The Disaster of the Cross
It was a messy affair.
Was it planned? Was it
inevitable? Regardless it happened, and
there is no way to avoid that to any onlooker or participant in Jesus’ ministry
this type of death would have been humiliating, embarrassing, and devastating
to any hope that Jesus was the Messiah. Today,
Christians of all sorts can look back with Bibles in hand, prayer music, prayer
books, vestments, neatly-prepared creeds and projection screens to declare with
certainty (?!?) that this trial and death was meant to be; and some go as far
to say Jesus wanted it. However, we lose
the sting of this death if we lose the doubt.
I imagine this Jesus would have given a lot of hope to a lot people, but
not the ones with status, wealth, or power.
Who did he pay attention to? The
sick, maimed, poor, the mediocre, outcast, Gentiles (?!?), women…to these
people Jesus was good news; to these people he would have been the Messiah. And with his execution, the hope of the poor and broken have once again been taken away. Jesus’s death is just another crushed hope
for those who already had so little.
Was it a part of God’s plan?
Christians say “yes.” But what
does that tell us about suffering and evil?
For one, in Jesus we see God does not resist evil, nor does God avoid
suffering. It appears it is more
important to God that He suffer as an innocent victim with other victims, than
to blast away the political and religious systems that are evil and cause
suffering. For many this will surely be disappointing. If it is planned, in Jesus,
God makes it a point to suffer as much as possible. Why?
The answer is a harsh one…suffering and evil are here to stay for a
while and God is not going to blast it away. God IS going to be with us, suffer with us, be
present through it.
The Crucified God and The Beginning of Reconciliation
And so the hour comes when we try to remember what it must
have been like. A beaten man nailed to a
cross, lifted up, mocked. There is
sneering, his mother and some women are weeping, trying to ignore the curses
and jokes. There is the broken disgusting
man, and is he crying, whimpering? And then “My God, My God why have you
forsaken me?” He is scared. Why ask the question
unless you are terrified and in doubt?
I must make a confession, sometimes I see this picture in my
head and think, “Good, FINALLY! He knows
what it feels like.” God got his! Especially
in the light of our journey through suffering; in our own journeys and in our
own pain…we see God finally knows what it is like to be hurt and
terrified. God finally knows what it is
like to be hated, and to see your hopes and dreams dashed, to be judged wrongly,
to have no voice. God knows what it is
like to have your pain mocked, your life disregarded as worthless. God knows what it is like to see the pain in
a mother’s eyes, to worry for them, and to be abandoned by friends.
“He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted
with our infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces. He was despised, and we held him of no
account.” (Isaiah 53:3)
He finally knows our pain as humans…and so the real work of
reconciliation can begin. In Jesus
perhaps we see God reconciling Himself to humanity just as much as reconciling
humanity to God; but it began with a gruesome act, and a common suffering.
“Matthew, you are doing it! You are starting to talk about
salvation and reconciliation!!” Yes, you
caught me, but this is a part of the question of a Christian approach to
suffering and evil. It appears there is
no way out of the suffering, but in the light of this reconciliation we believe
God has suffered and does suffer with us in a very intimate way.
“Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we
accounted him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our inequities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and
by his bruises we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5)
Crux Est Mundi Medicina
The cross is the medicine of the world, at least in the
Christian perspective (well some Christians).
It is an answer, but one that has to be seen as an answer through
defeat. In the cross of Jesus, Christians
believe Jesus suffered with us and this was for us somehow. God suffers with us, and yes we suffer with
God, and, if we are honest we suffer with each other. The cross binds us to God and each other in
suffering, if we let it. It is in the
defeated Messiah that barriers begin to be removed, and reconciliation and
healing can begin.
I want to leave with a very long Scripture. So if you don’t want to read it then “here
ends the lesson.” In the Episcopal
Tradition, this Psalm is the Psalm we read together as a congregation as the altar is stripped on Maundy Thursday night in preparation to remember the sacrifice on Good
Friday. It is at the end of the service
and usually after this Psalm begins the overnight vigil to remember Jesus at the
Garden of Gethsemane and in prison. It
is Psalm 22…we pray it with Jesus. But I
wonder, did Jesus pray it with us, for us?
In any case it is our prayer for the defeated Messiah:
1
|
My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? *
and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress? |
2
|
O my God, I cry in the daytime,
but you do not answer; *
by night as well, but I find no rest. |
3
|
Yet you are the Holy One, *
enthroned upon the praises of Israel. |
4
|
Our forefathers put their trust in
you; *
they trusted, and you delivered them. |
5
|
They cried out to you and were
delivered; *
they trusted in you and were not put to shame. |
6
|
But as for me, I am a worm and no
man, *
scorned by all and despised by the people. |
7
|
All who see me laugh me to scorn;
*
they curl their lips and wag their heads, saying, |
8
|
"He trusted in the LORD; let
him deliver him; *
let him rescue him, if he delights in him." |
9
|
Yet you are he who took me out of
the womb, *
and kept me safe upon my mother's breast. |
10
|
I have been entrusted to you ever
since I was born; *
you were my God when I was still in my mother's womb. |
11
|
Be not far from me, for trouble is
near, *
and there is none to help. |
12
|
Many young bulls encircle me; *
strong bulls of Bashan surround me. |
13
|
They open wide their jaws at me, *
like a ravening and a roaring lion. |
14
|
I am poured out like water;
all my bones are out of joint; * my heart within my breast is melting wax. |
15
|
My mouth is dried out like a
pot-sherd;
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; * and you have laid me in the dust of the grave. |
16
|
Packs of dogs close me in,
and gangs of evildoers circle around me; * they pierce my hands and my feet; I can count all my bones. |
17
|
They stare and gloat over me; *
they divide my garments among them; they cast lots for my clothing. |
18
|
Be not far away, O LORD; *
you are my strength; hasten to help me. |
19
|
Save me from the sword, *
my life from the power of the dog. |
20
|
Save me from the lion's mouth, *
my wretched body from the horns of wild bulls. |
21
|
I will declare your Name to my
brethren; *
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you. |
22
|
Praise the LORD, you that fear
him; *
stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel; all you of Jacob's line, give glory. |
23
|
For he does not despise nor abhor
the poor in their poverty;
neither does he hide his face from them; * but when they cry to him he hears them. |
24
|
My praise is of him in the great
assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him. |
25
|
The poor shall eat and be
satisfied,
and those who seek the LORD shall praise him: * "May your heart live for ever!" |
26
|
All the ends of the earth shall
remember and turn to
the LORD, * and all the families of the nations bow before him. |
27
|
For kingship belongs to the LORD;
*
he rules over the nations. |
28
|
To him alone all who sleep in the
earth bow down
in worship; * all who go down to the dust fall before him. |
29
|
My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him; * they shall be known as the LORD'S for ever. |
30
|
They shall come and make known to
a people yet unborn *
the saving deeds that he has done. |
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