Searching For the Meaning of “Good” Friday

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God, Good Friday, Jesus, love, religion

I’ve never been quite sure what the “good” in Good Friday meant. Perhaps we see beyond the pain, torture and death of Christ to the event of Easter. We live in those awful moments not in the moment itself, but in the promise of Sunday.

That seems to trivialize it a bit for me, and it doesn’t satisfy. I know that the Passover, celebrated as the Last Supper by Christians is that wonderful celebration by Jews of the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. It celebrates freedom. And no doubt as the Synoptic Gospels relate, this date for the Last Supper of Jesus (the first night of Passover) serves to symbolize our liberation from sin.

John changes the mix a bit by placing the Last Supper not on the first night of Passover, but the day before, when the lambs are slain for the meal. He likens Jesus to the lamb slain. The general symbolism remains the same.

I am not a believer of substitutionary sin–the theory that Jesus took upon himself our sins and died for them– a demand of a God who requires payment for a sinful world. Such a God, to me at least, is both harsh and ugly–sending his own son to die in the most horrible of ways.

Rather I see, (note that these ideas are surely not my own, but are the theology of many a learned scholar and teacher as well as believers) that Jesus by his willingness to die for his beliefs, shows us the perfect way to engage with this creator we call God. Jesus, in dying, pays the ultimate price for principle, the foundational principle of life–love, no matter what the cost.

For this is the essence of the God that Jesus points us towards. A God who is unimpressed by formulaic ritual and a God saddened by our tendencies to divide ourselves into groups of “saved” “faithful” or “pious” and all others who somehow by human standards fail to reach the mark. So saddened is God by our divisiveness that Jesus shows through his willingness to endure scorn, beating and tortuous death, that even the least among us is worthy of dying for.

As we struggle in our daily lives to come to grips with the deep agonies that divide us as a people and as a world, Jesus on the Cross, stands as testament to the strength that we too can express if we are willing to take up that Cross ourselves and stand for love at all costs.

Jesus stands against those whose primary goal is to protect “number one”. He stands against those who are motivated by greed, self-preservation, and egotistical individual ruggedness. He points the way to a God of grace and love, who calls us daily to be bigger than our selves in our love of brother and sister. This God, so real, so in love with His creation that He becomes one of us, in an effort to show us, by his teaching, suffering and death, what He is really all about.

I speak not of Jesus as the son of God, but as the Son of Man, for the reality or fantasy of Jesus as the incarnate God is beside the point really. If Jesus is so infused with the Spirit of the Transcendent One, then it matters not the creeds we dutifully recite each Sunday. Jesus moved aside as human, and allowed the Spirit of God to envelop him so completely that God really was among us.

All the more important that we be especially careful to separate the Jesus of history from the Jesus of the Church. More and more I find them quite different beings, with quite different agendas. After having read much, I am still in love with Paul and his exuberance for the Gospel, but I recognize that Paul molded the ensuing Church and molded Jesus into that Church. I’m not so sure that it is the Jesus of history whom he never met in the flesh.

We must comb the Gospels carefully I think to find that Jesus–that gentle yet firebrand individual who sought to bring all into the house of God, as true and perfect children. He tenderly attended to the needs of the most broken and rejected in society without asking of them anything in return, other than to put God first in their lives. His anger was invoked by those whom he saw as impeding the people in their attempt to know their God. He pointed the finger and accused them of having lost all sense of why they were doing what they did. It had all become for show, for power, and for accolades.

True piety rested with the many Marys who lived with the Master, the self-less women who sat at his feet, absorbing his wisdom, who anointed his head, washed his feet, and knelt at the foot of the cross, and ultimately went to dress his broken and dead body, and found to their amazement that his real presence washed over them.

If we learn anything from the Friday, called Good, it is that we too can approach God in these simple acts of service–not by asking questions about who deserves and who doesn’t deserve our acts, but in simply being willing to give in love, knowing that the Spirit of God inhabits each and every one of God’s created beings.

Have a blessed Easter Time.

