Good Friday

I want to plant a seed in you, or rather, God does…a seed of love. John did so when he traveled before the Lord preaching the message, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” The Apostles and disciples did so as they brought the good news into the land, that Israel’s Messiah had finally come to reign and fix the earth. And of course, Jesus did so as well…and to a much greater extent. Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, planted God’s love in the world, in us, so that we might have life.

We see Jesus first betrayed by his closest friends. At a meal, which happens to be the most important banquet that Jewish people share together, Jesus reveals that one of his closest friends will go behind his back to sell him out for a little sack of cash. I had the blessing to share a Passover seder with one of Kelley and my close friends on Monday. During the meal, as we dipped the bitter herbs into salt water, it was mentioned that at this moment in the meal, Jesus revealed that Judas would betray Him. Could you imagine sharing a last meal with your closest friends, knowing that one would go behind your back to humiliate and kill you, while others abandoned you in your time of need? As I stared around the table, I began to realize that Jesus must have felt utterly alone in this moment…even with His best friends near. And when Jesus was handcuffed and taken to trial, none of His friends show up to stick up for Him. Nobody shows an ounce of trust in Jesus when the world finally captures Him. Even in the face of such insincerity and brokenness, Jesus continues on His quest to deliver love to the world.

After being found guilty by a skeptical community and an arrogant court, Jesus is led off to a series of humiliating and torturous incidents. Jesus is spat upon, derided and abused. He is stripped bare, punched and kicked, mocked, made to look like a Roman King, while covered in blood and shame. Irony. God Himself suffers the tortures of the offender, the outcast, low. Jesus has now been abandoned by all those He seeks to love. King of the Jews, Lord of the Earth. Messiah. In most of his books, Fyodor Dostoevsky depicts what is known as unexplainable suffering. At times, animals are abused and killed or children suffer the pain and rejection of a miscreant family. This is suffering that cannot be rescued by careful argumentation and logic, and yet, Dostoevsky continually forces his reader to return their gaze to the sufferer. And here we see the most useful of useless suffering, the most unexplainable, and yet the most loving suffering the world has known…and we must not look away. The Messiah suffers for us…His broken bones testify for us, and His wounds heal us. We must not look away from love.

Jesus is then handed the most humiliating symbol in antiquity. An electric chair, a scarlet letter, a noose around a tree. A cross. Jesus must parade His symbol of shame to its realization upon a hill where execution can be seen from afar. There is no obscurity, no hiding place for Jesus’ shame. And yet, Jesus bears this weight all the way up the hill and mounts it, on display for the world. Jesus is completely transparent at this moment. In a world of mistrust, Jesus shows us an act of utter sincerity. How can we not but trust Jesus as He hangs stripped, beaten, humiliated and moments from death by execution? Augustine defines sacrifice as any act which brings us closer in community with God. Jesus offers the ultimate act of sacrifice by mounting the cross and crossing from life into the realm of death for the world. The weight of love has now become heavy under the weight of glory.

In ancient times, Gentile philosophers believed that when the human soul turned from God, it fell to earth. This is where we get the phrase, “the fall of man”. In order to seize us, Jesus falls to earth, but He falls in a different way…Jesus falls sinless, under the weight of love. The truest of souls felt the heaviness of love, the weight of glory, and fell to the earth. And this same weight drew Christ to the cross. We can do to Christ which has not already been done to Him…there is no wrongdoing, no trespass which He has not already suffered. We are about to share in the Lord’s meal together to celebrate Christ’ death, and we can do so because of Jesus’ ultimate offering of love. Jesus has offered His body to us…it is ours in abundance. His blood is enough for the world. It does not need us to preserve it…it is perpetual…we cannot ruin it. Jesus’ sacrifice is hardheaded, persistent, and heavy. This is God’s love.

Why did God suffer? Why did God die? As Jesus fell to earth in human form under the weight of love, He then felt that same weight in falling into a grave. As God’s act of love was once buried under a flood of water, God’s act of love becomes buried in a mound of earth. The tree is hacked to the ground, and Jesus’ followers were left staring at the barren stump. But as God has shown, when fruit ripens on a dying tree, it falls into the earth to nourish the seeds within. From these seeds spring new life. Death proved to be the most fertile ground for this strange fruit, who hung from the tree. I want to plant a seed in you tonight, but I am too late. The seed has already been planted.