Burial, by John August Swanson, © 2012 John August Swanson, used by permission.
You can watch a video of this sermon here, at minute 39:40.
Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus replied, “I AM.” … They stepped back and fell to the ground.
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When this room is uncomfortably crowded, the pews are holding about two hundred people. Now multiply that by three: fill this room three times, fit to burst, with people, and you have a “detachment,” also called a “cohort,” by Roman imperial standards. Judas summoned about six hundred officers, a mix of government soldiers and temple security. They assembled – presumably in rank-and-file formation – outside the garden gate. The Light of the World was inside the little garden of olive trees, waiting for them with his small clutch of friends.
They came by the hundreds, and they came with lanterns and torches and weapons. Lanterns and torches: artificial lights, manufactured to help you see when you are trying to move around in the dead of night. They needed these devices because they could not see the Light who had come into the world, the Light who is the Light of the World. Perhaps some of the temple security staff in this cohort had been among the squad that was sent out some time before, to arrest the Light, eleven chapters earlier in the Good News according to John. The religious leaders had sent officers back then to arrest him, but they returned empty-handed, amazed at all the things he was saying. It was then when he had said to the authorities, “I am the Light of the World.”
And now, their numbers swelling to six hundred, now they are carrying lanterns and torches. They still cannot see the Light.
A lantern: this is a more sophisticated tool than a torch. To make a torch, just dip a rag into an accelerant, tie it to a stick, and light it. But a lantern is a controlled flame under housing, with a latch on the side, maybe a fine chain. What is the lantern you carry, even now, to give you artificial light when you can’t see the true Light?
What is your lantern?
I wonder if your lantern is certitude, which is a kind of refined, intellectual sin of arrogant self-confidence. A well-crafted lantern would be a good image for certitude. Many of us can be smug and overconfident about things, sure that we are correct, content to see things by our own lights, however dim they actually might be. I once heard a member of the clergy flatly say that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is in harmony with the Democratic Party, over and against the Republican Party. Is it, now? Are we sure? Where did we get that idea? (We did not get it from the Light of the World.) Certitude is not a good look for anyone in a partisan political conversation. It is not a bright light. If I am sure that I know the right answers, then I can probably number myself among the horde pressing against the gate of God’s garden, in the dead of night.
But maybe you’re carrying a crudely-made torch, as you jostle for a view, still unable to see the Light. Maybe you’re eleven rows back, holding a burning towel soaked in kerosene. What is the torch you carry, even now, to give you artificial light when you can’t see the true Light?
Maybe it’s just raw selfishness, base self-centeredness. This is a rougher character flaw than certitude. It’s less intellectual, less refined. It’s a torch, not a lantern. When I center myself, I cast everyone I know into supporting parts in a movie that’s all about me. And when I do this, I definitely cannot see the Light. This is an extremely anxious state of mind, because no matter what I think or feel, I am not the Light, and I’ll have to manipulate people a lot to keep myself in the center of their lives, to remain the god of my tiny, anxious universe. The Light of the World preaches – and exemplifies – the ministry of self-giving love: not just charity, not just little acts of kindness, but the giving of my own self away to others, for others. I am not at the center, which may be a wound to my fragile ego, but – if I can extinguish and put down this torch – I may be able to enter God’s garden peacefully, and bask in the Light.
And then, the weapons. The cohort brought weapons.
These weapons may look impressive, but they mask ordinary fear and frustration. If I feel lost or in the wrong; if I have gotten badly off track and see the mess I’ve made of things, I may try to shield myself with weapons, to prevent the Light from shining on me. Judas had just left the Light, and when he walked away, we were told, simply, “And it was night.” When I am in his predicament, a weapon might ease my anxiety and compensate for my inadequacy. I will feel and act defensive.
So, there they all are, a huge cohort, lost in the night, straining against the garden gate, flaunting their weapons, trembling with excitement but also fear. They’ve got him cornered now. They’re about to extinguish the Light.
And then he comes out. We hear in our translation of the Good News that he “came forward,” but it’s more accurate to translate this verb as “to come out.” The Light leaves the garden, opening the gate, placing himself between his beloved ones and the army.
The Light will protect his beloved ones from our certitude, from our selfishness, and from our fragile egos. “I am the Gate,” the Light had once said. The Light is also the Gate that protects his friends.
To the soldiers deluded by smug certitude, the Light asks a question; he does not mansplain. “Whom are you looking for?” he asks them, just as he had asked his first followers when his ministry began; and just as he will ask Mary in the garden when she comes looking for his body. “Whom are you looking for?” The Light defeats certitude with a provocative, deep question.
He then defeats selfishness by willingly offering himself as the cohort’s victim, lovingly protecting his beloved ones to the end. The antidote to destructive selfishness is self-giving love. And through all this he is calm, in control, even serene.
But hear this Good News: we are not merely lost among the cohort, soldiers of the night, forever doomed to lurk outside the garden gate. The Light shines inside us, against all those wretched shadows within us: the Light protects our own best selves from the wretches we so easily could become. The garden, the gate, and the hillside crawling with armed officers: all of this lies within you, within me. The Light is protecting our own hearts from the forces of wickedness that rebel against God.
Earlier this spring, when Lent began, we recalled the story of the primordial human ones, Adahm and Chava, Adam and Eve, who were cast out of the garden by God, a just consequence for their terrible choice to break their relationship with God, seeking enlightenment by their own lesser lights. But now the Light of the World casts himself out of the garden, armed only with a penetrating question, and laying down his life so that life itself can rise up in abundance. The parts of us that clutch lanterns and torches and weapons in our sweaty hands — they cannot overcome the Light, as it shines within and among us, knocking evil to the ground, and raising us up.
Today is the Friday we call Good, and rightly so, for today the Light fills us with holiness, and carries us back into God’s garden. It is going to be alright. Do not be afraid. The Light shines, and the Light will not be overcome.
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Preached on Good Friday, April 7, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 22
Hebrews 10:16-25
John 18:1-19:42