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After a long day and a welcome dinner, I settled into my comfortable chair in Jerusalem and found on my tablet the manuscript of these seven Good Friday homilies by my late friend, teacher, and colleague, Eric W. Gritsch. I felt much too weary to start reading. “I shall be asleep for sure in five minutes,” I thought. Such had been the series of days in Jerusalem. “But, why not have just a taste?” And, I did!

I could not put it down! It was as if one were hearing Eric Gritsch in person. His grasp of human history and Christian theology, along with surprising insights laced often with good-natured humor, for which he is known to students and colleagues alike worldwide, were right here, on the page.

It is not often that spoken words can be transcribed into written text and yet have their spontaneity and humor, surprise and sparkle. Spoken words are enhanced by vocal inflexions, expressions, and gestures. One would not expect such things in a transcribed text. Perhaps they are imagined, but for those who knew him and surely for others, the sparkle, surprises, and appropriate humor are all here!

From the opening homily of this Good Friday series, the Reverend Dr. Gritsch has our full attention: “On this day, at about this hour, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis and burned so that nothing was left.” Here begins the history of another execution of one believed to be a prophet in our era. Then come the words from the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Dr. Gritsch then asks, “I wonder if the Nazis knew what they were doing . . . ?”

Then he was on to his theme. Christians are all about forgiveness, or ought to be, as was our Lord. The homily developed, touching Scripture, history, theology, and the experience of our own living together in Christ.

Well, I was hooked! On I read, no longer the least bit drowsy, but rather hungry to hear, to learn, or perhaps just to see what this great historian, theologian, writer, teacher, preacher, and colleague of so many of us in the life of the Church would do to exegete these precious seven words of our Lord. I would not be disappointed. I read five of the seven homilies that evening. I have reread these seven homilies again and again since.

He was a profound preacher and teacher, a lecturer in high demand in the United States and Europe even after his retirement following thirty years on the faculty of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. Anecdotal stories, both humorous and insightful, are yet appreciatively told on that campus.

Dr. Gritsch was a prolific writer, with one or two manuscripts in process on his desk right up to the last, when surprisingly his desk was clear for the first time. He appeared to have a quiet and confident understanding of the meaning of his time.

His spiritual life and piety were rooted in every expression of the church—from his active congregational involvement to his work on many fronts with his synod to his service on dialogue committees and task forces of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He was known to be able to untangle, with solid scriptural footing and with logic, some of the thorniest issues for the church in our time. His insight would be marked always with contemporary relevance, and always ecumenical in its vision.

If you knew Eric W. Gritsch, here is an opportunity to hear and experience him again as we wait together for that day when we shall be “together with our Lord.” (1 Thess. 4:17)

If readers are meeting Eric W. Gritsch for the first time in this little book of seven homilies on our Lord’s words from the cross, I suggest this book will inspire, teach, engage, surprise, and even cause a smile now and again at how it is that this great teacher can draw us into his own conversation and contemplation into Him who was the “Word [who] became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, whose glory we have beheld as the only Son from the Father.” (John 1:14, RSV)

In both cases, this little book will hold a special place on our library shelves or even on the prayer desk or other places of our study and meditation. It already has these places for me. Moreover, I shall gift it to my friends.

The Rev. Dr. Theodore F. Schneider, Bishop Emeritus

The Metropolitan Washington DC Synod, ELCA