William H. Willimon - Lenten Meditation (February 1, 1999)
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| - | Where cross the crowded ways of life? | 0:02 |
| These are words of a great social Gospel hymn, | 0:05 | |
| written by Frank Mason North. | 0:08 | |
| Frank Mason North was an idealistic young student, | 0:11 | |
| working among New York City's desperately poor in | 0:14 | |
| the Hell's Kitchen area of New York. | 0:17 | |
| And this hymn arises out of his experiences there. | 0:20 | |
| In 1903, where cross the crowded ways of life, | 0:24 | |
| right there in the middle of human need and suffering. | 0:29 | |
| There, is where we hear the voice of Jesus. | 0:33 | |
| In the middle of the marketplace, amid dark despair, | 0:36 | |
| wherever there is war or suffering, | 0:41 | |
| there, the cross is raised again and again. | 0:43 | |
| And there, is our Lord. | 0:48 | |
| When I came to Duke Chapel, | 0:51 | |
| a decade ago, we initiated the Stations of the Cross | 0:54 | |
| on Good Friday. | 0:57 | |
| Beginning at the Bryan Center, | 0:59 | |
| walking behind the cross, | 1:01 | |
| a procession moves to various stations around the campus. | 1:03 | |
| And at each station, we remember some event from | 1:07 | |
| Good Friday: the trial, the crucifixion, | 1:09 | |
| and the death of Jesus. | 1:13 | |
| That Stations of the Cross has become for many of us, | 1:16 | |
| one of the most memorable services of the year. | 1:19 | |
| There's something about walking behind the cross, | 1:23 | |
| hearing the words of scripture, describing the suffering, | 1:25 | |
| the injustice, the death of Jesus, juxtaposed with | 1:28 | |
| the Duke campus on a Spring day at noon. | 1:33 | |
| Students are sunning themselves on the lawn. | 1:36 | |
| People toss frisbees; shout to one another. | 1:38 | |
| And there, there moving through it all, is the cross | 1:41 | |
| and people walking behind it. | 1:46 | |
| A pastor chanting from one of the psalms of lament. | 1:48 | |
| Christians gathered around their scriptures, | 1:52 | |
| walking behind the cross. | 1:54 | |
| One year, we even got a call from someone | 1:57 | |
| over at the admissions office, asking us if we could | 2:00 | |
| cancel the service, or at least move it discreetly | 2:03 | |
| inside the chapel, because they were having a special | 2:06 | |
| weekend to recruit Duke students. | 2:10 | |
| And, as they said, some of the | 2:12 | |
| prospective students might get the wrong idea | 2:14 | |
| about Duke from witnessing the procession. | 2:17 | |
| Wrong idea indeed! | 2:20 | |
| Well, we didn't cancel the service. | 2:22 | |
| I'm sure there are those who think that Christians | 2:25 | |
| ought to keep such services to ourselves. | 2:28 | |
| Ought to tuck them safely within the chapel, | 2:31 | |
| where no one could be made uncomfortable on a | 2:34 | |
| Spring afternoon, by a man dying on a cross. | 2:37 | |
| Trouble is, Christianity is the sort of religion | 2:41 | |
| that thrives in the marketplace, amid the tug | 2:44 | |
| and the pull of daily life, proceeding into where | 2:48 | |
| we live, intruding into where people work or | 2:52 | |
| play, suffer, live, and die. | 2:55 | |
| "Where cross the crowded ways of life, where sound | 3:00 | |
| the cries of race and clan, above the noise | 3:04 | |
| of selfish strife, we hear your voice, oh Son of Man." | 3:08 | |
| It's Lent. | 3:14 | |
| It's the time of the year when we remember, Our God, | 3:16 | |
| did not stay aloof, | 3:20 | |
| uninvolved, some high and untouchable ideal. | 3:22 | |
| Our God came among us. | 3:27 | |
| "Where cross the crowded ways of life..." | 3:30 | |
| That is one of the reasons we call that Friday, good. | 3:33 | |
| - | Psalm 130: | 3:53 |
| "Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord. | 3:56 | |
| Lord, hear my voice: | 3:59 | |
| Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. | 4:02 | |
| If thou, oh Lord shouldst mark iniquities, | 4:06 | |
| Lord who could stand? | 4:09 | |
| But there is forgiveness with thee, | 4:12 | |
| that thou mayest be feared. | 4:14 | |
| I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word, I hope. | 4:17 | |
| My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for | 4:22 | |
