Father Gary’s Sermon

Inspired from John 19:1-16

Proclaimed on April 9, 2004

There was a group of Jews at Auschwitz who studied the Talmud daily during their imprisonment. They also observed all of the traditional Jewish festivals while confined in the German concentration camp. They did this for a very simple reason: it was the only thing that made sense in the midst of their utter hopelessness. One day, in the midst of their misery, they decided to put God on trial. God was charged with cruelty and betrayal. Like Job, they found no consolation in their suffering. They also could find no excuse for God; no extenuating circumstances. At the end of the trial God was found guilty and worthy to be put to death. After the rabbi pronounced the verdict, he looked up, pronounced that the trial was over, and then announced that it was time for evening prayer.

While this may sound far-fetched, scandalous and even irreligious, it is far more common than we think in a world where many seem to be without hope. Recently, Charles Bennison, the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, pronounced that Jesus was a sinner. However, before we become outraged again with another Episcopal heresy, let’s first consider the historical and cultural context in which this Bishop makes his claim.

The great C. S. Lewis wrote a five-page essay entitled, “God in the Dock.” In England the dock is where the accused sits while being tried in a court of law. Therefore, it is in this writing that C. S. Lewis states well the accuracy of our times--that we have traded places with God. At one time we were the accused defending ourselves in the dock, while God served as our judge. Now we often become the judges of God. With tongue in cheek, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “In the beginning God created us in his own image and ever since we have endeavored to return the compliment.”

It is rare today that our culture is able to grasp God’s awesomeness, God’s transcendence, God’s holiness, and most of all, God’s justice. Therefore, we have a natural tendency to put God in the dock, and when we do, all sense of Divine justice is gone, and we lose any understanding of God’s mercy! We have turned Divine Mercy upside down. Now it is simply our right to be accepted, no matter what! We have come to trivialize God. Even Rabbi Kushner in his best seller Why Bad Things Happen To Good People writes that we “must forgive God.”

But none of this is new! Humanity has stood in judgment of God way before this. Just hear today's Gospel story. Here Jesus is put on trial. Why? Simply because he said he was God. The legal arguments were heard, the evidence was submitted, but no guilt could be found! But he was killed anyway. And what killed him? Was it his sin? Absolutely not! Jesus was killed by the same thing that kills us! Jesus was killed by our sin! Here is where Bishop Bennison is wrong. Jesus was not a sinner, for as he stood in front of Pilate, even he said that Jesus was sinless. But during the course of the proceedings all of our human evil was projected upon him. Indeed, he seemed to attract our sin like some sort of huge magnet pulling in every metal object around it! Like a huge sponge he absorbed all of our evil into his very being until he became our very sin and took our punishment unto himself.

So with the trial of Jesus we have already placed God in the dock. But the outcome then remains the same today. God is still innocent and we are still guilty. Therefore, reversing the roles does not reverse the reality.

The good news is that God wins in the end and shares with us the victory. Even when we are at our worse, God remains at God’s best by offering us mercy. Not because we deserve it. Or even because God has to, but out of pure love combined with our desperate need to be saved. It is simple. We cannot save ourselves, even when we put God in the dock, pronounce God guilty, and then put God to death, as we did with Jesus.

Unlike those Jews at Auschwitz, where the best they could do was to admit that the trial was over and announce evening prayers, we can be like the Olympic hopeful--Charles Murray--who was training to be a high diver. During this time a friend of his spent long hours sharing with him the salvation Christ won for us on the cross. Though he was patient and asked many questions, Charles could only respond with a strong “No!” Sometime later, Charles decided to practice a few dives between 10:30 and 11:00 in the evening. It was a clear night and the moon was big and bright. The pool was housed under a ceiling of glass panes, so the moon shone bright across the top of the wall in the pool area. Charles climbed to the highest platform to take his first dive. At that moment the Spirit of God descended intensely upon Charles. All the Scriptures he had read, all the occasions of witnessing to him about Christ flooded his mind. Standing backwards on the platform to make his dive, then spreading his arms to gather his balance, he looked up to the wall and saw his own shadow caused by the light of the moon. It was the shape of a cross. He could not bear the burden of his separation from God any longer. With his heart breaking, he sat down on the platform, and began praying that God would forgive him. Suddenly his heart was strangely warmed as he began trusting in the Lord while seated twenty some feet in the air. Just as suddenly, the lights in the pool area came on. An attendant had come in to check the pool. As Charles looked down from his platform he was shocked to see an empty pool beneath him--a pool that had been drained for repairs. At that point, Charles developed a new and profound appreciation for the cross. He had been saved from plummeting to his death, because the cross had stopped him from sure disaster.

We can always blame God for our woes, even put God on trial, but God has done that and now gives us more then mere T-shirts for the experience: for in Jesus “he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and the punishment that brought us peace was upon him. By his wounds we are healed.”