Sermon, Pastor Mike Button
Occasion: Good Friday
Date: April 6, 2007
Theme: "Matthias Gruenewald, Preacher"
Text: John 18:1-19:42

Sisters and Brothers in Christ, may we come to the cross of Jesus with our hearts and our souls ready to be healed; in his holy and precious name we pray. Amen.

Today's sermon comes to us comes to us courtesy of Matthias Gruenewald. On the screen is a slide of Gruenewald's "Crucifixion," which, though it may look like a painting, is actually a sermon. Based on this Good Friday's Passion According to St. John, Gruenewald proclaims exactly what St. Paul pledged to his Christian friends in Corinth, "to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified."

Gruenewald, whose real name was Gothardt, painted his sermon some time in or around 1515. The crucifixion is the central panel of a nine-paneled altarpiece originally set on the great altar of the monastery church at Isenheim, in what is today the French region of Alsace. It measures about 9 feet by 10, oil on wood. To the left (our Lord's right) we see Mary the mother of our Lord in a nun's habit of pure white, supported in the arms of St. John the Evangelist as she collapses in sorrow. At the foot of the cross Mary Magdalene mourns, and near her a vessel of what some say are spices for burial, but which others speculate is actually a ciborium, a container for holding the bread of Holy Communion. Across from Mary Magdalene a lamb bears a cross, with blood streaming from its wounded side into a chalice, another symbol of Holy Communion. Behind the stricken lamb stands the man who first proclaimed Jesus "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," John the Baptist. Barefooted, bare-legged, and bareheaded, John is wrapped in leather and camel's hair, one hand holding a book and the other pointing to the crucified. Behind him are the Latin words of John 3, verse 30: "He must increase, but I must decrease."

In depicting the crucified Christ, Gruenewald has departed from the rules of proportion, and has instead increased the size of the figure of Jesus far beyond the scale of the other figures in his painting. In super life-size, Christ hangs from the cross, the weight of his body actually causing the transverse beam to sag. Dislocated at the shoulders, the long, thin arms end in oversized hands, cramped and stiffened. Encircled in a tangle of thorns, Christ's head lies limp against the right side of his chest, the jaw slack, the mouth and eyes half-open. You can almost count the ribs in Christ's chest, the weight of his hanging body fixing the intercostal muscles that control breathing. The knees are turned in, and a single nail is driven through both feet, one on top the other, blood running to the base of the cross. The toenails are blue from lack of oxygen. The skin has an almost greenish tinge, and the whole body is covered in multiple cuts, lesions, and running sores. Thorns are sticking in his legs, chest, and arms.

The monastic community for whom Gruenewald painted this crucifixion was famous for its hospital. Their primary mission was to people with skin diseases, particularly an ailment they called the "burning sickness," or "St. Anthony's fire." Today we know it as erysipelas, a bacterial skin infection that is now treated with antibiotics. Of course, back then, … It was horribly disfiguring, especially to the legs and face and typically afflicting the very young and the very old. When sufferers would first come to the monastery, they would be brought to the church where they could see Gruenewald's "Crucifixion," and there behold the Lord of Life in their own tortured skin, the King of Kings enduring their torment, the Son of God sharing their affliction.

I'd call that a pretty good sermon.
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.