1
00:00:02,320 --> 00:00:06,000
Welcome to Westminster Abbey's Lent and Easter reflections.

2
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:13,000
On Good Friday, we begin with the book of Isaiah,
chapter fifty-three, verses three to eight.

3
00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:20,360
He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;

4
00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:28,000
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.

5
00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:32,680
Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;

6
00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:37,800
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.

7
00:00:37,800 --> 00:00:43,400
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;

8
00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:49,360
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.

9
00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:54,840
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,

10
00:00:54,840 --> 00:00:58,800
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

11
00:00:58,800 --> 00:01:03,920
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;

12
00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:09,760
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

13
00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:12,400
so he did not open his mouth.

14
00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:18,560
By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?

15
00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:24,480
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.

16
00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:32,160
The cross is a timeless symbol, but the crucifix is a moment in time.

17
00:01:32,800 --> 00:01:38,360
It forces us to remember that this death was particular,
as all deaths are.

18
00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:43,800
It happened to a particular man, in a particularly
gruesome manner.

19
00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:48,960
Crucifixes evoke a connection; an emotional response;

20
00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:53,720
to bring us close to this dying man and all
that he might mean.

21
00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:58,240
Meaning doesn’t come out of nowhere.

22
00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:02,240
The first followers found it in the prophecy of Isaiah;

23
00:02:02,240 --> 00:02:06,560
in a servant figure who suffers for the sake of the people;

24
00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:11,680
carrying their sins, in order that they may be restored to God:

25
00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:15,440
‘by his bruises we are healed.’

26
00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:20,240
His death is a ‘perversion of justice.’

27
00:02:20,680 --> 00:02:26,400
Instead of being punished for his own sins,
he is ‘crushed for our iniquities.’

28
00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:31,440
He is innocent, and shows us our injustice;

29
00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:34,640
the sin that constantly casts-out others

30
00:02:34,640 --> 00:02:40,160
for the sake of maintaining fictions about ourselves,
our communities and nations.

31
00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:49,320
We imagine our victims to be guilty, but he shows us that,
as scapegoats, they are innocent.

32
00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:55,320
We need to keep coming back here, time and again,

33
00:02:55,320 --> 00:02:58,160
to be reminded of what we do,

34
00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:04,240
and to be reminded of the moment in time when we were forgiven.

35
00:03:05,960 --> 00:03:09,240
O Loving wisdom of the living God,

36
00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:13,200
O living Word and power of the Father everlasting:

37
00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:15,720
grant what Thou hast promised,

38
00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:17,920
and give us, unworthy though we are,

39
00:03:17,920 --> 00:03:20,440
what we most earnestly desire;

40
00:03:21,040 --> 00:03:24,360
that Thy passion may be our deliverance,

41
00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:27,280
Thy death our life,

42
00:03:27,280 --> 00:03:30,160
Thy Cross our redemption,

43
00:03:30,160 --> 00:03:33,120
and Thy wounds our healing;

44
00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:36,800
and that, being crucified with Thee,

45
00:03:36,800 --> 00:03:40,640
Thy grace may lift us up on high to Thy Father;

46
00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:42,880
with Whom Thou livest and reignest,

47
00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:46,160
one God, world without end.

48
00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:48,200
Amen.