On Thursday 2 April – the day before Good Friday – Ross Sutherland from our church once again led a procession of the Cross through Dingwall, helping us to remember Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf, for the whole world and for all time.
A group duly formed outside the Post Office, at 9am, and followed the Cross as an act of witness down the High Street and ending outside Castle Street Church. Below these two photos, which were taken last year, you can see a couple of parts of our worship today.
Words spoken by Robert MacNaughton, outside Dingwall Post Office
This week we commemorate two events from two thousand years ago which changed the course of world history, of time and eternity, more than any other – the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus.
The Crucifixion of Jesus was prophesied a thousand years before it happened, before the Roman Empire even existed to introduce crucifixion as a method of execution when David wrote:
Everyone who sees me mocks me. They sneer and shake their heads, saying, “Is this the one who relies on the Lord? Then let the Lord save him! If the Lord loves him so much, let the Lord rescue him!” They have pierced my hands and feet. My enemies stare at me and gloat. They divide my garments among themselves and throw dice for my clothing. [Psalm 22:7,8,17,18]
Two hundred years later – that was still eight hundred years before Jesus was crucified – there was another prophesy explaining why he would have to die:
He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins. But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. [Isaiah 53:3-6]
And finally, the account of Jesus’ death two thousand years ago which fulfilled these amazing prophecies:
When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. [Luke 23:33-34]
Words spoken by Revd Andrew Fothergill, outside Castle Street Church, following Matthew 27:45-54 reading
Tomorrow is Good Friday; we call it Good News!
But the story of the cross is brutal, bloody and ruthless. As Christians we know that the Cross is about God’s justice and God’s mercy! It’s about God’s son stepping into the breach, taking our punishment so that we are set free from bondage to sin and death.
Through the Cross, Jesus’ work becomes Good News.
Of course, the events of the Cross took place two thousand years ago. So, you could rightly ask the question: Why isn’t the world fixed today, why isn’t the world a better place, a safer place, a place where people can live their lives peacefully, full of joy and love?
Of course, today’s world is a big mess, isn’t it? War after war! Endless brutality, cruelty and ruthless indifference to life, causing extreme suffering!
Paul says in his First Letter to the Corinthians [1:18]:
For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
I confess I don’t fully understand that not everyone can see the miracle, the wonder, of the Cross.
During the liberation of a POW camp at the end of WW2, a British soldier came upon a donkey, tied to a pole. Like the POWs who had survived, the donkey was extremely malnourished. All the ground around the pole had been eaten bare. The soldier immediately cut the rope because, just beyond the donkey’s tether, there was grass, fresh grass, to eat. When the soldier returned days later, he was horrified to discover that the donkey had not survived and that it lay lifeless at the foot of the pole.
It had starved to death. The donkey had grown so accustomed to being tied to that pole that, even when given an opportunity to access fresh grass, it didn’t take it. The rope had been cut; grass and nourishment were only yards away, yet the donkey had become resigned to a life of bondage.
And isn’t that the way it is? That there are so many people, who have got used to their tether, used to their bondage. Got used to being bound to the broken, counterfeit and squalid ways of this world. They just can’t see it: Jesus’ work on the Cross makes no sense to them!
And I’m sure you’ve had conversations where people will just dismiss Jesus, because it doesn’t make sense to them. And so surely it is incumbent upon us to tell them, to tell them that Jesus has cut those ties, that Jesus has cut those bounds, to set us all free!
Easter breaks the chains, doesn’t it! Easter breaks the tether to this world, and that’s why we call it, Good Friday and Good News.
