The Grace of Good Friday: Meditations on "And Can It Be?"

Today's sermon was a bit of an experiment: a series of meditations on Charles Wesley's hymn, "And Can It Be?"  It is composed as a series of six meditations which were interspersed among prayers and songs.

For audio, click here.

Conversion

May 21, 1738. 

It was the evening of Pentecost Sunday and a middle-aged Anglican priest sat, reading Martin Luther’s commentary on Galatians. Oxford educated and one of the founders of The Holy Club, a minister of the Gospel, hymnwriter and missionary. His methodical approach to Christian living earned him the nickname Methodist early on. The nickname stuck. Were we to look at his life of simple and radical discipleship, we would likely be at once attracted to the seriousness with which he took his Christian commitment and annoyed because that life would silently expose the flaccid and contradictory threads of our own.

And yet, he was fighting with God. Why?

Several years before, he crossed the Atlantic to the new English colony of Georgia, there to work as a missionary. Aboard ship, he was impressed by the deep Christian commitment of the Moravians, a German group of Christians and by their peace during a storm which caused him to fear for his own life. Later, back in London, he began to attend a Bible study led by one of their leaders, Peter Bohler.

On this Sunday night, the minister recalled a conversation with the German missionary. “Do you hope to be saved?” asked Bohler. “I do,” was the reply. “For what reason to do you hope it?” “Because I have used my best efforts to serve God.” Bohler shook his head and said no more, prompting the priest to write in his diary: “I thought him very uncharitable, saying in my heart, ‘What, are not my endeavours sufficient ground of hope? Would he rob me of my endeavours? I have nothing else to trust to.’”

As he read further, his mind turned to the latest religious fad: outdoor preaching. His fellow Methodist and Church of England clergyman George Whitefield had begun to preach in the open air in the South of England about the “new birth,” a subject which both fascinated and perplexed him.

But it was finally the old Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, who penetrated the last wall of resistance. Speaking across what was then two centuries, and through the text of a Bible commentary, he introduced the idea of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, such that the Spirit of God eroded the last resistance. The priest recorded in his diary that he felt the Spirit of God striving with his spirit ‘till by degrees He chased away the darkness of my unbelief. I found myself convinced…I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in hope of loving Christ.’

He was, in a word, converted. The promises spoken in the Word of God, the promises spoken as the waters of baptism poured over him when he was yet a baby, the promises made on his behalf by his parents Samuel and Susanna had finally, after 34 years, become real and tangible. And in thanksgiving to God, our priest and missionary and hymnwriter, did what God had called him to do. He wrote a hymn. Three days later, that hymn was first sung as a duet when Charles Wesley sang it with John, his brother, on hearing the news that the same free grace that Charles had received was now John’s also.

It is that hymn that we will reflect on today. 

Will you join me?

-------------------------------------

For Me?

And can it be that I should gain

An interest in the Saviour’s blood?

Died he for me? who caused his pain!

For me—who him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be

That thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

The conversion of both Wesleys revolved around a conviction that emerged under the influence of Luther, Bohler, Whitefield and others, that Christ had not died simply for the world on that first Good Friday. He had certainly done that. But more. It revolved around the conviction that Christ had died for Charles Wesley and for John.

And so, on the night of May 21 1738, Charles Wesley took up his pen to write a poem that opens powerfully in the first person. And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour’s blood? Died he for me? Who caused his pain! For me who him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be that thou my God should’st die for me? Christ’s death for the sins of the world had never been in doubt. What Charles had believed (wrongly) was that his own efforts would grant him access to whatever it was in that death that saved the world, and so his sins would be covered. But now, he had come to realize that his work granted no access. The access was granted simply by the Amazing Love of the God the Son who had taken up flesh and lived and died and rose again not just for the world, but for one Charles Wesley.

It was not works that would save him. It was simply the death of Jesus.

And, frankly, the awestruck and grateful Charles cannot believe that it’s really true. It is no accident that every verse of this first stanza is phrased as a question. Can it really be that this is true? Can it really be that it is true for me? This is news too good to be true, and yet it is true.

It is true for the sins of the world. It is true for the sins of Charles Wesley. It is true for your sins and for mine. No amount of effort on our part will right the balance in our favour. There is no secret knowledge, no magic word, no heroic effort that will somehow grant us incorporation into the saving death of Jesus. But only the Amazing Love of God.

