Good Friday
April 3, 2026
St. Dunstan’s
The Rev. Patricia Templeton
A legend about the explorer Marco Polo says that on his famous trek to the Far East he was captured and brought before the feared conqueror Genghis Khan. Afraid for his life, and desperate for some way to connect with Khan, Marco Polo began to tell him about the story of Jesus.
Ghengis Khan liked the story and listened attentively, much to Marco Polo’s relief. But when he came to the events of Holy Week, and heard of Jesus’ betrayal, trial, flogging, and execution, Khan became more and more agitated.
As soon as Polo said the words, “Jesus breathed his last,” the great Khan exploded.
“What did the Christians’ God do then?” he demanded. “Did he send his thousands of legions to smite and destroy those who had so treated his son?”
Marco Polo’s answer was clearly a disappointment. Ghengis Khan knew how he would have handled such a situation.
So the conqueror remained unconverted, unable to believe in a God who did not avenge a son’s death, or a Christ who forgave those who killed him.
This tale makes me realize how numb we have become to the chilling story of the last week of Jesus’ life; how easily we skip from waving palm branches on Palm Sunday to the triumph of Easter.
We smile at Ghengis Khan’s question about God avenging a son’s death. Of course God didn’t seek revenge. We who have heard the story hundreds of times know that is not how it goes.
But knowing so well how the story ends can lessen the horror of the events that lead up to that ending. Who among us can remember the first time we heard the story of Jesus’ betrayal and death? Who can recall the suspense of the story, the shock, the outrage and grief?
We like to skip over those parts, or if we hear them to think that the events of Easter Sunday erase the pain of Holy Week.
Long ago I went with a youth group on a pilgrimage to New Mexico. Driving through the Texas panhandle, we began to see signs advertising “the world’s largest cross of the Western hemisphere.” Of course, we had to stop.
The cross was, indeed, quite large. It was also downwind from a pig farm, and the stench was horrible. Around the foot of the cross were life size re-creations of the last week of Jesus’ life.
Literally holding my nose, I looked in disgust at a life-sized Jesus, his face twisted in agony, being held down by two men as a third nailed his hands to a cross. My first impulse was to gather up the kids, jump in the van, and quickly get away from this smelly and gory scene.
And then it hit me. The crucifixion didn’t happen in a park surrounded by sweet-smelling flowers. It likely happened at a garbage dump, where the stench was probably at least as vile as that of a Texas pig farm.
Jesus surely did writhe in agony as his hands were nailed to the cross.
And my impulse to run away from such an unpleasant scene was exactly that of the disciples, who we are so quick to criticize for abandoning Jesus at the cross.
Suddenly I realized how hard it must have been to stand at the cross, watching as Jesus was flogged, watching as his bloody body was nailed to a splintery piece of wood, watching as he hung in the hot sun, the smell of decay and death heavy in the air; watching as he breathed his last, not knowing that the story would not end there.
The gospel story ends bitterly today. It leaves our savior hanging on a cross, and everything in us wants to rush ahead to the joy of Sunday.
It is not a place anyone would choose. But that is where we are asked to be today, to be fully present as Jesus breathes his last. To share in his pain. To feel the grief of his death. To be with him at his death, as we pray he will be with us at ours.
Amen.