Fr. Williams: Crucifixions aplenty in T&T

T&T is in a time where there are “crucifixions aplenty” as the murder toll continues to spiral. Murders, even those killed on Holy Thursday, and drive-by shootings seem to be the norm.

But, through Christ’s love, there is hope.

This was the Good Friday sermon delivered by Fr Carl Williams, Interim Rector of the Holy Trinity Cathedral Port-of-Spain.

He said violence pervading the country was also a reflection of what was happening in the wider world including chemical weapons used in Syria, Christians beheaded in Egypt and Middle East.

Saying it was important to remember Good Friday and it’s teachings, Williams added, “Good Friday is not simply about remembering a terrible event long ago, but about actually finding our own place at Calvary, that hill just outside Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified.

“If we fail to see the part we play in our world’s pain and brokenness, we miss the deepest truth of Good Friday—the chance to know an unimaginably forgiving love flowing from the cross.”

He said the prisons and death rows were bursting at the seams with people society had abandoned.

The earth itself, Williams added, was also being “crucified day by day” by a human race which was reckless in its refusal to end the carbon poisoning.

Regarding the tough economic times, he said it has left many just barely surviving while greed, selfishness, unforgiving and unrepentant hearts flourished in many people.

“We need to have a joint select committee of politicians, businessmen and women, trade unions, teachers, farm workers etc everyone to look at unequitable parallel income and how we assist persons in earning a decent wage befitting wealth of T&T.

“But if we let ourselves off too easily, and fail to see the part we play in our world’s pain and brokenness, we miss the deepest truth of Good Friday—the chance to know an unimaginably forgiving love flowing from the cross,” Williams said.

But, he urged, that if people saw God’s bottomless love, it was one that would face every hurt.

“And if they see God still keep loving and forgiving us even into death, then something new will begin. The cross is all God has to bring us home.

“God is not an emperor who will coerce, a great manipulator in the sky who will force this world to change. The only power God has to change us and to heal our world is to win our hearts—to show us perfect, unstoppable love, a love that keeps pouring out moment by moment,” Williams said.

He said Good Friday also paved the way for forgiveness as God slowed the world a love that can forgive and heal all.

“ This love is ready to absorb the worst of our lives and what we do to each other, to smother all of it in its unimaginable depths, to free us and to draw us into real lives,” Williams added.