Hear the words of Saint Paul from the very letter upon which Luther commented, whose comments Charles Wesley read, words which the Holy Spirit used to convert the very earnest, but earnestly lost minister: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

On May 21, Charles Wesley’s already deep Christian faith became a deeply first-person-al faith. And he sang.

--------------------------------------------

Mystery

‘Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:

Who can explore his strange design?

In vain the first-born seraph tries

To sound the depths of love divine.

‘Tis mercy all! Let earth adore!

Let angel minds inquire no more.

I don’t like the word mystery. Or perhaps better, I don’t like the way it’s used so often today—to either ignore a blatant lack of thought or care or to avoid thinking at all about any subject one feels is too taxing on the mind. “It’s a mystery,” in other words, has become an excuse.

Mystery comes up in Christian thought a lot. How is Christ among us when the Word is opened, when the bread is broken? “Oh it’s a mystery.” How can it be that a past event—the execution of Jesus of Nazareth by the Romans—is a past event in the life of God (from the foundations of the world) and a present reality (do you not know that when you are baptized, you are baptized into Christ’s death)? “Oh it’s a mystery.” Christians use the word mystery about these very subjects. But we don’t get to use them too quickly. A lot of thinking and praying has to take place first.

Centuries of thought has been spent before the first verse of the second stanza is written. “‘Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies.” How is it that he who is, in himself, LIFE without beginning and without end, he through whom all things were created and in whom all things hang together, died? And not merely in the fanciful world of once upon a time like Thor or Osiris or Dionysus, or some other dying and and rising deity of the ancient world, but here in the hard reality of our world, a time and place that we know?

Centuries of thought, prayer, ink, and argument wrestled with just this question before Wesley took up his pen on the night of his conversion. And here’s the answer: in the one man, Jesus of Nazareth, divine and human are so perfectly united that all the limitations of humanity—including death itself—can be spoken of in that one man. We don’t get to say, in other words, that the divine “part” of Jesus didn’t die while the human part did. We don’t get to say that the human part hungered while the divine part didn’t, that the human part was limited in knowledge while the divine part didn’t. We say, rather that in God the Son hungered. God the Son was ignorant. God the Son died. How is this so? It is, in the end, a mystery. We can describe it, for that is what is presented in the Gospels. We cannot explain it.

So it is that “mystery,” for Christian theology is not an excuse for lack of thought, but a recognition that we have reached the limits of language, a sign that the right response to what confronts us is worship. Tis mystery all: th’Immoral dies. No more can be said. The design cannot be explored whether by angelic or human minds, for so to try would imply that the amazing love of God could be plumbed, sounded, encompassed by mere creatures. And it can’t. For God’s love is, simply, God’s being. It is infinite. There is always further up and further in. Why did th’immortal die? The only answer is love divine.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated, when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in regard to the things that have now been announced to you through those who brought you good news by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look! (1 Peter 1:10-12)

-------------------------------------- 

Mercy

He left His Father’s throne above

So free, so infinite his grace!

Emptied Himself of all but love,

And bled for Adam’s helpless race.

‘Tis mercy all, immense and free,

For O my God! it found out me!

So, Charles Wesley will eschew explanation and settle for description. In the rest of his hymn, he will describe what that first Good Friday was and accomplished.

The first four verses of stanza 3 are modeled deliberately on Phil 2:6-8. It is an early Christian hymn to Jesus, probably not written by Paul (it likely had a previous history known at least to the Philippian Christians and perhaps beyond) but borrowed by him to make an ethical point: Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Model your lives, in other words, on this Life: “Who though he was in the form of God considered equality with God not something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of human being. And being found a man, he became obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

Here we have the descent of God the Son into the far country of God-forsakenness. It is an act, first of all, of infinite grace. What is grace? Grace is one manifestation of the love of God, the love of which Wesley has already sung, the love which alone motivates this wondrous act. Grace is the love which gives a gift to the undeserving. Grace is when the bank manager says, “your debt is cancelled,” when you still owe. Grace is when your friend says, “I can do that for you,” when you need someone to take something off your plate. Grace is when, emptied of all but love, God the Son takes up all that it means to be human even to the point of death, to the point of bleeding for Adam’s race.

But it is not only grace. It is also mercy. Mercy, like grace, is a manifestation of the love of God toward us his human creatures. It is the withholding of what is deserved. Mercy is when your mechanic says, “no charge,” when he knows you cannot pay for that necessary repair. Mercy is when your overdue fine at the library is waived. Mercy is when you’re caught shoplifting and the police aren’t called. Mercy is when God the Son bleeds for the race that caused him pain, that him to death pursued.

