The Great Void

We are in the midst of the Great Void. I had not encountered that term until recently. But for me, it powerfully conveys the essence of today, Good Friday, and of tomorrow as well. The Great Void. The church uses that word "great" very selectively. We have a Great Litany; the only prayer in the Prayer Book addressed to the person of Jesus, God the Son. Its petitions encompass, as nearly as possible, the totality of human need. On Sundays we participate in the Great Thanksgiving, the prayer of consecration by which the presence of Christ is made real in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Jesus becomes real in our lives. "Great" seems to have something to do with the very presence of Christ. So this time is the Great Void, a time in which the real presence of Christ is absent from the earth. We cannot address Jesus; we cannot touch or see or feel Jesus; we do not consecrate his presence in the bread and wine. He is dead and gone. The Great Void.

The Passion gospel, especially as we just heard it in John’s telling, spends a lot of time exploring the question of who Jesus really is. This charismatic religious figure who died on a cross today… Who is he? Who do the various participants in the story think that he is? When the soldiers come seeking Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane he asks them who they are looking for. They say Jesus of Nazareth. Twice they say this and yet even when Jesus says, "I am he" somehow they are not satisfied. Something doesn’t fit. They don’t know who they are looking for. They don’t know who stands before them.

And is he a Jew? Is he a King? Pilate never figures it out. Annas and Caiaphas don’t have a clue who Jesus is; they only know he threatens their power and status. And the people in the crowd who cry out for his crucifixion… Do they know who he is? They scornfully deride him for claiming to be a king. They claim that Jesus is nothing to them, and yet they are eager for his death. Who do they think he is? Even Peter claims he doesn’t know him.

Who is Jesus? No one in John’s long passion account seems to know. But we do know. We know exactly who Jesus was and is. In one form or another, we say it every Sunday. We know who Jesus is. Jesus is the only and eternal Son of God, mercifully sent, when we had fallen into sin and become subject to death, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to God the Father of all. He stretched out his arms upon the cross and offered himself, in obedience to God’s will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world. We know exactly who Jesus is.

But who are we? That is the harder question. Who are we? We know who Jesus was. We know who Jesus is. But who are we?

Are we identified by the roles we fill? We are daughters and sons, students and retirees, teachers, pranksters, singers, ball players. Is that enough? In the end, as good as some of these things may be, are they enough? Perhaps they will get us through life day after day, for a time at least. But they cannot give us vision or hope or purpose beyond ourselves. Our roles do not tell us who we are.

Who are we? Is it our accomplishments that give us our identity? All of us have goals, achievements, large and small, of all different sorts. And they undoubtedly bring rewards and satisfaction. But all of our striving, no matter how productive, cannot make us whole, cannot bring ultimate fulfillment or peace.

Who are we? We call ourselves Christians. As Christians, in our baptismal vows we vowed to be people who renounce all the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. We vowed to renounce all sinful desires that draw us away from the love of God. We vowed to put our whole trust in Jesus’ grace and love. We promised to obey Jesus Christ and to follow him as our Lord. Are we people who have kept those vows? In one of the church’s collects we affirm that "we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves." Who are we? Of ourselves, of our own power, we are not even Christians.

About 1600 years ago St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, "[Lord], You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." Augustine’s words are often quoted. They tell us who we are. We are God’s—God’s own. Nothing could possibly be better. We are God’s. But without God, we are nothing. Without the real presence of Christ with us, within us, our lives are just a great void. The Great Void is within us.

This Good Friday may we come to know truly who we are. We are people with a great void overwhelming our hearts and souls. We are people empty with a great void, a void so great there is only one who can fill it. And he will. We know he will, because we know who he is. He is Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.

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