Good Friday Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 4/3/2026
Lessons:
John 18:1-19:42
In the somber silence of that garden where Jesus has just been laid - there’s a sound.
It’s not on the radio.
It’s not in the headlines, though the headlines try.
It’s underneath all of it.
A low, aching hum.
You can hear it if you stop long enough.
If you turn off the scroll.
If you sit still for just a moment.
It sounds like grief.
It sounds like anger.
It sounds like people saying, “This is not how it’s supposed to be.”
And if we’re honest, it’s not just out there.
It’s in here too.
The sound of lament.
Because the world feels unsteady.
War drums beating in places we can’t control.
Fear moving through communities like a shadow that doesn’t quite lift.
Families doing math at the kitchen table that doesn’t add up anymore.
The quiet anxiety that sits with you in the grocery aisle.
The kind of stress that hums just beneath your conversations, even the polite ones.
And into that kind of world, we gather on Good Friday.
Which, if we’re paying attention, is the most honest day in the Christian calendar.
Because there is no pretending here.
No resurrection yet.
No “everything works out in the end.”
No spiritual bypassing.
No silver linings hastily stitched onto suffering.
Just a cross.
Just a man dying.
Just the sound of lament.
—
We don’t talk about lament much.
We say lament is sadness.
Or grief.
Or maybe a kind of poetic sorrow.
But that’s too small.
Lament is grief with teeth.
Lament is sorrow that refuses to stay quiet.
Lament is what happens when love runs headfirst into a world that is breaking and says, “No. This is not right.”
Lament is grief and anger braided together.
And the Bible is full of it.
“How long, O Lord?”
“Why have you forsaken me?”
“Where are you?”
These are not polite prayers.
These are not carefully worded collects.
These are not the kinds of things you’d necessarily feel comfortable saying out loud in church.
Every Sunday at St. David's we say or chant a psalm - according to the Revised Common Lectionary.
And you Bible scholars who have been counting know that there are 45 of those Psalms we don't ever hear - and 30 of those psalms are psalms of lament.
And we remember… they are Scripture.
Which means God has made room for them.
Which means God expects them.
Which means God, somehow, welcomes them.
—
And on Good Friday, we hear Jesus join that chorus.
Not as an observer.
But as a participant.
Hanging on the cross, breath shallow, body breaking, he cries out,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Psalm 22.
That’s lament.
And I want you to notice something.
Jesus does not skip over the lament to get to the hope.
He does not fast-forward to Easter.
He does not say, “Well, I know how this ends, so let’s just move along.”
He stays.
He speaks the pain.
He names the abandonment.
He gives voice to the silence.
Which means that whatever we believe about Jesus, at the very least we have to say this:
God knows what it is to feel forsaken.
God knows what it is to cry out into what feels like absence.
God knows “lament” from the inside.
—
And maybe that’s why Good Friday matters so much right now.
Because we are living in a moment that doesn’t resolve quickly.
There are no easy answers to what’s happening in the world.
No single policy that untangles everything.
No neat theological statement that makes suffering make sense.
And if we rush too quickly to hope, we risk becoming dishonest.
We risk becoming shallow.
We risk offering people a faith that cannot actually hold the weight of their lives.
But lament…
Lament can hold it.
Lament says: you don’t have to clean this up.
You don’t have to make it make sense.
You don’t have to pretend it’s okay.
You can bring your anger.
You can bring your grief.
You can bring your questions that don’t have answers.
And you can bring them to God.
—
But here’s where I want to push us just a little bit.
Because lament is not the end of the story.
It’s not even the end of Good Friday.
It’s the beginning of something.
Because today, we also hear these words from the Book of Hebrews:
“Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.”
Provoke.
Not suggest.
Not gently encourage.
Provoke.
It’s a strong word.
Almost uncomfortable.
It implies movement.
Urgency.
Even a kind of holy agitation.
And it raises a question for us tonight:
What if lament is not just something we feel… but something that moves us?
What if lament has a purpose beyond encapsuling our pain and anger?
What if lament is not just an expression of grief… but the engine of love?
—
Because think about it.
Why do we lament?
We lament because we care.
We lament because something we love is hurting.
We lament because the world is not what it should be.
And that means lament is not the opposite of hope.
It’s the soil where hope grows.
It’s the refusal to accept that things must stay this way.
It’s the protest that says, “Because this matters, I will not look away.”
—
And if that’s true, then lament has consequences.
It does something to us.
Or at least, it should.
Because if we truly allow ourselves to feel the grief of the world…
if we truly allow ourselves to feel the anger that rises up when we see injustice…
if we truly allow ourselves to stand at the foot of the cross and not turn away…
then we will not leave unchanged.
We can’t.
Lament, if we let it, will provoke us.
It will move us.
It will push us out of numbness and into love.
—
So what does that mean for us?
It means that our lament cannot just stay in our heads or our hearts.
It has to move into our hands.
It means that if we are going to stand at the cross…
if we are going to pray the prayers of lament…
if we are going to name what is broken in our world…
then we also have to ask:
What does love look like here?
What does a good deed look like here?
Who is being crushed, and how do we stand with them?
Who is being ignored, and how do we see them?
Where is fear taking root, and how do we become people of courage?
—
And I know that can feel overwhelming.
Because the problems are so big.
The suffering is so widespread.
The needs are so many.
But Hebrews doesn’t say: fix everything.
It says: consider how to provoke one another.
Which means this is not a solo project.
This is a community practice.
This is something we do together.
We remind each other.
We nudge each other.
We challenge each other.
We provoke each other.
Toward love.
Toward goodness.
Toward action.
—
So maybe tonight…
Good Friday…in a world full of lament…our call is not to resolve the tension.
Our call is to stay in it.
To let the grief be real.
To let the anger be honest.
To let the cross do its work on us.
And then…to listen.
To listen for where love is asking to be born.
To listen for where good deeds are needed.
To listen for how God might be calling us, even now, even here, into something more.
—
Because the truth is, the world does not need more denial.
It does not need more noise.
It does not need more quick answers.
It needs people who can tell the truth about suffering…and still choose love.
People who can stand in the darkness…and still do good.
People who can lament…
and let that lament become a kind of holy fire that fuels compassion.
—
Because even here…even now…even on Good Friday…
love is not finished.
Amen.