Sermon for Good Friday, April 18, 2025

Isaiah 52:13-53:12+Psalm 22+Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9+John 18:1-19:42

Tim and I were riding in the car last Saturday listening to NPR's Morning Edition when a story came on about...something. I don't actually remember what it was about, but I remember one line that the person being interviewed said. He was talking about art, painting and drawing, and there is a principle first embraced by the Old Masters (I think) that says that light and shadow reveal form.

Now, if there are artists among you, that may be ridiculously obvious, but I suppose I had just never thought about it that way. If I look at a painting by Vermeer, the use of light is pronounced. It is what makes his painting so startling. Rembrandt understood that the use of shadow and light create the shape, they reveal the form intended.

This discovery (if you want to call it that), led me on a search through principles of artmaking, and I learned that the parts of a drawing with the most light are accomplished with thin, barely perceptible strokes of a pencil or brush, that secondary light reflected from a wall or a window can amplify the light, and, interestingly, "the most highly detailed features lie between the lighted and the shaded sides of the subject."[1] If you study a Rembrandt pencil drawing, you can actually see reflected light that brightens a particular part, or that features he wants to highlight are between darker shadow and lighter areas.

The Passion Narrative, much like a Rembrandt masterpiece, follows such artistic principles, highlighted between areas of shadow and light.

The darkness of the garden as the soldiers show up with torches, light playing off their spears, illuminating the face of the one for whom they are looking.

Jesus under arrest being brought into a brightly lit chamber of the high priest, squinting as his eyes adjust to the posh surroundings.

The shadows in the courtyard with light from the fire dancing off the faces of those who draw near to warm themselves.

Peter lurking in the shadows, trying to avoid detection.

Alternating shades of steel gray and black with flashes of brightness as Jesus is scourged and mocked and crowned with thorns.

The cat and mouse jousting of words with Pilate, moving in and out of the shadows, prowling like a cat as he tries to get a straight answer from the condemned man.

Back out in the late morning sun, exhausted, bleeding, carrying the crossbeam of his instrument of death as the sun creates shadows in which his followers can hide as Jesus himself makes his way to Golgotha.

Nailed to the cross and lifted high, his own body creating the shadow for the women to watch and weep as the soldiers crouch nearby, throwing dice for his clothing.

As Jesus dies and the blood and water flow from his side, the sun falls lower in the sky, the onlookers making their way home before dark.

And just before nightfall, the two men, Joseph and Nicodemus, remove the body and place it in a tomb, doing their best to finish their work before darkness envelops the land.

And then the stone covers the tomb, leaving the body of our savior in complete darkness, where only God knows what happens over the next days.

The light and shadow of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth reveal the form - not just the physical form of the person of Jesus but the shape of the purpose of his coming at all.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. (John 1:1-5)

We see Jesus in the brightness of light even if as the forces of darkness are arrayed against him. We see Jesus in the world around us in the places where light continues to shine in darkness, even as darkness threatens to overcome goodness in so many places.

On Palm Sunday, an Israeli bombing destroyed part of Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. It is the last functional hospital in Gaza. Where is the light in that? That's our job. In the Episcopal Church, it has long been the custom for the Good Friday offering to go to the Jerusalem church. This would be a good year to be especially generous. That's shining light into the shadows.

Last week, the Hoboken Shelter honored Mark Singleton for 40 years of serving chicken dinner on the second Wednesday of the month. Every month. For forty years. That's a lot of chicken filling the bellies of a lot of hungry people. That's shining light into the shadows.

Our confirmands, Ace and Kayla, have spearheaded packing bags of supplies for Street Life Ministry which serves some of the most vulnerable and at-risk people living on the street. That's shining light into the shadows.

Our form, the shape of our faith, is also revealed by light and shadow. This Good Friday was the darkest of days for the followers of Jesus, his friends and family. But the light that comes on the third day reveals the shape of the unsurpassing love God has for all of us.

Christ is the world's true light, its Captain of Salvation,
the Daystar clear and bright of every race and nation;
new life, new hope awakes, for all who own his sway:
freedom her bondage breaks, and night is turned to day.[2]               

[1] https://www.artandhow.com/the-human-face-revealed-by-light-and-shadow.html

[2] Christ is the World's True Light (#542, Hymnal 1982)