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Stones
Sermon for Good Friday, 3 April, 2015
See also sermon for Easter Sunday 2015 : 'Roll Away the Stone'
Stones All these weeks ago as Lent began, we recalled that when he fasted and wrestled with the Devil in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread. The battle had begun. Stones When he was teaching in the Temple they picked up stones to throw at him. They considered him to be blasphemous . . . DANGEROUS! The anger had begun. Stones |
When the crowd greeted his entry into the city with cries of praise and the Pharisees urged him to have them stopped, he said 'if these were silent, the stones would shout out'.
The plotting would soon begin.
Stones
When he was sentenced to death before Pilate it was upon the Stone Pavement that the condemnation took place.
The killing was about to begin.
Stones
And on the bare stone of an ugly hill outside the city wall, they crucify him, while indifferent soldiers gamble, mocking crowds jeer, a grieving mother watches and waits, a loving friend looks and listens . . .
The agony has begun.
Stones
Six long pain wracked hours on the Cross, and in the end he cries out his final utterance, breathes his last and yields his spirit, the earth shakes and the stones are split.
The darkness has begun.
Stones When they take his body from the cross, wrap it in cloths and place it in the tomb, they roll a great stone over the door. The mourning will begin. Stones But will a stone be enough? Will love and life . . . and God not triumph over stones . . . and death? |
Even in the darkness of this day, there is the almost indiscernible glimmer of hope.
And can the love of God for us, so fully and freely, lovingly and lavishly, painfully and powerfully revealed on that Cross finally melt our indifferent hearts of stone?
Here and now, for us, that question begins . . .
Stones
| Rev David Denniston, April 2015 |
See also sermon for Easter Sunday 2015 : 'Roll Away the Stone'
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