Good Friday Reflection – Holy Wisdom Monastery, April 7, 2023
Nancy Enderle
John 19:16-30
We pause on this sacred day to stand together at the foot of the cross. For some, this day is etched deeply into our memories as we recall attending services across the years and across the many stages of our lives. Others of us arrived from a less traveled path, and come to this sacred day in this holy place to establish a new rhythm of listening to and honoring the passion of Christ.
What each of us brings to this Good Friday is impacted by the questions in our hearts and the beliefs that have shaped our faith, whether long-held or newly evolving. One of the Biblical scholars I read in preparation for this reflection noted that people come to Good Friday services with two basic questions on their hearts:
- Why did Jesus have to die 2. What does his death have to do with my life?
Considering the first question: why did Jesus have to die? For hundreds of years much smarter humans than I have attempted to offer answers to that question, some which have become implanted and somewhat stuck in our psyches for better or more often for worse. And I believe that none of those theories or doctrine could ever contain the fullness of the mystery of God’s activity in and through Jesus of Nazareth. So I will not attempt to offer definitive answers to that question today.
What I do hope to share with you are a few insights into what John’s Gospel invites us to remember about not just Jesus’ death on the cross but also the message of his life. And then, perhaps most importantly, I will close these reflections with time for you to ponder and contemplate your own response to the question of what the death of Jesus has to do with your life.
Concerning why Jesus had to die, Biblical Scholars John Dominc Crossan and Marcus Borg summarize Jesus’s experience at the hands of the Roman and Temple authorities in their book, “The Last Week” this way:
“… (Jesus) challenged the authorities with public acts and public debates. All of this was his passion, what he was passionate about : (and that is) God and the kingdom of God, God and God’s passion for justice…Jesus’s passion got him killed. To think of Jesus’s passion as simply what happened on Good Friday is to separate his death from the passion that animated his life.”
I find their play on the word “passion” compelling. They challenge us on this day of crucifixion to be informed and transformed by his life; to sit at the cross and remember that his life demonstrated a fierce and gentle commitment to justice, a public and personal invitation to wholeness, a radical and simple inclusion of all seekers, a mystical and practical openness to Abba God’s presence.
The whole of John’s Gospel details this life and the activities and passions that led to this death. In this Gospel account, the writer of John reveals that Jesus fully participated in the human experience until his time was complete. It is helpful to note that Jesus’s final words in these lines of scripture from John’s Gospel are, “It is finished”– it has reached its intended goal. Scholars note that behind that phrase is the fullness of the incarnation and the entirety of what Jesus had to bear through being incarnated which culminated in this horrific death. Throughout his life, he was dealing with and navigating the human condition in all of its painful realities, including betrayal, death and denial. One scholar poignantly noted that in doing so, he entered fully “the underbelly of humanity.” Working Preacher Podcast April 15, 2022.
Today we remember that this path comes to completion in his death as it is revealed in vs. 30, “Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” There are two aspects of the original Greek worth highlighting here. First, the word used for “giving up his spirit” is also translated elsewhere as “handed over”. The religious and political leaders thought they were handing him over to each other as they manipulated his fate in almost farcical exchanges and posturing, but Jesus hands over himself to death; his arms outstretched in vulnerable openness to and participation in our suffering. The second aspect of the ancient Greek used in this account is that verb used occurs in the past perfect tense which implies that this handing over was not something that just happened this one time in the past, but rather is an action that keeps on occurring, continues to unfold for us today.
The Gospel tells us that the incarnated presence of the Divine entered into this flesh, this life, and keeps giving himself to us on this journey; our journey in which we all experience suffering, and many in our human family know the pain of violence and cruelty. As we pause in front of the cross today we do so with the full and sure knowledge that God is present with us in our experiences of loss, grief, and suffering; God has not abandoned us to the underbelly of humanity on display on the evening news and streaming through our social media accounts. John reminds us that Christ stands in full solidarity with our suffering from beginning to end. It is our challenge to respond as people who stand in solidarity with all of God’s family who suffers and experiences injustice; to live with the passion Jesus displayed on his path of self-emptying – beyond and outside of his own self-interest and with love for the good of the whole world.
I would like to close these remarks with a series of statements that create space for you to listen and reflect about the crucifixion. I have taken six statements from a longer dialogue in Richard Rohr’s “A Dialogue with the Crucified God” from his book the Universal Christ. (page 155) I invite you to close your eyes, think quietly about Jesus on the cross this sacred day, and offer your silent reflections around the following statements. I will complete Rohr’s exercise with the words “may it be so.”
“I thank you Brother Jesus, for becoming a human being and walking the full journey with me. Now I do not have to pretend that I am God.”
“I thank you for becoming small and inferior, so I do not have to pretend that I am big and superior to anybody.”
“I thank you for holding our shame and nakedness so boldly and so publicly, so I do not need to hide or deny our human reality.”
“I thank you for becoming weak, so I do not have to pretend to be strong.”
“I thank you for being willing to be considered imperfect, wrong, and strange, so I do not have to be perfect or right, or idealize the so-called normal.”
“I thank you, Brother Jesus, for being all of the things that humanity despises and fears, so I can fully accept myself – and everyone else – in and through you!”
May it be so.