| the morning; more than watchmen for the morning. | 4:26 | |
| O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord | 4:31 | |
| there is steadfast love, and with | 4:34 | |
| him is plenteous redemption. | 4:36 | |
| And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. | 4:39 | |
| Amen." | 4:44 | |
| Psalm 130: | 4:53 | |
| "Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord. | 4:56 | |
| Lord, hear my voice: | 4:59 | |
| Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. | 5:02 | |
| If thou, oh Lord shouldst mark iniquities, | 5:06 | |
| Lord who could stand? | 5:10 | |
| But there is forgiveness with thee, | 5:13 | |
| that thou mayest be feared. | 5:16 | |
| I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, | 5:18 | |
| and in his word, I hope. | 5:22 | |
| My soul waits for the Lord, | 5:26 | |
| more than watchmen for the morning; | 5:28 | |
| more than watchmen for the morning, I wait. | 5:34 | |
| O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord | 5:38 | |
| there is steadfast love, | 5:41 | |
| and with him is plenteous redemption. | 5:44 | |
| And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. | 5:47 | |
| Amen." | 5:52 | |
| - | Slower? All right, Paul. | 5:56 |
| God of the cross, chafe our shoulders with | 6:01 | |
| the cross of thy love. | 6:04 | |
| Oh love, deep and wondrous, be here now. | 6:06 | |
| The back bent under toil, the hand | 6:10 | |
| under sin... | 6:12 | |
| Oh, I'm sorry. | 6:13 | |
| I screwed that one up. | 6:15 | |
| God of the cross, chafe our shoulders with | 6:19 | |
| the cross of thy love. | 6:21 | |
| Oh love, deep and wondrous, be here now. | 6:23 | |
| The back bent under toil, the knee | 6:27 | |
| under sin, the hands to the face under fear, | 6:28 | |
| the head bent under grief. | 6:32 | |
| Bow, stubborn knees. | 6:35 | |
| Greet this great burden with gratitude and joy. | 6:36 | |
| God of the suffering cross, from the cowardice that | 6:39 | |
| dare not face truth, | 6:43 | |
| the laziness that is content with half-truth, | 6:44 | |
| and the arrogance that seems to know all truth, save us. | 6:47 | |
| God of redemption, so that by the soul of Christ | 6:52 | |
| may I be sanctified. | 6:55 | |
| By the body of Christ, saved. | 6:57 | |
| By the blood of Christ, inebriated. | 6:59 | |
| By the wine that stung his lips, awakened. | 7:02 | |
| By the weight of thy cross, strengthened. | 7:05 | |
| Forever and ever, amen. | 7:07 | |
| All right. | 7:13 | |
| God of the cross, | 7:16 | |
| chafe our shoulders with the cross of thy love. | 7:17 | |
| Oh love, deep and wondrous, be here now. | 7:20 | |
| The back bent under toil, the knee under sin, | 7:24 | |
| the hands to the face under fear, | 7:28 | |
| the head bent under grief. | 7:30 | |
| Bow, stubborn knees, greet this great burden | 7:33 | |
| with gratitude and joy. | 7:36 | |
| God of the suffering cross, | 7:39 | |
| from the cowardice that dare not face truth, | 7:40 | |
| the laziness that is content with half-truth, | 7:44 | |
| and the arrogance assumes to know all truth, save us. | 7:46 | |
| God of redemption, so that by the soul of Christ | 7:51 | |
| may I be sanctified. | 7:54 | |
| By the body of Christ, saved. | 7:56 | |
| By the blood of Christ, inebriated. | 7:59 | |
| By the wine that stung his lips, awakened. | 8:02 | |
| By the weight of the cross, strengthened. | 8:05 | |
| Forever and ever, amen. | 8:08 | |
| - | Have you ever noticed that things sometimes | 8:19 |
| start out so wonderful and then, before you know it, | 8:21 | |
| everything gets all messed up? | 8:24 | |
| And suddenly things are ever so wrong. | 8:27 | |
| That's how it was in Jerusalem. | 8:30 | |
| Could it have been only five days since | 8:33 | |
| Jesus rode into the holy city with the crowds | 8:35 | |
| waving palm branches in greeting? | 8:38 | |
| Shouts of Hosanna, loud Hosanna, they cheered! | 8:41 | |
| Now the same crowd was begging Pilot to crucify him. | 8:45 | |
| On his back was the cross on which he would die. | 8:50 | |
| As he mounted the place of the skull, | 8:53 | |
| placed in the midst of two other nameless, but yet... | 8:56 | |
| Mmm... | 9:00 | |
| Sorry. | 9:01 | |
| Ah, okay. | 9:04 | |
| Have you ever noticed that things sometimes start out so | 9:09 | |
