Gen 22:1-18 Ps 22
Heb.10:1-25 John 18:1-19:37
Lectionary Link
How many times do we observe life situations and ponder whether the bad, the evil, the greedy, the haughty proud, and the tyrants are winning? It can appear that the strongest, the wealthiest, and the smartest people are using strength, wealth, and intelligent to be bullies, economic tyrants while they purchase the best of creative intelligence to expand their power and their greed.
And it does not seem like nature has a way of correcting the situation, even the natural event of death, since when one tyrant dies another arises.
The death of Jesus illustrates how the web of evil works in our world. The Roman Empire created condition of peace referred to as the Pax Romana, a world peace due to the ability of the Romans to crush any opposition and so impose their "enlightened" laws everywhere. And such a peace does provide a framework of stability for government and commerce to be conducted.
But with such forced peace, what has to be tamped down is resentment; the resentment caused by memories or aspirations for more local and individual freedoms.
How do the various parties within Judaism try to fly under the radar and avoid the Roman soldiers from crushing them totally? How do the religious leaders in Jerusalem negotiate with the Roman authorities to try to make the best out of a circumstance of an occupied country and city? How do the Jews have freedom of religious practice while being occupied by the Romans whose most prominent religion is the cult of a divine Emperor?
On Good Friday, we read the Passion account from the Gospel of John. If the Gospel of John has come to writing after the year 90, what can we assume about the writer and the readers of this Gospel? We can assume that they know that Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70. We can assume that the inhabitants of Jerusalem and environs who were from all different groups of Judaism, became scattered to the various other cities and towns of the region. We can assume that there was blaming happening among the various groups of Jews, the Sadducees who lost the Temple for their priests to offer the sacrifices, the Pharisees, who were more adaptive to being able to live without the Temple, the Essenes in the desert, the Zealots who probably suffered great losses in the battles, the followers of John the Baptist, non-practicing Jews who had learned to do business with Romans, and the members of the Jesus Movement. Part of the blame game was to assign providential reasons for the bad events incurred by the people of Jerusalem. And that is what prophets of all stripes did: These bad things happened because you did not practice obedience to God in the way that God truly wanted.
What can we also assume about the community which generated John's Gospel? They were a community which knew the frequent break down between the various Jewish parties, even to know the mutual practice of excommunication or not being welcoming to each other. What did the Johannine community also experience? They experienced the appeal of the Gospel being offered to non-Jews who also were not required to adhere to the ritual practices of Judaism. They were a mixed and mongrel community, of dislocated people who were trying to forge their continuing existence in new places. But being such nomadic people and open to befriending all people, they also became clubs of mutual support of people in transition, who did not have long local roots in the places where they had come to reside.
If the Johannine community had become welcoming to Gentile members and had become enemies with the parties in Judaism that could not embrace Jesus as their Messiah; such a situation would influence how the narrative of Jesus would be told.
The Passion Gospel of John is the latest Gospel Passion; it is quite advanced in hindsight providence. Such a Gospel writes a narrative of about the voluntary self emptying of the divine Jesus to the point of death. The Romans were responsible, the rival Jewish parties were seen as complicit, but what does John's Jesus say to Pilate? "You have no power over me unless it was given to you from above."
Does it matter that the Jews and Pilate were involved in the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John? No, they had no power over Jesus unless it was given from above.
Another factor to consider in the passion recounted by the writer of John. The writer is quite confident about how effective the Gospel has been within the communities throughout the Roman Emperor. The Jesus Movement is here to stay. It is inherently winsome. It is spirited and charismatic. It is irresistibly converting of many, many people. And because of the successful outcome, the message of the Cross of Jesus has to be told with the confidence of convincing providence. "God meant it to happen."
What we can say today is that God is still being emptied into the many dire weaknesses which have and continue to inflict our lives and world. We still have not experienced enough overcoming success to declare most of the profound suffering in our world as worthy to be called "providential." We do not feel confident to call the evils of the past, "God's will." We would not want to minimize suffering by proclaiming it as providential even if we have seen some redeeming outcomes.
Let us accept on Good Friday today that you and I identify with the dilemma of God. The dilemma of God is known in the self-emptying of apparent divine power. Why is it a dilemma? Because the greatest gift of God is freedom. Why is freedom great? Because it is what make morals and ethics significant and truly valuable. Why is it a dilemma? Because the Great Freedom that is God shares with agents of lesser freedom and this means that Great Freedom allows the play of lesser freedoms within all the agents who are not God. So there is the freedom for an entire array of probabilities of occurrences.
And on this day we pause at the occurrence of the Cross of Jesus. We share the dilemma of God in God taking identity with the suffering ones who have lost the power to prevent their suffering.
Today also reveals another principle: When unjust suffering happens, it has the invisible power and force to transform in the inner realm. And for this reason, we can come to confess with St. Paul in identifying with God's dilemma: "I have been crucified with Christ, and I live, yet not I, but Christ lives within me." By the time the Gospel of John was written, the cross had become the mystical power to die to the selfish self. To this ironic power today we submit in our contemplation of the Cross of Christ. Amen.
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