Seven last words

Cathedral hosts ecumenical service, bringing faiths together

By Emily Booker

“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”

On Good Friday, April 3, at the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Christians of different backgrounds joined together to reflect on the Lord’s Passion and the last words of Christ. Though from different churches, they prayed together as one family in mourning Christ’s death.

Father David Boettner, rector of the cathedral, greeted those gathered.

“It’s always such a joy—I know on Good Friday it seems strange to say joy—but it’s always a joy to be able to gather together for this Good Friday ecumenical service,” he said.

Father Boettner noted that Good Friday is a day when the Church mourns Christ’s death, and the ecumenical service feels like family gathering together for a funeral.

“You know, whenever you have a family member who dies, everybody gets together. And even if you have a family that is broken and fractured, a death in the family can bring everybody together. I think on Good Friday it makes sense that even though Christianity is fractured by division, at the same time we can get together and pray together.”

For more than 30 years, the annual ecumenical Seven Last Words of Christ service has brought together pastors from different churches around Knoxville, each sharing a brief reflection on one of the last sentences spoken by Christ.

This year’s preachers each poignantly reflected on a moment of Jesus’ Passion, calling attention to Christ’s love and mercy at the cross.

Matt Durante of Knoxville First Seventh-Day Adventist Church spoke on “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

“In a world already filled with outrage, suspicion, and deep division, forgiveness can almost seem unreasonable. Unreasonable because we live in a time that encourages us to hold on to the offense, to keep the score, and to defend our pride. And yet, when we come to Calvary on Good Friday, we hear words from Jesus that interrupt all that. We can’t miss this, friends, that as Jesus hung on the cross, the very first words that He speaks are words of forgiveness: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”

He said that Jesus had every reason to harbor anger and bitterness as He was crucified, yet He chose mercy instead.

“If there was ever a moment in Jesus’ life in which anger could have been justified, it would have been here. And yet, instead of calling down judgment out of heaven, Jesus calls down mercy. Christ lifts His eyes toward heaven, and He prays for forgiveness over the very people responsible for His suffering…because you see, friends, Calvary is not only where sin is exposed. It’s also where mercy flows.

“May we receive the grace at Calvary today so that it becomes the grace that we give to others tomorrow.”

Mark Moreland of Central Baptist Church Bearden spoke on “Truly I say to you, today, you will be with Me in Paradise.”

He noted how on Palm Sunday the crowds shouted, “Hosanna, save us!” but by Good Friday the crowds had turned and shouted, “Crucify Him!” Yet one of the criminals crucified next to Jesus continued to pray, “Save me.” And as Christ was dying, He still answered that prayer.

And Jesus Christ continues to answer that prayer today.

“Jesus is still declaring, ‘If I be lifted up, I will draw all persons to myself.’ Jesus is still assuring us, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live.’ Do you believe this?

“Thanks be to God, who gives us an eternal victory through Jesus and His death on the cross. Jesus is our eternal King for an eternal kingdom that will not pass away.”

Laura Henrik of the Episcopal School of Knoxville spoke on “Woman, behold your son. Son behold your mother.”

“At first glance, it might seem like a small, tender exchange; a son making sure that His mother is taken care of; a practical arrangement in a moment of crisis. But it’s more than that…Jesus is creating something new at the foot of the cross. Jesus redraws the lines of family, not by blood, not by obligation, but by love. In His final moments, as everything is being taken away from Him, Jesus is still giving, still forming a community.”

In forming that community, she said, Jesus has entrusted one to one another.

“This is what love looks like at the cross, not just a feeling, not just a sentiment, but a responsibility. Even as His own life is slipping away, Jesus is making sure that love continues through the people He leaves behind. …. Jesus is creating something that will outlast the cross—a family, a community, a way of living love that doesn’t just comfort, it commits. So that long after this moment has passed, long after the cross, love will still show up in this world through us.”

Dr. Willa Estell of St. Paul AME Zion Church spoke on “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

“I want to suggest to you that there are four things we can learn from this text. First, we learn how horrible sin is in the eyes of Almighty God. We learn how horrible it is when we think about the price that was paid for our sin. Secondly, we learn how amazing God’s love is for us. He didn’t have to do it, but He chose to do it.

“Thirdly, we learn that it’s OK to feel abandoned sometimes. It has less to do with your faith and more to do with your humanness. If I were to take account, I am sure that everybody here has felt abandoned at one time or another, has felt and cried out like Jesus, ‘God, where are you? I’m hurting, God, where are you? … Have you forsaken me?’

“But I want you to know that He hasn’t. That’s the last thing we learn from this passage. What do we do in our darkest hour? I bless God for priests and preachers and counselors. I bless God for my family. I bless God for my church family. … Whatever life may hold, whatever life brings our way, we can call on the name of Jesus and expect Him to answer.”