| wonderful and then, before you know it, | 9:12 | |
| everything gets all messed up? | 9:14 | |
| Suddenly things are ever so wrong. | 9:17 | |
| That's how it was in Jerusalem. | 9:21 | |
| Could it have been only five days since Jesus | 9:23 | |
| rode into the holy city with the crowds waving | 9:25 | |
| palm branches in greetings? | 9:28 | |
| Shouts of hosanna, loud hosanna, they cheered! | 9:30 | |
| Now, the same crowd was begging Pilot to crucify him. | 9:35 | |
| On his back was the cross on which he would die. | 9:39 | |
| In that same place, mounted with a skull, | 9:43 | |
| placed in the midst of two other nameless people, | 9:47 | |
| but yet his cross was marked, "Jesus of Nazareth, | 9:51 | |
| the King of the Jews." | 9:56 | |
| Even Pilot, when asked to change it said | 9:58 | |
| he meant what he'd written. | 10:01 | |
| As was foretold, he was nailed to a cross, | 10:04 | |
| stripped of his clothes for the whole world to see, | 10:07 | |
| and given bitter wine to drink. | 10:11 | |
| Even after this, his love reached out to his mother | 10:14 | |
| as he turned her care over to Peter. | 10:19 | |
| And with only love for those who persecuted him, he died. | 10:23 | |
| How painful. | 10:31 | |
| How painful to watch a love offered so freely, | 10:33 | |
| so bitterly rejected. | 10:36 | |
| How could they ever know that the one mocked | 10:39 | |
| would offer mercy? | 10:42 | |
| That blood shed would cleanse the ones stripped of dignity? | 10:44 | |
| But just who was mocking whom? | 10:51 | |
| In his account of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel describes | 10:55 | |
| the scene of a young boy being hung from the gallows. | 10:58 | |
| In anguish, one of the elders cries out, | 11:02 | |
| "Where is God?" | 11:04 | |
| Another response, "He is hanging in the gallows." | 11:08 | |
| Perhaps Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right, | 11:14 | |
| "Only a suffering God can save." | 11:17 | |
| That's what Lent is all about. | 11:21 | |
| God dwelling among us, to save us; | 11:24 | |
| to redeem us. | 11:28 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 11:31 | |
| Amen. | 11:33 | |
| - | As Christians baptized into the millions | 11:46 |
| who join the theme, we do not choose our song. | 11:48 | |
| As the martyrs sang your song by sword, by stone, | 11:52 | |
| and by cross, so we open our mouths and receive your | 11:56 | |
| perfect song for us. | 12:00 | |
| I believe in God the Father. | 12:02 | |
| What wondrous love is this? | 12:05 | |
| It is a question from the foot of the cross. | 12:08 | |
| Why create something that will have to be | 12:11 | |
| redeemed by nails? | 12:13 | |
| Why this love that looks like death? | 12:15 | |
| For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, | 12:18 | |
| that whoever believes in him may not parish, | 12:22 | |
| but have eternal life. | 12:24 | |
| What is this wondrous love? | 12:27 | |
| It is God himself. | 12:30 | |
| Why is it here with us? | 12:32 | |
| Because God loved. | 12:34 | |
| God was himself love and he loved into existence | 12:36 | |
| the world so that it might know love. | 12:40 | |
| Love is the creator; love creates, and we the creation, | 12:42 | |
| we are told, "Love one another, as I have loved you." | 12:47 | |
| But, we do not do this. | 12:52 | |
| We are the missing part. | 12:54 | |
| And so we sing not because of our faith, | 12:55 | |
| but because of our lack of it. | 12:57 | |
| Because in our inability to believe, we want to believe. | 12:59 | |
| I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord. | 13:04 | |
| We are caught up in a song and the hope of it is that | 13:10 | |
| we could not have written it. | 13:12 | |
| Could not have conceived of a God who bleeds and dies. | 13:14 | |
| The song we are given is always one of the future, | 13:18 | |
| as if by singing, we will be propelled to that time when, | 13:21 | |
| free from death, our praise is unthwarted and our breath | 13:24 | |
| for song, endless. | 13:28 | |
| I believe in the Holy Spirit. | 13:30 | |
| Why does the Christian sing? | 13:34 | |
| We sing because we have been given a song, | 13:36 | |
| a wondrous love, and we must sing it | 13:39 | |
| or be consumed by it. | 13:41 | |
