SERMON AT ST JOHN'S CATHEDRAL OBAN
Murdoch MacKenzie
Good Friday 2012
Betrayal and Arrest Matthew 26:47-56
Years ago a new set of 6 glass communion cups was given to Iona Abbey. 6 huge glass bowls. On each it was decided to engrave a verse from Scripture. The finest engraver in Scotland was found but it turned out that he was an atheist. However he was given the Scripture verses: ‘I am the good shepherd’, ‘I am the true vine’, ‘I am the bread of life’, and so on. But he was only given 5 verses for 6 cups and he was asked to choose the sixth verse himself. What do you think he chose, that wonderful craftsman, that atheist? What words would he engrave on the sixth cup?
He chose a question, the words of Jesus to Judas Iscariot in the Garden of Gethsemane, as recorded in the Authorised Version of the Bible: ‘Friend, wherefore art thou come?’ Friend what are you here for? How very perceptive. Perhaps only an atheist would have thought of something like that. And so it was that each time you came to communion and were about to kiss the cup with your lips, you were faced with the question: ‘Friend, wherefore art thou come?’ What are you here for? What are you doing here?
Once again, on this Good Friday afternoon, we are faced, with all the old dilemmas of ourselves, particularly as we consider how often we have betrayed the Son of man with a kiss, as we remember Luke’s version of this incident in which Jesus says: ‘Judas, would you betray the Son of man with a kiss?’(Luke 22:48) A kiss, which should be the sign of love (in Greek the same word means ‘to love’ or ‘to kiss’) as used by St Paul in several places when he writes to the Romans, the Corinthians and the Thessalonians; ‘Greet one another with a holy kiss’. But here in Matthew, in verse 49, a slightly different word is used which means a profusion of kisses like those of a lover. In other words ‘he kissed him repeatedly’, reminding us of Proverbs chapter 27 and verse 6 where we read: ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.’
And he came with a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, at night, just like the police capturing asylum seekers or Muslims in British cities, when there was nobody else like, say, the media, around. Indeed Jesus asks them: ‘Why didn’t you arrest me in the temple?’ ‘Why do you come to take me like a robber or a bandit, with swords and clubs in the middle of the night?’ And when one of the disciples,
(John says it was Peter) draws his sword, Jesus says: ‘All who take the sword shall perish by the sword’, perhaps remembering God’s words to Noah in Genesis 9:6 ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.’ which are re-echoed in Jeremiah 15:2 which is quoted in the Book of Revelation 13:10 ‘if anyone slays with the sword, with the sword will he be slain.’ Right there at the moment of his arrest on the Mount of Olives Jesus was living out his teaching given in a sermon on another mount, about loving your enemies, (Matthew 5:44) as later understood by St Paul who said ‘Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’ (Romans 12:21)
Jesus, who had done precisely that during his testing by the devil in the Judean wilderness, and alluded to here by Jesus as recorded in verse 53 ‘Do you not think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled which say it must happen in this way?’
And so it happens to us in this way today, that we too are tested, that we too are invited, if not commanded, to take up our cross daily, and to follow him. And to hear the words of Jesus again on this Good Friday asking each one of us the arresting question:‘Wherefore art thou come? What are you here for? Why are you here in St John’s cathedral today? It’s a question for you and a question for me as we watch and pray that we may not enter into the temptation to betray our Lord and Master.
But for me this Good Friday happens to be particularly special because it is the 6th of April – 20 years to the day since the beginning of the War in Bosnia. Our son-in-law, Damir, is a Bosnian refugee and our two grandchildren are a quarter English, a quarter Scottish and half Bosnian. 20 years ago in Bosnia suddenly a neighbour would knock on your door at the dead of night and in all innocence you would ask the Jesus question: ‘Friend, wherefore art thou come?’ The answer was betrayal and like the disciples they all fled. But one man didn’t flee and his name was Vedran Smajlovic, the cellist of Sarajevo who continued playing his cello in the midst of sniper fire and of the ruins all around him. Here is his picture playing in the midst of the ruins. Believe it or not he is back there again today playing his cello in Sarajevo. And as we will discover on Easter Day the dance goes on because the man who asked the question: ‘Friend, wherefore art thou come?’ did not flee because ‘I am the Lord of the dance’ said he.
