Good Friday, Year A | Matthew 27:25
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
April 7, 2023
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page.
“They shall name him Emmanuel, which means, ‘God is with us.’” – Matthew 1:23[1]
Most of us probably don’t give much thought to the idea of “Emmanuel,” especially at this time of year. Christmas and Advent, yes. Epiphany, maybe. But Lent or Holy Week? Not really. We may have learned to associate “God with us” almost exclusively with Christ’s birth, but the point where we find ourselves today—Good Friday—might just be the most appropriate time to consider the depth of Emmanuel’s implications.
We readily think of God being with us when things are going well—the safe birth of a new child; a sudden windfall of cash; or even just when we step outside to the perfect amount of sunshine, an ideal temperature, and just a generally gorgeous day. In all those kinds of situations, it’s easy for us to feel like God is on our side. And it’s true: God is with us in those times.
But what about when things aren’t going so well? A pregnancy with complications, an unexpectedly large tax bill, or days on end of drizzly gray skies or blasting dust storms. Sudden illness, chronic pain, a terminal diagnosis. Where is God when the future is dark? When every turn we make leads to frustration? When evil prospers and good stands by powerless to change anything? Where is God in the midst of trial, sorrow, and death?
God is with us.
God is with us in fear and anxiety. God is with us in distress and confusion. God is with us in pain and even through torture. God is with us even as our bodies lie in the grave. How do we know?
Because Emmanuel.
Jesus: God with us, God beside us, God among us. In good times and bad. Honored by foreign rulers or fleeing from his own. Sitting at a wedding in Cana or standing at the bedside of a dead child. Teaching on a sunny hillside or asleep in a boat on a raging sea. Breaking the bread or spitting out the sour wine. Entering Jerusalem to accolades one day only to be condemned by the same crowd the next. Beaten, mocked, and tortured. Suffering, suffocating, and stabbed with a spear. Ashamed, abandoned, and ultimately entombed.
Emmanuel: God with us.
In our pain. In our sorrow. In depression and despair. God actively with us, fully experiencing the horrors, the difficulties, and the indignities of human life. Not simply thousands of years ago. Not just in some distant future triumph. But today.
God with us. God suffering. God dying.
God with us.
No matter where we go. No matter how we feel. No matter what we think might stand between God and us. For better or for worse. In sickness and in health. In life and death. In reality and beyond.
God is with us. God is among us. God is beside us, fully part of whatever might be going on. During Advent and at Christmas. Throughout Epiphany and Lent. On Palm Sunday, and even on Good Friday.
“They [have] name[d] him Emmanuel, which means, ‘God is with us.’”
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.