And it is more. For O my God it found out me! It is grace and mercy extended to all of Adam’s race. But more than that, it is grace and mercy that extends, seeks, and finds Charles Wesley in his rooms on May 21, 1738.

Hear the words of Saint Paul to the Corinthians.

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. (2 Cor 8:9)

----------------------------------- 

Rescue

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray

I woke; the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

It is perhaps one of the most profound ironies of this hymn that when we come to the stanza that is the most personal—here is Charles Wesley’s conversion spelled out, he uses not his own language, but that of the Bible. He has, of course, been biblical throughout. One scholar I read observed some 27 different quotations or allusions to Scripture in the six verses. But here, more than all the other verses, is Wesley at his most biblical for he takes a story—from the book of Acts—and reads his own life within it.

Listen. “Now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church.  Then he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also. Now it was during the Days of Unleavened Bread. So when he had arrested him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover.”

This is not a story about a conversion. This is not a “spiritual” story at all. It is a story of imprisonment. It is a story of captivity. It is a story of persecution. Peter was imprisoned by Herod. Herod is doing here what tyrants and even democratic politicians do. It’s called scapegoating. Some people today call it wedge politics. Define a group of people that nobody likes and make yourself look good by picking on them. Sometimes it backfires; more often than not, however, it works. History is bloodied by the fact that it works. And Herod knows that. Two of the three pillars, Peter and James are tossed in prison; James is murdered. And this gets Herod in the good books with the Jewish leadership.

And, says Charles Wesley, this is MY story too! I was imprisoned by my sins. I was imprisoned by a will curved in on itself that could only sin. My mind was dark. It was closed off to the truth. I was fast bound. . . . But let’s go back to Peter.

No explanation is given for the death of James the brother of John. But the church prays for Peter and Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, ‘Get up quickly.’ And the chains fell off his wrists. The angel said to him, ‘Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.’ He did so. Then he said to him, ‘Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.’ (Acts 12:7-8)

This, says Charles Wesley, is my story. Only these words can capture my predicament. Only these words can capture my rescue. I was fast-bound in the twin chains of sin and nature’s night. Until, on May 21, 1738, I woke the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off even as Peter’s did. My heart was free, even as Peter was. Like Peter with the angel, I rose, went forth and followed Thee.

 -------------------------------------------

Union

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in him, is mine

Alive in Him, my living head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach th’eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Now we’ve come to the end, the goal of the Christian life: divine judgment and divine reward. Wesley, however speaks of that future hope as a present reality. Something to be lived in, enjoyed, today.

No condemnation now I dread. That’s the beginning. The wages of sin have been paid in full by another. The twin chains of sin and nature’s night have been loosed by him who died for Adam’s helpless race. Their dungeon has been left behind. There is nothing now to fear. Death will still come, and, as the Scriptures teach, after that the judgment. But that future reality is no longer an occasion for anxiety. For the sentence of spiritual death, that far greater and far more fearful reality of which our physical death is merely the sign, has been set aside by the just judge. Indeed, that judge bore in his own humanity his own judgment. It is passed. It is past. It is over. The future is no longer the occasion for fear. Death is now but the gate to life eternal.

But we must be clear. This is no mere legal fiction. It is not some cosmic book balancing between Father and Son that leaves us fundamentally uninvolved. Wesley knows this and tells us so. Jesus, he writes, and all in him is mine! Why is condemnation feared no more? Because Wesley has been united to Jesus by the Spirit. And in that union, Christ’s life becomes his, Christ’s privileges become his, for Christ is his. Wesley is freed from fear for he united to him who is Life, whose Life was freely laid down on Good Friday. Who alone could take Life up again after.

Such that the new life that flowed into Wesley’s heart on Ma 21 1738 was no metaphor. It was a literal organic union with him who alone can make death work backwards. Wesley on his own has plenty to fear for on his own he is Wesley dead in trespasses and sins, Wesley in Adam and sharing in Adam’s death. Wesley, however, has been made alive in Christ and clothed in his righteousness.

The boldness with which he comes to the throne of God, then, is not rash. It is not narcissistic. It is not prideful. It is the boldness that comes in and through union with Christ. Bold I approach th’eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own. A future hope, certainly. But also a past event. A judgment secured on a Friday afternoon 2000 years ago. And a present reality to be lived in today.

Listen to how the writer to the Hebrews puts it.

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews  10:19-22)

 

This is the Grace of Good Friday.