Good Friday
My kingdom is not from this world. The crucifixion is a horrible story. It’s nauseating in its cruelty, but the sheer brutality of it highlights the great and abiding distinction between the empires of this world and the reign of God. Torturing and killing people is routine for the Romans, as it has been for human regimes down through the centuries to this very day. We take it for granted. So the words of Jesus should shake us up: If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the [religious leaders]. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here. The distinctive feature of the reign of God, what sets it apart from any human dominion, is non-violence.
Unbelievable though it may seem to us, Jesus refuses to defend himself. He will not resort to violence, nor will he let those who follow him resort to violence. In Matthew’s Gospel, when someone cuts off the ear of one of the people coming to arrest Jesus, Jesus says firmly, Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. It doesn’t matter that Jesus is innocent; it doesn’t matter that the whole affair is unjust. Jesus refuses to commit any violence at all. Not only does he refrain from physical violence: he won’t even indulge in verbal violence. He doesn’t lash out with his tongue, he doesn’t curse his persecutors. The words of Isaiah, describing the LORD’s suffering servant, resonate deeply: Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
And there is one more twist to this. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s account, Jesus is presented as an innocent victim who does not fight back. But John’s version, which we heard tonight, is more magisterial. As John describes it, Jesus is not a victim: he is in charge the whole time. He tells Pilate that he would have no power over him unless it had been granted to him from above. When he is crucified, there is no cry of dereliction from the cross. Jesus turns over the care of his mother to the beloved disciple, drinks sour wine in fulfillment of scripture, says it is finished, and gives up his spirit. Throughout it all, he is calm and in control. Do you understand? It’s not that he can’t resort to violence — he won’t resort to violence. Period.
The cross exposes us, people. It reveals the truth about us. And we are no different than the Romans. Violence is our way of life. Our sports are violent, our movies are violent, our video games are violent, our punishments are violent, our perceived solutions to many problems are violent, our thoughts are violent, our language is violent. Listen to the news. Listen to your own heart. You know this is true. And we can try to defend ourselves by arguing that this is just the way the world is, that only the mighty prevail, that we have a reason to be angry, that the use of force for the sake of goodness is always justified, that we are just being realistic — but the cross won’t let us get away with it. In the Kingdom of God, there is no violence. If we are truly going to follow Jesus, we have to take that seriously.
The ramifications of this are manifold, but tonight I will just focus on the most basic: awareness. All of us can observe the seeds of violence within ourselves: the anger, the resentment, the hatred, the fear that is there. And when we see this, we can do so without judgment. The cross exposes us but it doesn't condemn us. God always looks at us with love —and only love can bring about real change. We can’t fight fire with fire: we can’t violently suppress our violent thoughts and feelings. It won’t work: violence begets violence. The way forward begins with simple awareness, seeing ourselves as we are in the light of Christ, and allowing the Holy Spirit to do her slow work of healing and transformation. Over the years, I have found that this is the only way I can productively deal with my own violence, with the anger, fear, pain, and stress that I feel which often leads me to do and say things that are hurtful. And that’s the key: just seeing all the ways we hurt ourselves and hurt others by our own inner violence and by our complicity in the violence that saturates our society. The more we see it for what it is, the more we see ourselves and our world through the compassionate eyes of Christ, the more we will be like him, and the less we will be like the people who killed him.
It’s amazing, really. God uses the brutality of the cross to save us from ourselves. Yes, we can praise Jesus and worship God, but the most important thing we can do, what I am certain God wants us to do, is to let ourselves be saved. Tonight, look at the cross; look at the world; look at yourself — and see.
No comments:
Post a Comment