Ode to Christ crucified

By the tree of the cross you have healed the bitterness of the tree,
     and have opened Paradise to humans. Glory be to you, Lord!
Now we are no longer prevented from coming to the tree of life;
     we have hope in your cross. Glory be to you, Lord!
O Immortal One, nailed to the wood,
     you have triumphed over the snares of the devil. Glory be to you, Lord!
You, who for my sake have submitted to being placed on the cross,
     accept my vigilant celebration of praise, O Christ, God, friend of humans.
Lord of the heavenly armies, who knows my carelessness of soul,
     save me by your cross O Christ, God, friend of humans.
Brighter than fire, more luminous than flame,
     have you shown the wood of your cross, O Christ.
Burn away the sins of the sick and enlighten the hearts of those who,
     with hymns, celebrate your voluntary crucifixion. Christ, God, glory to you!
Christ, God, who for us accepted a sorrowful crucifixion,
     accept all who sing hymns to your passion, and save us.

- from the Byzantine liturgy for Holy Friday

Holy Friday, also known as Good Friday in English speaking countries, is a very difficult event to remember rightly in common worship. There is so much to say, and yet silence and tears are often the most apt response. Sorrow and love flow mingled down.

For on this day the Gospel narrative reaches its climax and the narration slows to a snail's pace, or to the pace of a man stumbling under an impossibly heavy burden. It is at once darkest tragedy and yet, mysteriously, also deepest triumph. Here is sin and human failure. Here is death and hell and destruction. Here is one man's faithfulness, even in anguish. Here is damnation - and salvation.

Behold the man upon the cross! Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! Behold the Son, in whom the Father takes delight! Behold our death in his death! Behold our life in his unconquered love!

God is dead

The madman.-- Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" --As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? --Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him--you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us--for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars--and yet they have done it themselves."

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"

- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science:
with a prelude in rhymes and an appendix of songs, §125.

"Happy Easter"?

Most pagans – God bless them – don't quite know what to do with Easter.

It's funny; they ought to, since it was originally a pagan festival that the church baptised. Nothing wrong with that, of course, since if pagans themselves can become baptised as believers, then so can their festivals, provided we remember that baptism involves death prior to new life. Which brings us back to Easter. Every year I receive many wishes of "happy Easter" during Holy Week and it has increasingly struck me as odd. Worse is when Christians can also think of nothing better to say. How do you reply?

Here are some of my attempts, depending on the context (how well I know them, how much longer the conversation might conceivably continue, etc.):

• "Yes indeed, because Christ is risen!"
I tried this one on a teenage shop employee for whom wishing me "happy Easter" was obviously part of his training. He looked at me as if to say "What's Christ got to do with it?"

• "Not yet, we're still in Lent."
Amazing how many Christians don't even know what Lent is about (or try here for more links if you're not into those suggestions).

• "Don't jump the gun, he's got to die first." Or perhaps, "we've got to die first".
Try that one on your co-workers or the postman.

The casual celebration of Easter with chocolate and relaxed BBQs (or through earning a mint while working at double-time-and-a-half, as I overheard one Easter enthusiast on the bus this afternoon) wants the benefits of new life without the way of the cross. This makes for a shallow spirituality that avoids giving offense because it refuses to take offense at the cross, or simply refuses to look at the dying places of the world. The only path to life is through the valley of the shadow of death. Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed (John 12.24). Or, as the St Andrews Cathedral School motto puts it, Via crucis, via lucis.

A little too clever?

I am all for the occasional enigmatic church sign to get people thinking, but sometimes I wonder whether they can be a little too clever.

Seen recently around the traps:
"Why on earth is it called Good Friday? Why in hell is it called Bad Friday?"

Our own sign has been fairly straightforward this week: "Easter - a fresh start to life" (other ideas included "Easter: another world is possible", "Easter: God has heard your cries", "Easter: your new life starts this weekend"). Tomorrow, we'll switch to "God is dead" and on Sunday, "He is risen".