| Because it is terrifying, this love of the | 13:44 | |
| Great I Am, who was, who is, and who is to be. | 13:46 | |
| And if we were singing it alone, | 13:51 | |
| we might think we could decide not to want to do it, | 13:52 | |
| this complete love that smothers. | 13:55 | |
| That nails. | 13:57 | |
| That kills. | 13:58 | |
| Because we cannot the total debt of this love. | 14:00 | |
| That our lives are not our own so that our | 14:03 | |
| triumphs are not our own, our talents are not our own, | 14:05 | |
| our decisions are not our own, our failures are not our own, | 14:09 | |
| our humiliations are not our own, | 14:14 | |
| our deaths are not our own. | 14:16 | |
| They're Christ's. | 14:21 | |
| Begotten for the purpose of taking them, | 14:22 | |
| as we were created to be enveloped into a totalness | 14:24 | |
| of praise for the love by which we exist. | 14:28 | |
| And even now we are approaching that end. | 14:31 | |
| And we cannot change our course. | 14:34 | |
| We are stuck singing for eternity. | 14:37 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 14:40 | |
| As Christians baptized into the millions who join the theme, | 14:53 | |
| we do not choose our song. | 14:57 | |
| As the martyrs sang your song by sword, by stone, | 15:00 | |
| and by cross, so we open our mouths and receive | 15:04 | |
| your perfect song for us. | 15:07 | |
| I believe in God the Father. | 15:10 | |
| What wondrous love is this? | 15:14 | |
| It is a question from the foot of the cross. | 15:17 | |
| Why create something that will have to be | 15:20 | |
| redeemed by nails? | 15:22 | |
| Why this love that looks like death? | 15:23 | |
| For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, | 15:27 | |
| that whoever believes in him may not parish, | 15:31 | |
| but have eternal life. | 15:33 | |
| What is this wondrous love? | 15:36 | |
| It is God himself. | 15:39 | |
| Why is it here with us? | 15:41 | |
| Because God loved. | 15:44 | |
| God was himself love, and he loved into existence | 15:46 | |
| the world so that it might know love. | 15:49 | |
| Love is the creator; love creates, and we the creation, | 15:52 | |
| we are told, "Love one another as I have loved you." | 15:57 | |
| But we don't do this. | 16:03 | |
| We are the missing part and so we sing, | 16:04 | |
| not because of our faith, but because | 16:06 | |
| of our lack of it. | 16:08 | |
| Because, in our inability to believe, we want to believe. | 16:10 | |
| I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord. | 16:15 | |
| We are caught up in a song, and the hope of it is | 16:21 | |
| that we could not have written it. | 16:23 | |
| Could not have conceived of a God who bleeds and dies. | 16:25 | |
| The song we are given is always one of the future, | 16:30 | |
| as if by singing, we will be propelled to that time when, | 16:33 | |
| free from death, our praise is unthwarted, | 16:36 | |
| and our breath for song, endless. | 16:39 | |
| I believe in the Holy Spirit. | 16:43 | |
| Why does the Christian sing? | 16:47 | |
| We sing because we have been given a song, | 16:49 | |
| a wondrous love, and we must sing it | 16:52 | |
| or be consumed by it. | 16:54 | |
| Because it is terrifying, this love of the Great I Am, | 16:56 | |
| who was, who is, and who is to be. | 17:00 | |
| And if we were singing it alone, we might think | 17:04 | |
| we could decide not to want to do it, this complete love | 17:06 | |
| that smothers, that nails, that kills. | 17:10 | |
| Because, we cannot stand the total debt of this love, | 17:14 | |
| that our lives are not our own so that our triumphs are | 17:17 | |
| not our own, our talents are not our own, | 17:20 | |
| our decisions are not our own, | 17:23 | |
| our failures are not our own, | 17:25 | |
| our humiliations are not our own, | 17:27 | |
| our deaths are not our own, | 17:30 | |
| they are Christ's. | 17:34 | |
| Begotten for the purpose of taking them, | 17:36 | |
| as we were created to be enveloped into | 17:38 | |
| a totalness of praise for the love by which we exist. | 17:40 | |
| And even now, we are approaching that end. | 17:45 | |
| And we cannot change our course. | 17:48 | |
| We are stuck, singing for eternity. | 17:50 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 17:54 |