Good Friday – April 19
Readings: IS 52:13—53:12; HEB 4:14-16; 5:7-9; JN 18:1—19:42
Today’s first reading from Isaiah has a lot of overtones of what would be called “atonement” theology. In this thinking, Jesus died for our sins. Isaiah says it clearly, “Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured.”
Jews at the time would have also been familiar with the idea of the scapegoat. In this ritual, a goat was ritually burdened with the sins of the people and then driven off into the desert. Jesus thus becomes the divine scapegoat who bears all of the sins of humanity in order to reconcile us with God. A sacrifice was required, and Jesus obediently accepted.
While I understand the thinking behind atonement theology, I do not find it particularly helpful. It paints God in a very strange light – that God was somehow upset with or separated from humanity and required a sacrifice to be reconciled with us. Our sinfulness created a situation where a sacrifice was required for us to be fully back in God’s presence. I still remember a Catholic nun saying to me in grade school, “With each sin, you drive the nails deeper into Jesus’ hands.” Then and now I knew it was bad theology.
We also know that the God of Israel consistently wanted mercy, not sacrifice (or sacrifices). God wanted people’s hearts to be right, and nothing “external” to a person could make that happen. Just in case we didn’t understand, God makes this clear in Hosea 6:6 (which Jesus then himself quoted in Matthew 9:13) where God says, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Because we have become so familiar with the story of Good Friday, it’s also possible that we can lose sight of the context of what is happening. Jesus of Nazareth was being executed by the state (the Roman empire) for the crime of treason. Crucifixion was the most common form of “capital punishment” at the time, and that was his sentence. The execution was public in order to send a message to everyone.
Our God was a criminal.
Jerry Bowyer wrote a marvelous piece for Forbes online in 2014 entitled Jesus of Nazareth, Enemy of the State, Executed for Treason. He wrote it like a news column would be written about the events of Good Friday (from the perspective of a Roman news official). In it he says,
Jesus’ criminal career included public insults of the king (calling Herod a ‘fox’ and ‘a reed blowing in the wind’), implying that the Roman state was under God and not properly the other way around, harassment of government officials including at least one tax collector and one Sanhedrin member, as well as ordering and/or encouraging them to remit wealth back to the people from whom it was lawfully taxed. He was also guilty of a series of actions which treasonously called into legitimacy organs of the state such as Herod’s Temple. For example, he offered forgiveness and fellowship with God to sinners, violating the temple monopoly of public expiation and forgiveness. Furthermore, he illegally trespassed on government property and interfered with state-sanctioned money-changing operations which were properly operating with the permission of the appointees of the king at state-approved exchange rates.
What is the point in recalling this?
Jesus’ death on the cross was not God’s idea or requirement. Instead it was where Jesus was led by his decision not to let anything stand in the way of love.
Jesus knew that the heart of God was love. Period. And he lived in such a way that nothing would be allowed to stop that love (and he seemed particularly committed to extend that love to the people who were left out in one way or another). He did not let economic systems or political systems or religious systems stop his love. He did not let systems of belonging stop his love. He did not let ideas of clean and unclean stop his love. He did not let ideas of rich and poor stop his love. And he did not let fear or threats of violence stop his love.
If we look at his “crimes” above – those which ultimately got him condemned to death by the state – we see that he spoke truth to power, redistributed wealth, questioned the legitimacy of institutions of domination, offered forgiveness without sanction and undermined tradition systems of economic exploitation.
Thus, the cross was not some punishment that Jesus took on because God asked him to save us from our sins. The cross was the response of empire to one who refused to let anything stop his love, and Jesus willingly followed love to the end.
For today, let’s imagine ways that we all can refuse – in big or small ways – to let anything stop our love.