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Jay Weldon Good Friday Blessed be our God, for ever and ever. Amen. This day reeks of the very best and of the very worst of human potential. In Jesus we see the hope of perfect self-giving love, as he gives his very self as an offering to God; we see glimpses of this love and devotion in his followers as well. In Pilate we see the height of human ambivalence, a mind that externalizes guilt, responsibility and compassion. In the cast of others, we see the extremes of sin, violence, hatred, and murder. Yet, while we run the risk of being given over to emotion and sensationalism for our beloved Jesus, we still hang on to the hope of purpose and reason and redemption we have found in him. Throughout all of his prophesy, Isaiah claims that God’s servant shall prosper, and we believe that somewhere in this terrible passion, redemption is born. John believes that these things must have happened so that the scriptures may be fulfilled. And we who behold our Lord’s passion are forced into a new way of seeing life and death: we who behold our Lord’s passion, we who fear and await death’s cold and unknown grasp, are called instead to see his purpose and redemption in his dying, and to live lives full of his purpose and redemption. Published in 1954, Lord of the Flies was William Golding’s first novel. It was an allegory of humanity that at first only sold three thousand copies, but later became a classic that would be taught in schools and universities. A small group of British schoolboys are shipwrecked and land on a deserted island, an island paradise that was perfect until they arrived. As time passes, they become the very best and worst that humans can be. They work together at first to take care of each other, to build shelter, to eat and rest. They become divided against each other and soon begin to hurt and kill. In the midst of the ensuing evil, they come to believe in a monster that lives in an island cave, and they offer a sacrifice to appease the enemy. The monster, Satan perhaps, must be feared and honored so that he does not harm them. Many of the boys live day by day in constant fear of this monster in the cave. There is one boy, named Simon, who does not seem to get caught up in the ensuing madness. When this island is given over to insanity and killing and brutal savagery, he still cares for the other boys. When they offer a sacrifice to the monster and place it before the cave, he seems unimpressed. In fact, he lives as if there is no monster at all. One night, as the pitch of the island has nearly reached insanity, he goes into the cave—bravely, alone— perhaps to confront the monster, only to find that there is none. As he comes back with the news that the dark cave is not to be feared, he is killed by some of the savage boys. There with him dies the message that there is no monster, that the dark cave is not to be feared, that living lives of fear of the great unknown no longer makes any sense. And with his death, the madness continues. It was January 13, 1982. I was almost four years old and was seeing snow for the first time. It was the blizzard that Atlanta wasn’t expecting, and we were lucky that my father had made it home from work. As we sat in our living room, doors closed and sealed off to the rest of the house, my mother sat huddled with my new sister in her arms. The fire in the fireplace was the only source of heat that we had, and my sister was only five months old. With businesses and schools shut down for miles, most of Atlanta sat at home watching television. While I personally only remember the snow that day, there was another story even more important than the blizzard in Atlanta, a tragedy unfolding before us. That day, in Washington DC, a plane had crashed into the Potomac River. The weather there had been worse than in Atlanta, and Air Florida flight 90 should have never tried to take off. It was 45 minutes between the time that the plane had been de-iced and the time that the plane actually reached the runway. The flight’s captain was given the option of returning, but he decided that another round of de-icing would take too long. With the ice that had formed on the plane, the aircraft was ultimately too heavy. It was unable to gain altitude and crashed into the 14th Street Bridge less than one mile from Washington National Airport. From there it dove into the icy waters of the Potomac. While most passengers had been killed by the impact of the collision with the bridge, there were six who made it out of the plane. These survivors were called the “Potomac Six.” News cameramen and passers by stood helplessly on the sides of the river and on the remaining structure of the bridge, unable to help, when finally a rescue helicopter made its way over the scene. The helicopter lowered life vests and a rescue rope to one of the passengers stranded in the waters, who passed the rope on to another. When given the rope a second time, he again helped a fellow passenger out of the icy waters and on to safety. This process continued while the other five passengers were rescued. The helicopter came back a sixth time, with the five others now alive on the banks of the Potomac, to find that the debris to which they had clung had succumbed to the waters and the sixth man, who had seen to the safety of his fellow passengers, was gone, lost to the icy waters. He would first be known simply as the “sixth passenger” before his true identity was discovered. Not even knowing his name, The Washington Post would eulogize him as the man responsible for saving the others, passing life jackets and safety ropes onto them—valuing their lives above his own. The bridge that had been damaged in the accident was later renamed for the “sixth passenger” as a tribute to his heroic action. It was months before his identity was ever fully known. Arland Williams worked for the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta. He had been in Washington D.C. to interview and ultimately hire a man who would leave D.C. and move to Atlanta to work for the bank. Arland left the hotel room where he had interviewed Tom, wondering aloud whether or not he would make it out of DC. He had another meeting in Miami and hoped to catch this flight. Tom soon moved to Atlanta where he worked for years at the Federal Reserve. It was while he was in Atlanta that he was a member of St. Bede’s Episcopal Church, a parish located just around the corner from my seminary. He became an active and vibrant part of St. Bede’s until his vision began to bother him. He soon found out that he had an inoperable, malignant brain tumor. As his time became shorter and shorter, he called his parish priest in to talk with him. Father Porter later shared this with me: Tom had been suffering from nightmares as his days waned. It wasn’t so much a nightmare as it was a dream. He would see himself sitting behind the house, resting on a bench in his garden, staring at an ominous black hole. “Father John,” he said, “No matter what I do, the black hole won’t go away. It just sits there, staring at me, mocking me. I thought I was supposed to be going to a bright light. I’m scared. It’s not a bright light; it’s a black hole, and it’s sucking me in. I didn’t think this was how it was supposed to end.” “Tom,” he said, “I don’t think there is any reason to be afraid of what lies beyond. I don’t know if it is a bright light or a dark hole from this side, but you know the path.” He paused for a moment, looked around, and then looked back at Tom. “You’ve known good people in your life. You can follow someone you have loved, someone you have admired. Follow Arland. He was always your hero. You can follow him. Listen for his voice and follow him.” I don’t know what voices you hear this day, whether the evil voices of those who killed Jesus and still kill this day, of those who stood by unable to stop his death, the voices of others you have known and loved who have walked this path, or the voice of the one who went willingly to the cross. Their voices seem mottled together today. In their strange harmony, I would encourage you to hear the small voice of a dying savior who offered himself so that death and fear may die, who says something like this: I have gone before you. You have nothing to fear. I have gone before you. You may follow me. I am going into this dark cave so I may overcome the power of death, so that the world may be reconciled to God, and so I may return to you with a message of peace, so you will know you have nothing to fear. Blessed be our God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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