Good Friday Sermon

A couple thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher wandered the countryside, preaching about basic philosophies like faith, hope, and love.

He became a sort of celebrity among the ancient Judeans, drawing huge crowds with his simple, common-sense sermons and miraculous healings of the sick and disabled. He hung out with the outcasts of society and disdained the priestly elite. Those outcasts were inspired by his message to change their lives for the better, while the elite leaders of his faith sought to silence him.

So when he entered Jerusalem for the Jewish Passover, the priestly elite arrested him in the middle of the night and held a kangaroo court in which they convicted him of religious blasphemy and political sedition.

But Judea was part of the Roman Empire, and the priests didn't have authority to execute their judgement on this poor preacher. So they took him to the Roman governor, who interrogated the pitiful preacher and decided that he represented no threat to the Empire, and decided to let him go.

But a riotous crowd was gathered by the priests to demand the preacher's execution, so the governor relented, not wanting to foment a riot among the Jews of Jerusalem over one of their own that had somehow offended their priestly elite.

So the preacher was severely beaten, then nailed to a wooden cross for a slow and excruciating death.

The Christian faith was born when this itinerant preacher got up and walked out of his tomb three days after he died on that cross. He was seen, heard, and touched by hundreds of people who attested to that resurrection. And thousands were so affected by the experience that they willingly went to their own horrible deaths only because they refused to renounce their faith in what they had witnessed directly and felt compelled to spread the message to the rest of the world.

Today, Christians are once again vilified and branded as evil by non-Christians. Christians are accused of being "weak-minded" and are considered more dangerous than today's radical Muslim terrorists, even though no actual examples exist of Christian churches conspiring to do anything more dangerous than trying to influence politicians to stop abortion and homosexual marriage.

I wonder why there remains as much hatred today for that 2,000 year old preacher from the other side of the world as there was back when that hatred led to his crucifixion? What so upsets people that they will persecute followers of the preacher who asked us only to love and care for one another? Why does a message of love and redemption strike such fear into people that they would seek to persecute those who wish to convey that message?

Such hatred does not cause me, as a Christian, to hate in return. It only makes me sad. Such hatred must come from some horrible life experience or a misguided brainwashing that has prevented these people from learning the true nature and message of that poor Judean preacher, Jesus Christ.