Good Friday: A Reflection

 The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Passion according to John

 

Good Friday: A Reflection

 

What now?  A hopeless disciple standing beside a woman watching her son die.  And he is dying.  The cause of death will be suffocation or excessive blood loss or maybe a broken heart.  But he will die on that cross.  The Son of God, brown skin stained with red blood, calloused hands pierced with spikes the color of gunmetal: he will die on a Roman cross with a charge of treason written above his head in three languages.  The breath that gave life to the world will run out.  The sacred heart that holds us will stop beating.  The eyes that wept over Jerusalem will close in eternal rest.  This is not a passion play.  This is passion in its truest and rawest form: immense human suffering.  This is not just a temporary setback on the way to Easter.  This is death – the most human of fates.

 

And it happening right in front of his mother.  Every parent’s worst nightmare coming true, escaping the haunted corners of the mind and ruining the real world.  And there is nothing she can do about it but cry until she is empty and curse those who yelled crucify and feel a part of herself die with him.  On that cross.  On that Friday. 

 

I wonder what it meant to Jesus that Mary stayed.  That she forced her trembling body to watch the unwatchable.  I wonder if it brought Jesus comfort or crushed him with overwhelming sadness.  Or both.  I wonder if he, for even a moment, regretted the broken tables in the Temple or the boldness with which he confronted the religious leaders or leaving his father’s workshop to chase a mystical purpose.  I wonder if he longed to wrap his arms around her but found the nails too restrictive.

 

If you are looking for the dignity in this death, it is simply nowhere to be found.  There is nothing beautiful here.  There is nothing lovely.  It was a death much too painful, much too public, saturated with shame and celebrated with unspeakable cruelty.  Jesus on the cross is every body buried in a mass grave, every life lost in the crossfire of war, every brown boy held in his mother’s devastated arms, every dehumanized person tossed overboard, every marginalized person thrown away, every precious soul, made in the image of God, who dies alone or forgotten or forsaken.  The soldiers gambled for his clothes as he gasped for air.  Those who called for his death stopped by only to mock him one last time as he died absent of human touch, the one who had touched so many back to life. 

 

And as we sit with the sorrow of this day, the story asks us to mingle with the bloodthirsty crowd, to hear our voices in the cry of the mob.  And that is painful, because we would never do that to him.  We would never mock him or carelessly argue over his few possessions.  We would never drive the nails or wield the whip.  We would never shout, “Crucify him!”  Because it is Jesus.  And we love him. 

 

Not every soul in Jerusalem that week called for his death; not every hand struck his face.  Peter and the other disciples never did any of those things.  Instead they just distanced themselves from him and his reputation.  And when he died on the cross, they stayed home.  Because they were afraid but also because the association was toxic.  On Good Friday, we are reminded, only too pointedly, that while sometimes it is things done, usually it is things left undone.  Sometimes it is the evil we have done; usually it is the evil done on our behalf.  When the crowd yelled crucify, many good people said nothing at all – even good people who knew it was wrong.

 

We kneel before the cross today broken by both this death and by the recognition of our quiet complicity.  On a day in which we marvel at the impossible depths of Jesus’ love, we are also confronted by a terrible truth: our own love is lacking, limited by cowardice and fear. 

 

And so what now?  On Good Friday, we are as powerless as Mary, unable to relieve Jesus’ pain, unable to save him from the brutality of this world, unable to silence the cries of the crowds.  But this world continues to unleash the pain and fury of Good Friday.  Children of God, for whom Jesus died, still need our love.  Perhaps the vision of the cross will give us the courage we need to stand with those who are still victimized by violence and suffocated by injustice.  Perhaps it will implant in our hearts the resolve required to face the nightmares of this world armed with no more than the strength of love and the power of hope.  Perhaps in this age of self-preservation and self-interest, we will find in Jesus’ passion and death the strength to do what his first disciples did not: to stay in the fray.

 

Good Friday forces us to grapple with the worst capabilities of our species.  It is the story of pure love beaten and mocked and violently destroyed.  But also Good Friday gives us hope because this day reminds us that Jesus has seen our absolute worst and still loves us nonetheless.  Really, really loves us.  Good Friday shows us that there is no limit to how far Jesus will go to teach us how to love. 

 

On Good Friday, we have no choice but to rely on that impossible love, to trust that the one who welcomed the thief into paradise and forgave his killers and cared for his mother from the cross has still enough mercy in those outstretched arms to wipe our tears and hold us close and give us life.