Amen.
Murdoch MacKenzie
Years ago a new set of 6 glass communion cups was given to Iona Abbey. 6 huge glass bowls. On each it was decided to engrave a verse from Scripture. The finest engraver in Scotland was found but it turned out that he was an atheist. However he was given the Scripture verses: ‘I am the good shepherd’, ‘I am the true vine’, ‘I am the bread of life’, and so on. But he was only given 5 verses for 6 cups and he was asked to choose the sixth verse himself. What do you think he chose, that wonderful craftsman, that atheist? What words would he engrave on the sixth cup?
He chose a question, the words of Jesus to Judas Iscariot in the Garden of Gethsemane, as recorded in the Authorised Version of the Bible: ‘Friend, wherefore art thou come?’ Friend what are you here for? How very perceptive. Perhaps only an atheist would have thought of something like that. And so it was that each time you came to communion and were about to kiss the cup with your lips, you were faced with the question: ‘Friend, wherefore art thou come?’ What are you here for? What are you doing here?
Once again, on this Good Friday afternoon, we are faced, with all the old dilemmas of ourselves, particularly as we consider how often we have betrayed the Son of man with a kiss, as we remember Luke’s version of this incident in which Jesus says: ‘Judas, would you betray the Son of man with a kiss?’(Luke 22:48) A kiss, which should be the sign of love (in Greek the same word means ‘to love’ or ‘to kiss’) as used by St Paul in several places when he writes to the Romans, the Corinthians and the Thessalonians; ‘Greet one another with a holy kiss’. But here in Matthew, in verse 49, a slightly different word is used which means a profusion of kisses like those of a lover. In other words ‘he kissed him repeatedly’, reminding us of Proverbs chapter 27 and verse 6 where we read: ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.’
And he came with a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, at night, just like the police capturing asylum seekers or Muslims in British cities, when there was nobody else like, say, the media, around. Indeed Jesus asks them: ‘Why didn’t you arrest me in the temple?’ ‘Why do you come to take me like a robber or a bandit, with swords and clubs in the middle of the night?’ And when one of the disciples,
(John says it was Peter) draws his sword, Jesus says: ‘All who take the sword shall perish by the sword’, perhaps remembering God’s words to Noah in Genesis 9:6 ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.’ which are re-echoed in Jeremiah 15:2 which is quoted in the Book of Revelation 13:10 ‘if anyone slays with the sword, with the sword will he be slain.’ Right there at the moment of his arrest on the Mount of Olives Jesus was living out his teaching given in a sermon on another mount, about loving your enemies, (Matthew 5:44) as later understood by St Paul who said ‘Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’ (Romans 12:21)
Jesus, who had done precisely that during his testing by the devil in the Judean wilderness, and alluded to here by Jesus as recorded in verse 53 ‘Do you not think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled which say it must happen in this way?’
And so it happens to us in this way today, that we too are tested, that we too are invited, if not commanded, to take up our cross daily, and to follow him. And to hear the words of Jesus again on this Good Friday asking each one of us the arresting question:‘Wherefore art thou come? What are you here for? Why are you here in St John’s cathedral today? It’s a question for you and a question for me as we watch and pray that we may not enter into the temptation to betray our Lord and Master.
But for me this Good Friday happens to be particularly special because it is the 6th of April – 20 years to the day since the beginning of the War in Bosnia. Our son-in-law, Damir, is a Bosnian refugee and our two grandchildren are a quarter English, a quarter Scottish and half Bosnian. 20 years ago in Bosnia suddenly a neighbour would knock on your door at the dead of night and in all innocence you would ask the Jesus question: ‘Friend, wherefore art thou come?’ The answer was betrayal and like the disciples they all fled. But one man didn’t flee and his name was Vedran Smajlovic, the cellist of Sarajevo who continued playing his cello in the midst of sniper fire and of the ruins all around him. Here is his picture playing in the midst of the ruins. Believe it or not he is back there again today playing his cello in Sarajevo. And as we will discover on Easter Day the dance goes on because the man who asked the question: ‘Friend, wherefore art thou come?’ did not flee because ‘I am the Lord of the dance’ said he.
Amen.
Murdoch MacKenzie