March 21, 2008

Good Friday A

"When he received the [drink of sour] wine, Jesus said, 'It is finished.' Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." - John 19:30

"Good" Friday calls up a flood of thoughts and memories and emotions from its deep dark well. Seeing the bloody and bruised Jesus hanging painfully on a cross of shame grabs our throats, churns our stomachs, and picks at the scabs that just barely cover our own wounds. For this reason, many faithful people these days give Good Friday a pass. Indeed, many churches give it a pass, too, preferring to stay in victory mode, starting with the parade of Palm Sunday and blending into the joy-filled procession streaming from the empty tomb on Easter morning...skipping messy Golgotha in between.

Maybe that tradition of not holding a worship service on Good Friday in these churches started with pastors who found it a difficult day to preach on. Not so much because of its heavy themes, perhaps, but because words just seem so inadequate.

Virginia Stem Owens writes, helpfully, I think, about this pivotal day, the mid-point of the Three Days of Holy Week.

Good Friday is the day when you can do nothing. Bewailing and lamenting your manifold sins does not in itself make up for them. Scouring your soul in a frenzy of spring cleaning only sterilizes it; [scouring your soul] does not give it life. On Good Friday, finally, we are all, mourners and mockers alike, reduced to the same impotence. Someone else is doing the terrible work that gives life to the world.

Watchman Nee put it this way: "Christianity begins not with a big do, but with a big done. We begin our Christian life by depending not upon our own doing but upon what Christ has done."

The end of Jesus is our beginning, really.

Indeed, at the heart of the Christian gospel - at its quaking epicenter - is the hideous yet wonderful event commemorated on the Friday we call "good": the crucifixion of Jesus. Hanging on the tree at the center of the universe in the fullness of time is God himself in vulnerable human flesh. Ironically, Jesus lives to die. And paradoxically, his death gives life to the world. The tree of death - the cross - is transformed into the tree of life.

Quite in spite of ourselves, clay-footed and stumbling in the dark, we are drawn to the cross...where we are met by God - who is all about our freedom, all about restoring us to wholeness. In the event of the cross, God's justice takes a new shape. There, to our surprise, God... instead of being about punishment -- crushing, obliterating the sinner or the sinner's substitute to pay the price for sin...Instead of demanding restitution -- an eye for an eye...There, in the event of the cross, God acts in love and mercy, re-shaping our lumps of clay into something altogether new: restored, healed, whole. Hanging on the cross, God in Christ does much more than merely complete a legal transaction to satisfy the rules of an unbending judge, or act as a superhuman shield to appease a giant angry Parent.

On the cross, in an act of restorative justice, God establishes a personal, reciprocal relationship with humankind. Simply put, Jesus dies so that you might know how much God loves you.In submitting to death, God changes the relationship between Creator and creature decisively, once and for all, for all people. It is as Jesus exhales in the last words attributed to him by John, "It is finished."

Complete.
Done.
Accomplished.

God has acted, dying so that the world might be reconciled to God. The Crucified One doesn't just show us the way. He IS the way to eternal life and wholeness. The tree used to execute a death sentence becomes the bridge across the great divide separating God's glory and our un-glory.

The cross of Christ draws us into itself so that we become participants in the cosmic story of reconciliation. Jesus is crucified and we are crucified with him. (Gerhard Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross, 7.)

The cross draws us in from the sidelines and makes us actors in the drama. The story tucks us into Christ. His story is our story.It is the greatest story ever told. Here's another...

A toddler was so sick that his only hope of survival was a bone marrow transplant. All family members were tested to see who would be the best match. It turned out that the little boy's older brother was a perfect match. The father sat the boy down and told him what they needed to do in the simplest terms he could think of. The father told the older boy that his little brother was very, very sick and that he could show his little brother how much he loved him by having surgery. The doctors needed to take a little piece of him and put it in his little brother's body so that the little guy didn't die.

The older boy thought about it for a moment, asked , "Will it hurt?" and then stated firmly that he would do it.

The bone marrow transplant was a complete success, and the little boy recovered quickly. Waves of relief and joy washed over the family. The father noticed, however, that while the rest of the family was celebrating,his older son was looking sad, even depressed.He took him aside and asked why he wasn't happy, since his little brother was getting better. The boy said he WAS very glad his brother was getting better. So the father asked again, "Why are you so sad?" The boy replied, "When is it time for me to die?"

That's when the father realized what the boy actually had on his mind. The older boy believed in his heart of hearts that he had to give up his own life so that his little brother - whom he loved - could live.

When Jesus' Father in heaven suggested that Jesus go under the knife for our sake, it did mean his own death.

On their last night together, Jesus framed up a new standard of love when he washed his disciples' feet and said, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15: 13) Then he went out into the night and demonstrated what he meant by that statement. Turning words into actions, he laid down his life for love of his friends by dying on the cross.

John reports that after Jesus was raised, returning from the dead to the land of the living, he gathered his friends back in Galilee over a breakfast of grilled tilapia for one last sermon. Making an example of Peter, he asked, "Do you love me? Then follow me." (John 20:17, 19)

Peter isn't the only one called to follow Christ into the night, even to death.

Something in each of us has to die in order for Christ to reign in our lives more completely. What will that be for you, for me? When will we stand up to systematic injustice and live our lives differently? When will we re-shuffle our priorities, living simply so that others may simply live, loving the life we've been given in its fullness?

The story on this Friday we call "good" is a story that we struggle to describe, struggle to understand, struggle to believe.

It is a story, after all, about the death of God. And, most disturbing and yet most wonderful of all, it is a story about our own crucifixion and death. And our own rising to new life.

In the end, perhaps the language of paradox is the best we can do to measure the mystery of what God has accomplished for us on the cross.

What appears to be foolishness, is in fact wisdom. hat which seems senseless, offensive, even, is the power to save. God dies and this brings life. From his brokenness comes our wholeness. The block we stumble over is the cornerstone. The one who knows no sin becomes sin for our sake. Forsaken, yet one with God. Unprotected - yet in this weakness, embodying the power of God...Humbled, shamed, defeated - yet glorified. The One who is deformed by torture and execution, Re-forms us in beautiful newness.

Claimed in baptism, living by faith, we are marked by the awful, glorious cross of Christ... forever.

Thanks be to God!

Kristie Hennig
Chanhassen, Minnesota