Jason Scott of Knoxville First Church spoke on “I thirst.”

“We live in a world that’s consumed with money, with chasing after status and fame and cars, likes image and aura. We’re chasing after all of those things. And we need to hear today that image is nothing but thirst is everything. … Are we thirsting after those things, or are we thirsting after Jesus, the one who hung on a cross and said, ‘I thirst’? Because if we thirst after things of this world, you and I both know we end up unsatisfied.”

He noted that Jesus’ thirst showed us His humanity as well.

“When Jesus hung on the cross and said, ‘I thirst,’ He was revealing that He was truly human, that the cross was not some symbolic thing. It was not poetic. It was a brutal, real thing that was taking place. … His body was collapsing, blood loss, shock, dehydration. And from His cracked lips our Savior yells, ‘I thirst.’ This wasn’t the voice of distant deity. This is the voice of a suffering Savior, the Son of God, entering fully into human pain.

“Jesus spent His ministry satisfying the thirst of the world, the thirst for hope, the thirst for forgiveness, the thirst for life. Yet on the cross, the one who satisfies thirst seems to become thirsty. Why? Because He was taking our place…spiritual dryness, separation from God, the judgment of sin. He drank that so that we would never have to.”

Father Boettner spoke on “It is finished.”

“In order to see the end, we have to go back to the beginning. We have to go to Genesis: ‘In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless waste, and darkness covered the abyss. And God said let there be light.’ So, if your life happens to be in chaos right now, if you feel like a formless waste, you are the material God loves. You are exactly what He needs to create with; you are the elements of creation. Because God takes chaos and He breathes His spirit over it, and He brings chaos into order.

“It’s also important to look at the middle. You know, most of the time in our lives, we feel like we’re in the middle. We see our lives in the middle of things, and we don’t see the end. We don’t know where we’re going. We don’t know how the story ends. We just know that there’s times along the way where we feel chaos, where we feel like we’re in darkness.

“And that’s why we’re invited on this Good Friday to meditate on the cross of Christ, yes, that image of pain and suffering but also that image of light, of life, of love. The cross is not just an instrument of torture. It’s a sign of the depth of God’s love for us. … God desires communion with us, and He’s willing to go to any length in order to be in communion with us, even death on a cross.

“It is finished because there is no hatred that cannot be overcome by love. There is no darkness that will not be overcome by light. There is no fear that will not be overcome by faith. There is no uncertainty that does not have its answer in the cross. … All these things that cause us to struggle now have an end, and that end is in love. It is in light. It is in the beautiful order that comes from life in the Holy Spirit.”

Mike Wilkinson of First Cumberland Presbyterian Church spoke on “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

“After hours of excruciating pain, darkness, and the weight of the world, sin, that is, the weight of your sin and my sin, the weight of the world’s sin before Christ, and to this day, the weight of all the human sin in history, Jesus’ last words were not a cry of defeat, but rather His final words were a prayer of perfect intimacy with the Father and trust in Him. At the peak of agonizing suffering on the cross of Calvary, the likes of which we can hardly imagine, Jesus did not show panic. Instead, He demonstrated profound peace.

“He chose to rest in the Father’s love, like a child falling asleep into a parent’s arms. Make no mistake about it. Jesus’ final breath was not a cry of defeat but a deliberate surrender, a deposit of His spirit into the hands of the One who holds all eternity.

“As followers of Jesus the Christ, you and I are invited to live and die with this same confidence. We often hold our lives with a tight grip, worrying about our future or struggling to control even our current circumstances. But Jesus showed a different way. He showed us the way of committal, of commitment. … Whatever you’re holding too tightly today, whether that be your future, your anxieties and worries, or your safety, I want you to know that Jesus invites you to entrust them to the Father’s safekeeping. … The same hands that caught Jesus’ spirit in death hold us securely in life.”

The Sacred Heart choir provided music for the service, including a choral meditation of “My Lord Is Weeping.” At the end of the service, the congregation sang “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?”

“As a preacher, I look forward to this service, because we have such a rich fare of preachers gathered to share the Word of God with us, to call us to the unity that Christ desires for us,” Father Boettner said.

“There’s also a miracle that happens every time we have this ecumenical service on Good Friday,” he said, smiling. “That seven preachers can get up and preach in one service and we still finish in under an hour.”

Father Boettner was grateful to the visiting preachers as well as all those who attended the service.

“Thank all of you for gathering together, because when we gather together in fellowship, in prayer, and in unity, the Lord is indeed pleased. This is a fitting way to honor Him this day,” the cathedral rector said.