(I know that many of you who read this are not religious, and at best agnostic if not actually atheistic in your outlook. But I think that whatever you believe, you are beloved and understood and accepted by God as you are, and I hope the sentiments I express, resonate in that “human” way that knows no faith.)

Channeling the Ghost of Annie Oakley

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Book Reviews, Christ, Congress, Good Friday, health care reform, life in the meadow, Obama, Roman Catholic Church, stupid sayings, teabaggers, The Contrarian

My world is a bit upside down today. The Contrarian has disappeared and been replaced by a strange man who wants to cook my dinner and cook Easter dinner besides. More of a convenient excuse to avoid the church possibly, but hard to turn down in any event. So, I’m at some odds this day, wandering around without “things” to do regarding the main meal of the day.

Sure, I did some wash, and made a carrot cake for tomorrow (the Contrarian has his limits you know). He is making some deviled eggs, and well, perhaps a good deal of the rest is secret at this point. I’m essentially banned from my own kitchen.

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I’ve been reading blogs and otherwise just thinking. I ran across this and thought it was quite neat. It purports to be the most twittered tweet of the week:

Obama’s not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare.

You’re thinking of Jesus.

It made me smile.

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I’m hot on the trail of a new book to review. Haven’t done any in a while. Delivery was tough given our winter woes, but that is past and it’s time to get back into serious stuff. MacCulloch has written a huge tome on Christianity. He’s the author of the Reformation, another tome I”m presently reading. But I must say, I’m learning a heck of a lot, so I’m ready to give his 1,000+ pager a try.

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Going to Good Friday services is always a bit of a gamble with me. Never know how I’m going to feel about it. I usually feel some sadness, some horror at my paltry efforts in the face of so great a sacrifice, and not a little shake of confusion. I can’t explain it well, but I always feel a bit lost.

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The Episcopal Cafe has an amazing letter by Rev. Marie Fortune, which outlines what she would tell Pope Benedict about the scandal  should he be interested. Follow the link and read, for it’s well worth it.

One thing I believe in totally, is blaming the media for a witch hunt is exactly the wrong approach. You’d think they would get that.

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If you don’t already, catch Dr. James McGrath’s blog, Exploring our Matrix. He scored second in the blog popularity wars. It’s a great blog, and I get lots of good food for thought from it. He also is busy on Facebook where I usually catch up with his posts.

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The Wild Reed, has a lovely excerpt from Andrew Harvey’s book, Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ.

Frankly, I could recommend a lot of poetry, but it’s impossible to choose among so many entries. The times do inspire great thoughts no doubt, and I’m in awe as always at how talented so many of my blogging friends are. Do stop by Tim’s Straight-Friendly today as well. His reflections are so beautiful that I’m urging him to collect them for publication. What a lovely inspirational book they would make.

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Hate to do this to a Democrat but hey, stupid is stupid. Georgia enters the fray as a new contestant in the weekly show–My Congressman is Stupider than Yours! I have a sneakin’ suspicion they could well win out this week with this one.

It seems that Hank Johnson (D-Ga) weighed in on a discussion of adding more folks to the island of Guam as the Pacific fleet is increasing its presence. It seems that this worries the congressman who is afraid that the the addition of 8000 more people might be one or two too many and cause the island to capsize and drown all the inhabitants.

Yep, that’s right. Don’t know what else to say about it, but I’m swearing off Georgia grown peaches this year just in case. I suggest detours around the state also. And before you think it was an April Fools shenanigan–there is a UTube link to prove it.

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And, well, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t hope for a little of this:

It never takes long to find another chuckle in the teabagger repertoire does it? Seems our mayor has a bit of brushing up to do on his English spelling? Perhaps Chester is the village idiot?

I Am Thirsty

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Good Friday, I am Thirsty, Jesus

I Am Thirsty

“After this, Jesus knew that everything had been completed and, so that the scripture

should be completely fulfilled, he said:

I am thirsty.

