Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25; John 18:1-19:42
“A jar full of sour wine was standing there, so they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished." Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
It’s Good Friday. The foot of the cross is a painful place to be. Walking through Holy Week, it’s natural to want to sneak right past it—maybe even turn our heads away, quicken our pace a bit, and hurry ahead to Easter—to deny that the darkness of Good Friday had to happen. As if the cross isn’t the necessary prequel to the resurrection. But it is.
The cross of Good Friday is an inescapable stop on the way to the resurrection of Easter Sunday. We can fight it, deny it, get angry about it-- futilely ask why it’s necessary--but none of that will change the fact of it. Suffering is inevitable, inescapable, inequitable, and unfair. But it’s the necessary prequel to new life, new birth, new thinking, new being—whether in this world, or on the way to the next.
Many years ago, I came to believe that Good Friday is about much more than Jesus dying for our sin. Truth be told, I came to believe that Jesus died not for our sin but because of it…that he willingly submitted himself to the worst kind of emotional, spiritual, and physical suffering that we human beings could possibly inflict on him to prove to us once and for all that Divine Love is more powerful by far--and capable of transforming even death into new, risen, life.
More recently, I’ve also come to experience Good Friday as a much-needed reminder that in a very real way, beyond our ken to really understand, Jesus is still on the cross suffering with us and because of us, even now. In some mysterious way that defies time and space, Jesus is still on the cross suffering because we are still suffering. And he will continue suffering for us and with us--until this broken world is made whole and God’s will is, in fact, done---"on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus suffers with us in solidarity as Jesus the man, and loves us unconditionally as Jesus the Christ.
How could it not be so? How could the risen Christ love us any less than the man Jesus, who willingly died out of love for us? And how could such Divine Love not suffer with us when we suffer-- any more than we can not suffer when someone we love is suffering?
To me, the fact that Jesus still suffers with us is as important to our salvation (i.e.healing) as his promise of new life through his resurrection. And it’s honestly more important to me this year because the suffering in our world right now is so outrageously, unbearably intense, and the senselessness of it all is so utterly soul-crushing.
A recent New York Times piece included several vignettes from survivors of the terror in Mariupol, Ukraine. The writers’ words were as searing as the images we’ve seen on TV, day in and day out. One woman wrote that she didn’t miss “the lost things, the ruined house....” But that she missed the “special world” that Mariupol had been for her. “The city always had a special smell,” she wrote, “During winters, it was a bitter aroma of frozen grapes…left on the vine, mixed with a touch of smoke emanating from family houses. During summer, it was filled with the smell of dust settled to the ground by the long-awaited rains. And in the spring … what a beautiful city it was in the spring. [Now] It’s winter in my city, brought by Russian bombs. They did not just bomb my city. They bombed my spring. My life. My past.”
Another woman writes, “Dark, cold room without windows or a glimpse of light. I am on my knees in front of my terrified kids, who are crying and saying that they are afraid to die. I am trying to explain to them that death is not scary, that the most important thing is that we are together. We are in Mariupol, and our building is being shelled.”
A city official wrote, “Cold: It’s cold everywhere. There is no heat. It’s the same temperature inside as it is outside. Water: The most expensive thing. They drank water from puddles. They drank water from the central heating system. They drank water from the snow…Security: A word that has lost all its meaning. Dead people: Everywhere. At first, people tried to bury in mass graves, but when the density of shelling made it impossible, people just lie covered with sheets. Everywhere.”
Yet another: “We ran to the cellar…we heard a piercingly loud whistling sound followed by a loud blow. That was the night our home was destroyed. The cellar — our safe place — damaged. We saw blood on the children’s faces…We gave up all hope of being rescued. We had been abandoned by everyone. When we managed to get out, we saw a post-apocalyptic ghost town: ruined buildings, garbage, wreckage, and hungry homeless dogs abandoned by their owners. People broke into the local school to steal food from the canteen and tore off wooden floors and windowsills to use for fire to cook.”
And finally, “…we lost light, water and then gas. The city was plunged into darkness… massive artillery shelling rained down on our entire district… [in the basement] there were 15 of us, including two children of 6 and 16 years of age…Food was cooked on the fire near the building entrance: We built a small brick oven, started a fire, and took turns cooking. The same arrangements took place at every building entrance, all happening under a heavy cannonade. And then the airplanes started dropping bombs…We started to run out of candles and made oil lamps. There was constant darkness, day and night.”
Constant darkness day and night. Non-stop Good Friday-- with the promise of Easter more likely a faded memory than a future hope. And yet…
And yet Jesus weeps. Jesus wept for the city of Jerusalem, he wept for his friend Lazarus, he wept on the cross. Jesus weeps for, and with, the people of Ukraine; he weeps for, and with, each of us. Because the thing is, our God is a suffering God. It may be scandalous, but it’s true. Our God became a man, and willingly submitted himself to the worst kind of emotional, spiritual, and physical suffering that we human beings could possibly inflict on him, or ever experience ourselves. So we would know…
We are not alone.
So stay here for a bit at the foot of the cross this Good Friday. Stay here with Jesus, with the people of Ukraine, with all those you love and for whom your heart hurts. Stay here and know that thiis Good Friday. It’s a hard, hard place to be.
But then remember—for those who no longer can---that this is not the end of the story.