on which our faith is based.
Is the Cross, as the song says, “an emblem of suffering and shame…where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain?” Is it the emblem of a fate we all deserve because of our sins but which we don’t have to face because Jesus faced it for us by taking our place and thus “satisfying” our debt to God? Is the Cross, the place where Christ confronted the power of demons who first appeared to have won but who, come Easter morning, were shown to have lost? Is it a supreme symbol of God’s love for us? Is it God sacrificing himself for the human race? Or is the Cross simply the preferred method of execution in the Roman Empire, to which Jesus was unjustly sent for confronting the shortcomings of the established religious leaders? All of these explanations have been proposed, argued and, in some cases, even fought over in the centuries since Jesus’ death occurred.
Regardless of how we may view the Cross, there can be no deep understanding of Christianity without talking about the Cross, but it may also be true that there is no understanding of the Cross that satisfies all Christians.
What we can say, however, is that whatever the Cross and Jesus’ death on it means, the New Testament ties the Cross firmly to the resurrection of Jesus. All four Gospels present Jesus’ crucifixion in close conjunction with his being raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul uses terms like “death on the cross” and “words of the cross” to imply resurrection, often in a phrase that occurs nearby.
While tonight is Maundy Thursday and tomorrow is Good Friday and we are still three days away from Easter, the Cross’ profound meaning to our lives and our world is a call to follow Jesus. We see that in John 12:32-33, Jesus himself said something about the Cross. Shortly before the final week, he spoke to his disciples about his coming “hour,” by which he certainly meant all that would be involved in his Passion. He went on to tell them, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” The Gospel writer, John commented, “He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.”
Jesus’ statement about his death is “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw people to myself.” He offers no theological interpretations, but says that his death will have a pulling effect. He will draw people to him. Surely not all who feel drawn will respond, but something about his death and his subsequent victory over death will attract people.
And that’s what has happened, hasn’t it? Some of us are here tonight because we were drawn into the realm by the crucified Christ. Some will be drawn to come tomorrow and many more will come on Easter morning. This is the attraction that has caused some of us to open our hearts to him and proclaim him our Lord.
There’s a story of a retired Presbyterian pastor in New York City who was flying back to the US from his native Scotland. It so happened that he was carrying back, for his church, a large metal Celtic cross from the Isle of Iona. He had wrapped the cross carefully in layers of paper and padding. Not trusting the baggage-handlers, he decided to carry it onto the plane himself.
As he approached the X-ray machine, the screeners eyed him with suspicion. What was this item this man was carrying, that was the same size, and similar shape, as an automatic weapon? When the image of the two-foot-tall Celtic cross appeared on the X-ray screen, the guards relaxed.
Early the next morning, the pastor made his way into the customs area of New York Kennedy Airport. “Do you have anything to declare?” asked the custom agent.
“Only this cross,” said the sleepy-eyed pastor. The agent looked down and scribbled something on a form in front of him: “Item of a sentimental nature. Of little or no value.”
Is this how we perceive the cross of Jesus? It only has sentimental or no value? If the custom agent would ask us this disturbing question directly, “Do you have anything to declare?” What would you say about your faith in Jesus?
Here’s an olive wood cross from Israel so that you may have a Cross in your pocket. May it symbolizes for you how the crucified Christ has drawn you to himself so that you may have a relationship with him that saves and lifts us to bring us peace with God. May you declare that the Cross has more than sentimental nature and more valuable than anything else in the world because the crucified Christ died for our sins and we choose to follow him.
Let us pray.
O God, as we contemplate the final hours of Jesus’ life on this earth, we look upon the cross knowing that it was for us and because of our sin that he endured its pain and suffering. Let us remember his sacrificial gift as we confess our sins. Forgive our casual attitude toward the cross and our forgetfulness of what our sin really cost you. And the good news is this: Jesus Christ came into the world to redeem sinners. Hear it and believe—in Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Amen.