The Cross – A Good Friday Reflection

by Mar 30, 2018Sermons

John 18 & 19

The Passion

XII Jesus dies on the cross
by Malcolm Guite
The dark nails pierce him and the sky turns black
We watch him as he labours to draw breath
He takes our breath away to give it back,
Return it to it’s birth through his slow death.
We hear him struggle breathing through the pain
Who once breathed out his spirit on the deep,
Who formed us when he mixed the dust with rain
And drew us into consciousness from sleep.
His spirit and his life he breathes in all
Mantles his world in his one atmosphere
And now he comes to breathe beneath the pall
Of our pollutions, draw our injured air
To cleanse it and renew. His final breath
Breathes us, and bears us through the gates of death.

The cross:
Foolishness to some.
A stumbling block to others.
A Sign of Christ’s victory over death?
A symbol of a world so broken it couldn’t accept God’s love?
It was not God that crucified Jesus, his Son.
It was humanity that couldn’t cope with God’s presence.
And yet for us God transforms the cross into a sign of forgiveness and reconciliation.
An empty cross, a sign of our sure hope of our resurrection.

The Reverend Robin Sims-Williams

Holy Week

You are warmly invited to the greatest story ever told here at your Parish Church All Saints’, Child’s Hill24th to the 29th March 2024Palm Sunday Sunday 24th March 2024 Jesus arrives in Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. The crowds made a carpet for him of coats and...