Cross Reflections - Good Friday 2009
Text: John 18:1-19:42
It is as simple a symbol as one can make. Two lines, one vertical, one horizontal… superimposed on each other. There’s not much to it, really… and yet, there is no one symbol that is so fully identified with our faith that is universally recognized like this one. There is a great depth in what the cross means, particularly on this darkest of days, and yet I think we have simply come to take it for granted. On day like this, we can’t. In fact, on a day like this, we need to take up the cross, and truly reflect on what it means for us… and why it is so central to our faith.
The cross did not simply drop out of the sky to adorn our churches… and it also has not been without controversy either. There are some traditions that have flatly rejected the presence of a cross, on account that it is idolatrous, or on the other end of the spectrum, that it glorifies torture and death. You might have heard someone saying, “if Jesus was killed with a gun, would you wear that around your neck?” Well… maybe… but really, we can’t answer that.
2000 years ago, under Roman rule, the cross symbolized Roman oppression. It was a terrifying tactic used to brutally pacify populations through the use of state-enforced terror. Did it work? Hard to say, but it was used as a public deterrent by oppressive regimes for centuries, and was not confined to the Middle East. It was not simply a means of execution… but a public humiliation intended to strip the victim of any dignity, and to serve as a public warning to anyone else who might consider following in their footsteps. The word “crucify” literally means “to fix to a cross” and it is formed from the same root that gives us the word “excruciating.”
At this point we are getting a little uncomfortable in our seats… and to be honest I could go quite a bit further… but I can’t. Various articles on crucifixion go into the details in a very dispassionate way, and yet even then I found myself wincing. There are other horrible ways to die, but crucifixion ranks amongst the worst.
This is the pain of Good Friday. It is the story that hurts us to tell from year to year, and yet it is the most important story of our faith. This is not happy, this is not a celebration. The story is painful and disturbing, and yet it compels us to listen. The story of the cross is horrible, brutal, and relentless. It forces us to ask questions that we are not comfortable asking... It would seem that in the most critical moment of our history, our faith, somehow God does not seem to be there.
From a purely human perspective, God wasn’t there. God had abandoned Jesus. Jagged nails were driven through his wrists and feet. Jesus was pinned to a cross to die a slow, painful, suffocating death... abandoned by friends, scorned by authorities, beaten by soldiers. We sometimes have this distorted image that somehow Jesus enjoyed the suffering that he experienced. Remember what I said earlier about crucifixion earlier? It doesn’t work. There is no enjoyment of this moment at all. The cross casts its dark shadow across us…
So we wonder, why this symbol more than any other? If we proclaim Easter as the cornerstone of our faith, then why do we use something that symbolizes the awful events of Good Friday? Why do we display the cross so prominently, when something happier could be marketed better? In some ways, the joy of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem just a few days ago would be so much better. Yet we know that the joy expressed on Palm Sunday is wholly misplaced, because it was rooted in all the vain and hollow expectations that people had made of Jesus.
Over the season of Lent, we explored the book of Ecclesiastes. A Biblical book about wisdom, that seemed far removed from the stories of Jesus. In its wisdom, it spoke about the enjoyment of life to the fullest, but it also spoke profoundly about vanity. While it might seem unrelated to the cross… it isn’t. The cross is a human symbol. It reminds us of the humanity of Jesus in his suffering and death, but it also of our own pride and arrogance… our own vanity.
Why? Because it was a moment in time when the world took everything it had and threw it at Jesus… including the very power of death itself. This was the day that humanity tried to kill God… to make matters worse… we did… in one of the worst ways imaginable. Our own vanity got the better of us. When we presumed that we knew better than God.
The cross is not simply the tool of execution on which Jesus died. It is not simply a reminder of a sacrificial event sometime way in the past. It also serves to remind us now of our own vanity, and how it can get the better of us even now. On no other day during the year are we absolutely forced to deal with the suffering and hardship, and perhaps even our own role in it. On no other day do we feel a more poignant and strong connection with the suffering and pain in this world... For one day out of the year, God calls us to dwell with Christ in his suffering, because on every other day God dwells with us in our experience of life. For one day, we remember that even God knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of human vanity.
But we are fortunate that it does not end there. Even with us dwelling in that darkest of moments there is still the cross… it still has such power today. Yet now it is no longer a tool of terror. Instead, it may reminds us of our own vanity… but at the same time we can hang up the cross on our walls, around our neck, in the same way that God was shown hanging his bow in the clouds. It is a reminder of God’s promise and love, that even in our darkest moment, God still loves us in a way that is beyond our imagination.
So why the cross? In some ways, the answer is simple: without Good Friday, there is no Easter. Without the cross, there is no empty tomb. Without the cross, we could not proclaim good news… but I am getting ahead of myself. Come back Sunday.
