Surrender The Fear And Cultivate A Deep Trust

Good Friday

I have long loved the double meaning of the word “passion” that we hear in today’s reading of “The Passion of Jesus.” I take it to mean both his agony and utter aloneness as well as the force which drove him to be and do all that he did.

Growing up catholic, Good Friday was always a somber day and focused on Jesus’ death as atonement for our sins. While I understand that theology, it is no longer something that I hold on to. I do not think that God told Jesus, “You need to die because the people have been bad and have upset me. And the only way to do this is sacrifice.” That doesn’t seem to be the God that Jesus spoke of and would go against so many passages in scripture that would indicate that God desires mercy over sacrifice. 

And while the crucifixion was an actual event that happened to Jesus, I do not see it is a singular event. The Christ continues to be crucified in our world.

What was never pointed out to me until much later in life was that crucifixion was part of the empire’s machinery of violence against those they deemed as transgressors or enemies of the state. Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane and subsequent state-sanctioned execution at Golgotha signify that he was a ”threat to the social order” or an “enemy of the state.” I use this language purposefully because it might help us to look around our world (or in history) with new eyes to see who was given this label or where this is happening now (1). It might also help us to become mindful of all those that the state deems “disposable” or unimportant to the systems of power. By their presence, they, too, threaten the powers and are much more likely to be victims of violence.

I often think of the United States when it has used the phrase “a threat to national security” to justify the use of military or police action against a certain group of people. We employ this phrase when our way of life or economic arrangements are threatened, and in the time of Jesus it was no different.

Jesus’ deep and unwavering passion for love, justice, inclusion and peace in the world threatened power structures because they stirred people’s hearts and had people asking, “Yeah, why can’t it be that way?” And whenever people start coming together, organizing and asking questions of the state, things start getting messy and dangerous.

This also helps me to view Jesus’ death – not as a requirement by God for our sins – but the result of his trying to usher in a new world order that challenged business-as-usual.

Choctaw elder and Episcopalian Bishop, Steven Charleston, says that “human life began in a garden and to a garden they seek to return.” Jesus wanted to help humanity once again live in that garden – the garden where all had enough, the garden where all belonged and were celebrated, the garden where justice and peace prevailed. And so he was willing to go all the way to death so that this vision could be a reality. 

It is no secret that we live in a very broken and hurting world. There is more than enough pain and suffering. We need only read the daily headlines to be reminded of intense human misery, shattered relationships and planetary crisis.

Good Friday is a day to hold all of the brokenness of life, the pain of the world, the unfinished business, the broken hearts, the betrayals and the shortcomings. It invites us to stay there and mourn for all that has been harmed.

And Good Friday is a reminder to remain firm in whatever kinds of social change work we find ourselves engaged in – whether as healers, builders, storytellers, disrupters, caregivers, visionaries or frontline responders (2) – knowing full well that the world might work against us, reject us and hurt us for the work that we are trying to do.

Jesus’ witness on the cross invites us to surrender our fear and cultivate a deep trust that even in the face of death (and seemingly “unsuccessful” outcomes), we must continue to remain committed to the deepest of our values.

(1) Many places around the country sometimes do a “Good Friday walk” that processes to the places of pain in our own communities that are some of the modern sites of “crucifixion.” These are powerful reminders for me that Good Friday’s continue for many every single day of the year.

(2)  Words drawn from the work of Deepa Iyer and the Social Change Ecosystem Map found at https://buildingmovement.org/our-work/movement-building/social-change-ecosystem-map/