A jar full of sour wine stood there,’ so, putting a sponge soaked in the wine on a

hyssop stick, they held it up to his mouth. (John 28-29)

With these words, Jesus utters his last human request. It is ironic since Jesus

time and time again, has referred to himself as the living water. Yet, now he reminds us

of his humanity as he whispers through parched lips, his need, his thirst.

I am thirsty, and the words echo through the ages.

It is 2000 years ago, and I stand among the women and his mother and the Beloved

Disciple, at the foot of the cross. . . .

Oh my Lord, this awful day, when the heavens themselves seem to weep, I brush

the tears from my eyes and gaze upon your face. I touch the wood, rough and stained.

I am lost Jesus, how will I live without you? How can I go on? You have been

everything to me for so long. I cannot imagine not sitting at your feet, listening.

I thirst for the days gone by, when you healed those were in need, and spoke

such wisdom as we had never heard before.

I remember the Samaritan woman at the well, and how here eyes grew so large

as you offered her living water. (Jn. 4:14)

I remember the crowds whom you fed, and how you told them they would never

thirst again. (Jn. 6: 35)

I remember the festival when you called out to all to drink from you! (Jn. 7:37-38)

And now, you are here at this horrible place of Golgatha, asking for drink.

Many have run away, but in truth Lord, where can I run to? Only in you can I find

peace, only from you is my thirst quenched.

It is 2000 years after that awful day, and we gather here to remember. We sorrow with

those who stood as witness to that moment, yet we have benefit of knowing Easter’s joy.

We see that in these last moments, Jesus stood in solidarity with humanity,

expressing our most basic needs.

We recall the words, “I am thirsty,” and we hear their echo in the cries of the child

of Darfur, and in the whisper of the homeless veteran living in the streets of our cities

and towns.

Oh Lord, we are thirsty, thirsty for real drink, the healing and living water. We

have wasted enough time on the nourishment offered by this world in work and

entertainment. It is food that does not satisfy, it does not last.

We live in fearful times. We fear for our jobs and homes, our families, our

country, our very planet. Where can we run to? We thirst for you.

Our thirst is a symbol of our exile from God. We seek the living water of God’s

Spirit, to revive and refresh us, to return us to unity with Him.

“I am thirsty,” and we recognize that you Jesus, you are thirsty for us, thirsty for

our love. Thirsty to love us more deeply than we can imagine.

And so we come today. We bend the knee of our heart, and we utter those

words, “Lord, I am thirsty.”

Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani

Tags

divinity, God, Good Friday, Jesus, religion, Son of God, the cross, theology

From time to time, someone claims that my view of scripture is radical. I always find that a bit amusing, since I seldom dream up my conclusions on my own, but am led to them by logical deduction from things I have read.

This is one that I have tried to push away, not wanting to “open that can of worms,” and sure that it will inevitably bring forth the usual criticisms that I misunderstand the bible profoundly. It’s either the word of God or it isn’t. And I guess, that might be true.

The passage that I have never had satisfactorily explained to me is the death cry of Jesus, reported in both Matthew and Mark. “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” How do we reconcile this with the man claimed to be both God and man, and moreover, the man who KNEW this through it all.

After all, it takes no genius to meander through the Gospels and find examples of Jesus explaining to others who in fact he was. Moreover, there are plenty of places where he announces his impending death and subsequent rising. But I defy anyone to explain how this statement of abandonment can be reconciled with those pronouncements.

Let me make it quite clear. I am not arguing that Jesus was not divine. One could perhaps make such a claim, many of course have, but that is not my task today, nor frankly do I believe in it myself. I do fully believe that Jesus was divine. Of course, I believe we all are, but Jesus stood alone as being fully and completely actualized in his divinity. He was united perfectly with God, at least so I believe, in his divine self.

Yet, bible aside, my issue is whether Jesus was aware, as man, of his sonship, his divine history in I AM. And I think he was not.