It is as simple a symbol as one can make. Two lines, one vertical, one horizontal… superimposed on each other. There’s not much to it, really… and yet, there is no one symbol that is so fully identified with our faith that is universally recognized like this one. There is a great depth in what the cross means, particularly on this darkest of days, and yet I think we have simply come to take it for granted. On day like this, we can’t. In fact, on a day like this, we need to take up the cross, and truly reflect on what it means for us… and why it is so central to our faith.
The cross did not simply drop out of the sky to adorn our churches… and it also has not been without controversy either. There are some traditions that have flatly rejected the presence of a cross, on account that it is idolatrous, or on the other end of the spectrum, that it glorifies torture and death. You might have heard someone saying, “if Jesus was killed with a gun, would you wear that around your neck?” Well… maybe… but really, we can’t answer that.
2000 years ago, under Roman rule, the cross symbolized Roman oppression. It was a terrifying tactic used to brutally pacify populations through the use of state-enforced terror. Did it work? Hard to say, but it was used as a public deterrent by oppressive regimes for centuries, and was not confined to the Middle East. It was not simply a means of execution… but a public humiliation intended to strip the victim of any dignity, and to serve as a public warning to anyone else who might consider following in their footsteps. The word “crucify” literally means “to fix to a cross” and it is formed from the same root that gives us the word “excruciating.”
At this point we are getting a little uncomfortable in our seats… and to be honest I could go quite a bit further… but I can’t. Various articles on crucifixion go into the details in a very dispassionate way, and yet even then I found myself wincing. There are other horrible ways to die, but crucifixion ranks amongst the worst.
This is the pain of Good Friday. It is the story that hurts us to tell from year to year, and yet it is the most important story of our faith. This is not happy, this is not a celebration. The story is painful and disturbing, and yet it compels us to listen. The story of the cross is horrible, brutal, and relentless. It forces us to ask questions that we are not comfortable asking... It would seem that in the most critical moment of our history, our faith, somehow God does not seem to be there.
From a purely human perspective, God wasn’t there. God had abandoned Jesus. Jagged nails were driven through his wrists and feet. Jesus was pinned to a cross to die a slow, painful, suffocating death... abandoned by friends, scorned by authorities, beaten by soldiers. We sometimes have this distorted image that somehow Jesus enjoyed the suffering that he experienced. Remember what I said earlier about crucifixion earlier? It doesn’t work. There is no enjoyment of this moment at all. The cross casts its dark shadow across us…
So we wonder, why this symbol more than any other? If we proclaim Easter as the cornerstone of our faith, then why do we use something that symbolizes the awful events of Good Friday? Why do we display the cross so prominently, when something happier could be marketed better? In some ways, the joy of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem just a few days ago would be so much better. Yet we know that the joy expressed on Palm Sunday is wholly misplaced, because it was rooted in all the vain and hollow expectations that people had made of Jesus.
Over the season of Lent, we explored the book of Ecclesiastes. A Biblical book about wisdom, that seemed far removed from the stories of Jesus. In its wisdom, it spoke about the enjoyment of life to the fullest, but it also spoke profoundly about vanity. While it might seem unrelated to the cross… it isn’t. The cross is a human symbol. It reminds us of the humanity of Jesus in his suffering and death, but it also of our own pride and arrogance… our own vanity.
Why? Because it was a moment in time when the world took everything it had and threw it at Jesus… including the very power of death itself. This was the day that humanity tried to kill God… to make matters worse… we did… in one of the worst ways imaginable. Our own vanity got the better of us. When we presumed that we knew better than God.
The cross is not simply the tool of execution on which Jesus died. It is not simply a reminder of a sacrificial event sometime way in the past. It also serves to remind us now of our own vanity, and how it can get the better of us even now. On no other day during the year are we absolutely forced to deal with the suffering and hardship, and perhaps even our own role in it. On no other day do we feel a more poignant and strong connection with the suffering and pain in this world... For one day out of the year, God calls us to dwell with Christ in his suffering, because on every other day God dwells with us in our experience of life. For one day, we remember that even God knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of human vanity.
But we are fortunate that it does not end there. Even with us dwelling in that darkest of moments there is still the cross… it still has such power today. Yet now it is no longer a tool of terror. Instead, it may reminds us of our own vanity… but at the same time we can hang up the cross on our walls, around our neck, in the same way that God was shown hanging his bow in the clouds. It is a reminder of God’s promise and love, that even in our darkest moment, God still loves us in a way that is beyond our imagination.
So why the cross? In some ways, the answer is simple: without Good Friday, there is no Easter. Without the cross, there is no empty tomb. Without the cross, we could not proclaim good news… but I am getting ahead of myself. Come back Sunday.
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