The Only Words that Count

The Only Words that Count

On this day of all days for the Church, what words count against all our fears? The only words that can count are those that we hear today from the cross.

“Mother, there is your son … There is your mother.” There is no human fear of loss or abandonment that the Son of God has not known. Yet, even on that cross, He is able to think beyond his immediate suffering and reach out to others, in this case his mother who without a husband or son would have no one to care for her. So Jesus gives her a son, and in giving that child to her, gives all us children to her as our Mother. So even in our fear we too can think beyond ourselves, reach out to others, and find new parents and siblings deeper than blood. So, let us also share the love that flowed between Jesus, His mother, and the disciple whom He loved.

“I thirst.” Of the scripture fulfilled by Jesus one is reminded of Psalm 69:23, “when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink.” This psalm was quoted earlier in John’s Gospel, “Zeal for your house has eaten me up.” It is a psalm of abandonment. There is no human experience that God in Christ Jesus has not experienced in full. Therefore we are never alone in our suffering because with the eternal God there is no time when God was not, nor a time when God will not be. We live in time, where what has been is no more, and what will be is a blank. But God is timeless, with no past or future, no yesterday or tomorrow, but an eternal present; it is always today with God. So what God in Christ Jesus experienced in our time, He experiences with you today, right now. You are not alone. Just breathe that prayer whose only name is Jesus, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” until you know that you are not alone.

“It is finished,” or more accurately, “It is accomplished.” Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that Jesus cried out just before his death. John tells us what he cried, “It is accomplished!” Jesus’s death actually confirms his divinity for no human died on the cross with enough breath to cry out. Jesus does not despair at his death, for it is his greatest accomplishment. He has endured the worst that human beings do to each other out of our fear and anger, but has not reacted with fear and anger, but with acceptance. Therefore we have nothing to regret or fear about approaching our God, for through God’s Son, God accepts us as we have been. And therefore, we can accept whatever is to come, knowing that we are not alone in our acceptance, however resigned that acceptance may feel. When we accept whatever comes, we can trust that on the other side of our acceptance is the acceptance of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, whose acceptance gives eternal life. And what a change that will be!

These words count.

April 3rd, 2026

Good Friday

The Rev. David Kendrick