Just before Easter, my friend Marg sent me a meditation from a Good Friday sermon. It's from a book of sermons by a lady who is an Episcopalian minister in New York. She did tell me the name of the author, but I've forgotten. It's wonderful. Here's a snippet...
"During the Persian Gulf War, one of the New Yorker writers was reminded of an incident described by George Orwell during the Spanish civil War. Orwell wrote from the front lines that he saw a man from the opposing, fascist, forces jump out of the trench and run along the parapet in full view, presumably carrying a message to an officer. He had notheing on but a pair of ill-fitting trousers, which he held up with one hand as he ran. Orwell wrote, "I refrained from shooting him....I had come there to shoot at fascists, but a man who is holding up his trousers isnt' a fascist, he is visibly a fellow creature, similar to yourself, and you don't feel like shooting him."
When God looks at us, he does not see titles, bank accounts, club memberships, vacation homes, net worth. He sess frail, vulnerable creatures trying to cover up our spiritual nakendness. Whe Jesus came down from heaven to live among us, he lived among us at that level. The Son of God gave up all his divine perogatives and caome into the world to be a fellow creature with us in our deepest need. We were God's enemies, deserving of death; but he looked at us trying to hold up our trousers with one hand and declared that we were not enemies but friends.
And, Isaiah continues, 'The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all'. As Jesus went to the Cross, even his trousers were taken away from him. He was denied even this last shred of decency. He enters the world of dereliction and disgrace, the man with no trousers and he does it for the love of his enemies - that is to say, he does it for love of us."
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