Of course most every religious commentator struggles to reconcile this problem. Somehow, we are told, God could not look upon such suffering of his son, so he “momentarily turned away” and Jesus felt abandoned. Or, we are told that Jesus, in the moment when the full burden of our sins fell upon him, was momentarily blocked from his divinity, and felt God was not there. Pope John Paul II put it thusly:

If Jesus felt abandoned by the Father, he knew however that that was not really so. He himself said, “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30). Speaking of his future passion he said, “I am not alone, for the Father is with me” (Jn 16:32). Jesus had the clear vision of God and the certainty of his union with the Father dominant in his mind. But in the sphere bordering on the senses, and therefore more subject to the impressions, emotions and influences of the internal and external experiences of pain, Jesus’ human soul was reduced to a wasteland. He no longer felt the presence of the Father, but he underwent the tragic experience of the most complete desolation.

Here one can sketch a summary of Jesus’ psychological situation in relationship to God. The external events seemed to manifest the absence of the Father who permitted the crucifixion of his Son, though having at his disposal “legions of angels” (cf. Mt 26:53), without intervening to prevent his condemnation to death and execution. In Gethsemane Simon Peter had drawn a sword in Jesus’ defense, but was immediately blocked by Jesus himself (cf. Jn 18:10 f.). In the praetorium Pilate had repeatedly tried wily maneuvers to save him (cf. Jn 18:31, 38 f.; 19:4-6, 12-15); but the Father was silent. That silence of God weighed on the dying Jesus as the heaviest pain of all, so much so that his enemies interpreted that silence as a sign of his reprobation: “He trusted in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God'” (Mt 27:43).

In the sphere of feelings and affection this sense of the absence and abandonment by God was the most acute pain for the soul of Jesus who drew his strength and joy from union with the Father. This pain rendered all the other sufferings more intense. That lack of interior consolation was Jesus’ greatest agony.

Many people believe that we are divine beings, incarnated in human flesh to experience life as such. Our journey in life is the journey back to God, in full recognition of that. As such, we at our “incarnation” in the flesh have our divine self shielded from our past eternal connection to God. We must in a sense relearn it. That is our task, to block off the unreal ego self, and bring forth the eternal spirit self.

After all, what does it mean for Jesus to be “fully human” while “fully divine.”  I would suggest that one cannot be fully either while aware of the other fully part, and that Jesus was no exception. I mean it takes not great courage I would submit to willing go to the cross, KNOWING of the glorious end–resurrection. It takes all the courage in the world to do the same, HAVING FAITH that that will happen.

What then of the biblical accounts, related in the Gospels? How do we answer the statements again and again wherein Jesus refers to himself as God’s son, the Son of Man, Messiah, I AM and tells of his coming death and resurrection?

Quite simply, I believe these to be later church additions. We know of course that the Gospels were written fully as much as 40+ years after the events described. There was much time to reflect on those events, and even more time to discern the believing community’s ongoing theological conclusions.

Moreover, we must never forget that the Gospel accounts were intended to convince. They were not and could not be history in the way that we define it today. In that time, rumor, anecdote, and third hand hearsay were more than adequate “proof.” Each writer, firmly convinced of the truth of his beliefs, set out by his writing to convince others, and in a way that would leave no doubt.

I believe it is here that we find all those statements by Jesus claiming his divinity as Son of God.

In reality, I believe that if Jesus did not know of his true divinity, but believed with all his human being that he was united to God’s will, it is much more powerful for us today. It is, because it brings Jesus close to us; he is not some so perfect being that we can only worship  from afar. His courage can indeed be ours–to risk death, embrace it, all the way to the bitter end, believing and never veering away.

Jesus on the cross, discovered in those closing moments that this time he would not be saved from death, as God had saved him before. From angry Jews who were frightened of him, from the bouts with evil that miraculously he had overcome. On every occasion that we are told of, Jesus asked, and Jesus’ received his request–for healing, for food, for “signs”. God granted his ability to walk on water, turn water into wine, and the list goes on.

Could it be that Jesus expected God to save him once more in some glorious lifting of him from the cross? Before the Romans, the non-believing gawkers, and his friends, those that had not run in fear? Then do his words ring out, echoing our own in our deepest despair of being rescued from our agonies of the cross?  “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani!!!”