from Good Friday...what can we say about violence and our hope for redemption?

It wasn’t the first time that Mary had seen Jesus handed over. After all, she had handed him over to Simeon when he was just eight days old. That was the day that Simeon prophesied to her that this child would be the rise and fall of many, and that a spear would pierce her heart, too. “Too”. As in also, a spear would pierce her heart also. She had surely always wondered what that meant. And now, watching her son be handed over by his followers the Chief priests who handed him over to the Roman authorities, who handed him over to be crucified…now she must have known. Just as the nails that pierced his wrists and ankles, and the spear that pierced his side, so, too was her heart pierced as she meditated on the violence of the cross that took the life of her Son and left her lonely.

Tonight, we come to meditate on the cross. Just as Christ dwelt a while to kneel and wash the feet of his followers the night before - on this night, we come to kneel at the feet of the crucified Jesus. Christians have done this for centuries, and we come year after year on this “Good Friday”, looking for goodness, but overwhelmed by the violence and injustice.

o Isaiah tells us after all, it was by a perversion of justice that he was led away…and after being wounded for our iniquities and bruised for our transgressions, he had no form that we would look at him so marred was his appearance.

On this night, we come looking for the goodness, but all we see is violence.

On this night, we come straining to hear a word of grace, but all we hear is crucify him!

 This is the state of affairs, not just on Good Friday, but most days of the year as we live in a world where we are nearly numb to violence. I don’t just mean the bloody kind, but those things that violate God’s intentions for lives of peace, justice, and wholeness. We see images of violation everyday, the cross still wreaking its havoc. And from our perspective of looking at the cross in the world everyday, we run two risks.

o The first risk that we run is simply turning away. So bruised are the ecosystems that gasp for oxygen, so ashamed is the existence of those who are imprisoned, so ugly are the ones trapped in cycles of exploitation and trafficking, so despised are the refugees that illegally cross our borders that we turn away, as if there were some form of justice that was being served in not realizing that these things are largely a result of our thirst for power. Turning away from our role in cycles of systemic violence is both arrogantly selfish and an act of injustice that is the prerogative of those who are comfortably powerful. So it was with the Roman government…perhaps for us…

o And the second risk that we run is by believing the myth of redemptive violence…that somehow those that suffer are closer to God, after all, blessed are the poor, right? But such piety which causes us to look away from the hunger, the genocide, the homelessness, the brokenness in our own families, the poverty and resulting health care crises that crucify Christ everyday of our lives, not realizing that these are not so distantly related to our own secure lifestyles. In fact, as I type on this computer, I am using a computer that operates with mineral components that are mined in South Africa yet exported because of my countries trade policies, that allow for transnational companies that destabalize local economies, which forced a woman to go into prostitution to feed her daughter, which is how she contracted HIV, and after dying, left her daughter as one of the millions of AIDs orphans.  Her daughter's name is Kokoo, and I held this child two years ago in Khayalitsha as we sang and ate lunch together in the preschool of St. Michael's Anglican parish.  You see, just by purchasing items unknowingly because we are rich enough to do so, we participate in perpetuating systems of unjust poverty and by our passive self righteous distancing, we unknowingly finance violence on the next generation children who themselves “have done no violence” as Isaiah says. So it was with the insulating self righteousness of the chief priests and scribes…perhaps for us…

Here, at the foot of the cross, where we see violence, we wonder what is the reason. We come in hope that we will see the goodness of our redemption. Well, we won’t find redemption in the act of crucifixion, mind you...FOR THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS REDEMPTIVE VIOLENCE…

 But there is such a thing as a Redeemer…

And on this night it is not so much the view of the cross that we come to see, but the view from the cross that we come to hear.

o Tonight, we come not just to meditate on the cross, but to meditate on the words from the cross.

o Not just to see the results of our violence for we see can see that everyday, but to hear the words of the one who redeems us from cycles of violence.

 For it is not the violence against the flesh that changes anything, but the Word made flesh, the words of Christ who is crucified that changes everything.

o In the grip of violence and injustice, Jesus is able to speak a word of forgiveness. He looks at his own executioners and says, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do…”

o In the face of disorientation and loneliness that fills the vacuum of those left behind after violent acts, Jesus is able to speak a word that recreates the bonds of family and identity. He looks to his own mother and a beloved friend who will bear the post-trauma of this sight and says, “Even in death, you will not be alone, though violence has deprived you of a Son and a friend, here, in faith, you are given to one another to know and to love, Woman, here is your son, and my beloved, here…your mother…

It’s not the violence that transforms our lives, but the self giving way that Jesus embraces the lives of the violators in forgiveness, and the he calls us to embrace the violated in new orders of relationships…that is transformative. From the greatest instrument of unjust violence, the cross, we hear and see the path through forgiveness to reconciliation that leads to new ways of life…a new creation in Christ.

I wonder if Mary could have realized that the crucifixion was not about Jesus passively being handed over to death, but it was about God taking a new path – actively re-ordering the chaos of a violent world, realigning us to a gracious new re-creation in Christ.

o See, on Good Friday, we come to meditate on the death of Christ so that we see the violent, not turn our face from it…and to look upon it and shut our mouths long enough to hear these words (as Isaiah instructs). But until we are able to see the violated, the least, the littlest and the lost, the suffering in the world not with the guilt of association, but forgiven and freed we will never be able to embrace one another as our own and live into the gift and responsibility of Christ’s call to agape. Look around you, here is your mother, here is your son…and we who see the scars around us, we who are gathered at the foot of the cross become a redemptive community, with a new way to live out Jesus’ recreating Word. From the cross, we see the path of forgiveness and the possibility in the wake of violence, the hope for new life.

o The beloved disciple came in grief and left with a new mother…The mother came in grief, a victim of violence that pierced her soul, but she left with the promise of a new life…Here, in the shadow of the Cross, you come to see your Savior, but you leave with a new family of faith… forgiven and reconciled, given the gift of a new family and the responsibility of seeing our lives in light of their experience, realigned with all of creation that suffers from our demands and our human brothers and sisters who bear the marks of our transgressions so that together, we can walk the hopeful path.

Our meditation for this night is not on the redemptive nature of the violence done to our Lord, for there is no such thing. Violence can never be redemptive, but it can be reconciled. And through this gate of death, Jesus shows us how. Our meditation this night is on the love of the one who shows us an image of real power to transform our grief, suffering, sinfulness, the violence we endure and even the violence we commit into new possibilities for hope and new life.

You might come, like the beloved disciple, a victim, or witness of injustice. You might come like Mary, in grief or pain. You might balk at the thought of enduring pain or that you have any role in it. But turning away only leaves your new sisters and brothers suspended in the cycles of violence and injustice, and all of us still in need of disruptive grace. If we turn away, we fail to hear the radically gracious path. Don’t cheat yourself the chance for this new possibility. Don’t turn away. Own this night, and bear witness to the redeeming Word.

Comments

[bathmate]

very good posting. thank you. :)

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herf"http://www.bathmateus.com">bathmate</a>