Good Friday Meditation

Today there is no honor and no glory.  Abandoned to suffering, torment, and rejection, Jesus is abandoned to death.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theologian who died at the hands of the Nazis seventy year's ago, wrote, "In the passion Jesus is a rejected Messiah.  His rejection robs the passion of its halo of glory.  It must be a passion without honor.  Suffering and rejection sum up the whole cross of Jesus."

In the earliest centuries of the Church, Christians celebrated Jesus’ death and resurrection as a single event.  It was not in separate commemorations over three days as we have it today.  Christ's death, burial and three days of waiting, finally the Resurrection victory all come together when we understand that tragedy and desolation cannot be avoided.  The resurrection is not an insignificant triumph.  There is no Easter joy apart from the death of Good Friday.

Jesus identified himself by his intimate relationship with God.  He often went off alone to pray, to be with God.  This intimacy gave him the courage to endure everything the world threw his way.  It had sustained him against temptation.  In betrayal by one of this disciples, and abandonment and rejection by others of his followers, he was bereft and forsaken.  Peter could not look at him.  Only a few women, and his beloved friend, John, were there, but he could not reach them.  He was forsaken by those he loved.  Finally, even his closeness to God was pulled away.  God abandoned him.  God left him.  This is the only time in the New Testament that Jesus calls God, "God."  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Our discipleship and our belief in the Word of God begin to take on significance and real meaning as we come to terms with our life and our death in relation to Christ's suffering and rejection on the cross.   When we understand what Jesus was saying when he cried out, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" we can know what our discipleship is all about, and then we can also begin to live in real hope.

The words that Jesus cried are the opening words of Psalm 22:

            My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.

The Psalm is about one who was utterly assaulted by the power of death.  The psalm bemoans the agony of death by crucifixion, and it tells of the helplessness of humanity when confronted by death:

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.

Our discipleship, our suffering and rejection, our life and death as we stand under the cross, means that we are to live here and now in a way that upholds the Word of God in this life.  We are to practice a belief, a hope and a love in our world that trusts the judgment of God in human history. 

Our discipleship involves freedom from all collusions and conspiracies with death, freedom from the fear of the power of death, freedom from the mockery and idolatry of death, and freedom to live in hope for the Easter resurrection to new life that is the coming kingdom of God.  Amen.