" På afstand" lanfredag af William H. Willimon



http://www.chapel.duke.edu/sermons/040496.htmAt A

Distance



Matthew 27:47-56



Maundy Thursday Noon, 1996



Matthew says, that when Jesus was crucified, women (who

are, interestingly, named) stood by "looking on from a

distance" (26:55). The Greek is makron. Distance. They

weren't too close. After all, a man was being horribly

tortured, murdered. Any prudent person would have stood

back from that action. Also, they were women. Women, in

most any culture, are taught, enculturated, to follow

the action, "at a distance."



Tonight, as Jesus is led away into the darkness to die,

Matthew (26:58) says that Peter, the chief of the

disciples, the "Rock," followed "at a distance." And we

know also that sort of distance from Jesus, don't we?

While Jesus was being beaten and interrogated in the

chamber above, Peter cowered around the fire below,

warming himself, at a distance.



The little word makron is pregnant with meaning. We

follow, but at a distance. Sometimes that space, that

space between us and Jesus is predicated by fear. Jesus

told us to "take up your cross and follow," yes. But

forgive us if we do so "at a distance." There are places

where Jesus goes, people whom he touches, things he

says, that necessitate some distance between us.



I knew the joke was inappropriate. Not really funny.

Moreover, I knew that the joke was wrong, unchristian

even. Yet I said nothing. I let it pass. Others were

standing there. I don't want them to think me a fanatic,

too pious.



I follow....at a distance. Makron.



Putting it more positively, I know my unworthiness. For

nearly forty days now, we have been wallowing in Lenten

honesty about ourselves. We are sinners. We miss the

mark, fall short, sin, screw up....put it as you will.

Before such unrestrained goodness as we meet in Jesus,

we stand back. "Depart from me, I am a sinful man,"

cried Peter, one day when the goodness and graciousness

of Christ were made particularly vivid to him. And well

we should cry.



In Luke 18, we are told that, while the Publican pushed

in to the inner circle of the Temple, to parade himself

before God and the congregation, the penitent Pharisee

stood "at a distance" feeling that he was unworthy even

to lift up his head.



Before the imposing, dreadful love of God, who could say

less? We, even the very best of us, stand at a distance.



Yet there is, in scripture, another use of makron.

There, the distance is not the gap between our sin and

God's holiness, but there it is distance bridged,

bridged by a God determined to have us. In Luke's story

of the prodigal son Jesus says that the Father was

waiting for the son and when he saw him makron, "at a

distance," he came running and embraced him. He did not

wait for Lenten penitence, for confession or contrition,

but ran out, Easter-like bridged the gap and embraced.



In Acts 2, Peter's sermon at Pentecost, he tells the

crowd that "this promise is to you and to your children

and all who are makron, all those who are at a

distance."



Tonight, around the table in the upper room, when he

offers us bread and wine -- a meal, the most intimate of

human acts -- we shall see something of the great

lengths this God goes to love us. He stretches out his

arms on the cross, as costly embrace, drawing all unto

himself, all. He comes to us, because we could not come

to him, he reaches out across the great gap, the gap of

our cowardice, our sin, our unworthiness, our fear, name

it as you will, the great gap, the chasm, he reaches

out, determined to bring us close.



Before the cross we know: this promise is to you and to

all those who are at a distance.