Good
Friday; Isaiah 52:13-53:12; John 18:1-19:37; St. Paul’s, 4/10/2020
Jim
Melnyk: “Post-Parade”
The parades are over and done with: the Peasant-King's rousing entry,
and the Empire's deadly might. On this
cruel day it seems the Empire, as is its wont, has triumphed once again. The Voice of the Voiceless who had proclaimed
the coming reign of God, has been silenced with a cry: “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?”
Followers and friends, mother and siblings, have either fled or watch
from a distance in sorrow, fear and anger.
Why does Good Friday happen? Why
the cross? Whose will is this moment of
pain and anguish?
Good Friday is a jarring, liturgical train wreck for so many Christians
– one many modern day folk choose to turn away from or ignore. And no wonder, we've mostly all grown up with
ministers, priests, brothers and nuns, telling us that God sent Jesus to the
cross because God needed payment for my sins and for your sins…
God's own child sacrificed to make right our guilty lives – as if
bloodshed and anguish are needed to appease an angry and arbitrary God. And despite homiletical interpretations to
the contrary, our Prayer Book liturgy doesn't do a great job at dismissing this
theology – or at offering equally compelling and ancient ways of understanding
the crucifixion.
Sister Joan Chittister, in her book, In Search of Belief, writes
that we run into trouble “when we get confused about how Jesus got on that
cross in the first place…. The reason we ascribe to the crucifixion can determine
the rest of our own lives. If we
assume,” she continues, “ if we assume that the 'sacrifice' of Jesus [is meant]
to appease an angry and insulted God,” if this is our “explanation for the
crucifixion of [Jesus], then the spiritual life totters on the edge of becoming
one long excursion into masochism.... It poisons life. It turns God into a ghoulish keeper of human
anthills.[1]”
So, if God didn't “make” Jesus die because of our sin, what put Jesus on
the cross? Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
has spoken many times about God’s dream as the “deep, profound hope of God
colliding with an intractable reality of this world in a way that will bring
about a new reality” – a reality called the kingdom – the communion of
God. He calls God’s dream – the promise
of Easter – “an aperture of hope opening in the harsh nightmare reality of this
world.”
Good Friday is an all-too-real expression of that harsh nightmare
reality that collides with the deep, profound hope of God. Good Friday is brought about by the nearly
overwhelming brokenness of this world; and for at least a brief moment of time
– two long nights and portions of three brutal days, the harsh nightmare of
this world’s reality seems to win.
God's call for justice, for mercy and for love go unheard or unheeded by
humanity, and so bring about the death of Jesus.
Chittister writes, “The refusal of the human community to tolerate the
reign of God here and now made the cross inevitable. The divine values that Jesus embodied, the
cosmic vision for the world that Jesus proclaimed, the pinnacles of human
development that Jesus made plain day after dusty day from the byways of
Galilee to the top of the Mount of Beatitudes – love, mercy, peace, and justice
– these are the principles that put Jesus on the cross. These cost.
These accuse.”[2]
Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, writing in their book, The Last
Week, ask, “Was the death of Jesus the will of God? No,” they respond. “It is never the will of God that a righteous
man be crucified. Did it have to happen?”
they ask. On one level we might say it
could have turned out differently.
Judas could have refused to betray.
The Temple authorities might have chosen a different course of action. Pilate could have repented of his sadistic
violent streak, or could have at least paid heed to his wife’s dream.[3]
But in the end, Borg and Crossan agree with Sister Chittister. “...The execution of Jesus was virtually
inevitable. Not because of divine
necessity, but because of human inevitability.... But,” writes Borg and Crossan, “Jesus was not
simply an unfortunate victim of a domination system's brutality. He was also a protagonist filled with
passion. His passion, his message, was
about the kingdom of God,” and it was his passion for God and for God's people;
it was his cry for justice, his sense of the deep, profound hope of God, it was
his dream of compassion and mercy, “that got him killed.”[4]
“Love, mercy, peace, and justice” – these are the values to which we are
called as followers of Christ crucified, “and they are no more acceptable [a
calling] now [in the eyes of the powerful] than [when Jesus stood before Pilate.]”[5]
Just consider the polarized debates throughout society and the church over the
past decades, if not the past two millennia.
Even a simple laundry list of how we find ways to ignore love, to ignore
mercy, to ignore peace and justice – well, even a simple laundry list could
fill a page – could fill a whole service.
On Palm Sunday we celebrated the Triumphal entry of Jesus,
peasant-preacher, prophet, and Son of David. There was most likely a second
parade that day – a parade celebrating the power of Empire as Pilate and his
imperial troops entered Jerusalem as well – with the empire’s flags flying
overhead and banners proclaiming the Emperor as son of the gods.
This was Rome's attempt to enforce an uneasy peace while the population
of Jerusalem swelled from its normal demographic of 40,000 or so people to
nearly 250,000. This day we recall a third parade – or perhaps a mockery of a
parade. Jesus walks the Way of the
Cross. Today we are invited to walk once
more with Jesus; to meditate on the powers of this world that would corrupt and
destroy the love of God; and to remember the wondrous love of God in
Christ.
“The cross of Christ is the call to our hearts that reminds us that
nothing ushers in the dawn of God except [our] living it.... When Jesus said,
'follow me,' Jesus was really saying that salvation is incomplete until it
lives in us – [until we find ourselves transformed into the likeness of Christ,
becoming his hands, his feet, his face, and his heart in this world.”[6]
And as Sister Joan Chittister reminds us, such a commitment costs us. Such a commitment accuses us of standing against the power of empire –
accuses us of standing alongside the Christ of God.
And
so this day we stand in the presence of love so great that even the face of
death could not stay its course. For
now, we stand with Jesus who says “no one takes my life from me, but I lay it
down willingly.” This is Jesus – “the
heart of God made flesh.[7]”
This is Jesus – who is the revelation of God, and who shows us the face of
God. This is Jesus, whose very death
means life. This is Jesus, who even as
he breathes his last breath proclaims, “God is…God is…God is!” Amen.
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