When I was about eight years old, I saw Cecil B. DeMille’s classic film The Ten Commandments for the first time. The movie has come to be associated in my mind, as it is for many others, with the Easter holiday, probably because ABC has shown it on this weekend every year since the late 1960s. I remember though, the first time I saw it, how impressed I was by the visual artistry of that movie. Its special effects are certainly dated by modern standards, but somehow they still amazed me as a kid.
The scene I remember best is the one in which Moses encounters God in the burning bush. The idea of a bush that was on fire but not consumed by it was one that impressed me, even as a child, just as it amazes Moses in the movie. If you recall the scene, Moses comes to realize he is in the presence of the divine. He removes his sandals, recognizing that he is on holy ground. The Lord tells him that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and commands Moses to go to Pharaoh and say to him, “Let my people go.” Before Moses departs, he asks the Lord what name he should give for the god who has sent him. The Lord responds, “I Am That I Am” … or as is more commonly said in our tradition, “I Am Who Am.”
Much has been written about that saying, that name, “I Am Who Am.” It is something of an enigma – a declaration of God’s identity as being equivalent to his power, his majesty, his infinite glory. God is he who IS – who exists, period – and nothing further needs to be said. In the Jewish tradition, this name was accorded such great respect to this name of God that it was never said or written; instead they used alternative descriptions, like Adonai, “Lord” or El Shaddai, “God Almighty.” Only the high priest of the Temple was allowed to pronounce the name of God, and only then once per year, on the Day of Atonement.
Mihály Munkácsy, Golgotha (1884)
In the narrative we just read from the Gospel of John, you might have noticed that something a little strange happens right at the beginning of the story. When Judas arrives with a group of soldiers to arrest Jesus, he asks them whom they are looking for. They respond “Jesus the Nazorean”, and he then responds two times “I AM.” The Gospel then says that those who heard him turned away and fell to the ground.
If Jesus is just saying that he’s the one they are looking to arrest, it seems strange for them to turn away and fall over. But of course, his response is more than that – his response, “I Am,” is composed of the same words as what Moses heard on the mountain, “I AM Who Am”. We can understand now why his listeners were so aghast; Jesus has used the personal name of God in reference to himself. At this critical moment of the story, on the verge of his arrest, Jesus forces those who hear him to make a choice – either he is God himself, as he has claimed, or he is not. If he is not, then he has committed blasphemy and rightly will be sentenced to death. If he is, then those arresting him are about to put to death God himself.
We are, of course, forced to consider the same choice. Good Friday is about the death of one man, a man who claimed to be God. If he was not, then this day is no different than any other, since thousands even millions die every day, some in ways as terrible as a crucifixion. But if he is God – and we as Christians certainly reaffirm today our act of faith that he is – then Good Friday is the day we solemnly remember that He who is Existence itself, whose very Essence is what it means “To Be”, offered himself up to death for our sins.
After the reading of the Passion Narrative, this Good Friday liturgy has three important elements, each of which is directly connected to the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. First, we will pray the Solemn Intercessions, approaching the Father and daring to ask him to grant us what we ask, precisely because we have faith in his Son and in the sacrifice by which he reconciled us to God. Second, we will venerate the Cross, showing it a supreme reverence because of the Body of the One who used it to offer himself for our sake. If you notice, we priests will remove our shoes when we kiss the Cross, recognizing like Moses that we stand upon holy ground. Finally, we will receive in sacramental form the Body of Christ himself in the Eucharist, he who once was dead but now lives forever.
My friends, as we prepare to celebrate the Easter festivities once again, let us first pause and renew our faith today in the saving death of Jesus. Good Friday is our eternal Day of Atonement, the day on which, gathered in this temple, priests by our baptism, we utter with reverence and faith the Name which is above every name. Jesus the Nazorean was no mere man; he is the God-Man. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the One who Is, whose Essence is Existence itself – and also the one who submitted himself to betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, and death, all for love of us, all to redeem us from our sin. With the fire of divine love, he hung upon the tree; but like the bush that did not burn away, he could not be consumed by Death. Rather he lives anew, and his death is the demise of Death itself for all who believe in him. So it is; so let us believe.
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