Up to twenty points for good new sign ideas.

Wright on Penal Substitution

N. T. Wright, the sometimes controversial evangelical Anglican bishop of Durham, has recently published an article on the Fulcrum website reviewing a book about the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. As always, it is probably better to read the original if this is a debate that floats your boat. Here is a taste:

To throw away the reality because you don’t like the caricature is like cutting out the patient’s heart to stop a nosebleed. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and all because of the unstoppable love of the one creator God. There is ‘no condemnation’ for those who are in Christ, because on the cross God condemned sin in the flesh of the Son who, as the expression of his own self-giving love, had been sent for that very purpose. ‘He did not spare his very own Son, but gave him up for us all.’ That’s what Good Friday was, and is, all about.

The day hope died

Good Friday Sermon: John 19.38-42
I was taken by the idea, but was pretty unhappy with how I pulled it off (both in writing and delivery). It sounds too much like a history lesson and is too detached for the confusion and crushing disappointments of the day. Obviously, it also doesn't even attempt to bring out many other aspects of the occasion. If I'd started earlier, it also might have been better integrated into the rest of the service. As it was, it came after various readings (interspersed with music and prayers) covering John 18.1-19.37 and was followed by 19.38-42. Striking the right note(s) at a Good Friday service is very difficult. I don't think I've ever been to one that has felt right; it is a day of so many emotions. Apologies in advance for the length (about 10 minutes). Future posts will return to my regular length.
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Today, our hopes died.

My name is Joseph. I was born not far away in the village of Arimathéa in Judea, but I’ve lived most of my life here in Jerusalem. My family were wealthy and of good standing. So you won’t be surprised to hear that before too long I became a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council here in Jerusalem. Sadly though, it’s the Romans who call the shots around here, particularly Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. Though many of my compatriots on the council think it’s prudent to co-operate with our Roman ‘benefactors’, personally, I’m eagerly awaiting the time when our God Yahweh will drive them out and establish his kingdom. Yes, despite centuries of foreign occupation, I’m still convinced that the Lord Yahweh hasn’t forgotten us, but will one day send his handpicked, anointed king to lead a liberation army and establish his rule, like King David of old.

So I was more than a little excited about this man from Nazareth, this healer, preacher and miracle-worker called Joshua, (or Jesus for those of you who speak Greek). He had gathered quite a following, and had come, like everyone else, here to Jerusalem to celebrate Pesach (the Passover) this week. Would this be the point at which he would unveil his royal lineage and call upon us to take up arms against the pagans? What a perfect time – just as we were all remembering how Yahweh had liberated our ancestors from their Egyptian oppressors. Would he be another Moses to free us from our Roman captors? But could this man actually be trusted? I wondered: was he truly the servant of God or was he just another rabble-rousing egomaniac, a trickster with a messiah complex? I for one was keen to observe him closely. My good friend Nicodemus met him months ago in secret and, though he didn’t understand everything this young rabbi said, he was convinced that the Nazarean was no charlatan or naïve peasant.

Predictably, however, my brethren on the council were quite cynical from the start. They paid lip-service to the kingdom of Yahweh, but were generally quite content with the prestige and limited power-sharing they enjoyed under Roman rule. They were worried that if too many Jews started thinking this Joshua was Yahweh’s Messiah, then the Romans - fearing full-blown revolution - would come down on us like a ton of clay bricks.

He certainly arrived with a bang a week ago, surrounded by his cheering disciples, riding into the city on a donkey just as Zechariah had prophesied God’s king would do – and then, within a day, he started an unholy ruckus in the Temple that really got up the noses of the Sanhedrin conservatives. But they couldn’t do anything against him directly because this Galilean was too popular with the crowds. They tried to debate him, to trick him into a false step with either the crowds or the Romans, but he was even more cunning than those old foxes. He kept coming out on top, more popular than ever. I was secretly delighted at how thoroughly he wrong-footed them all. I was starting to get really excited. From a distance, this looked like a man to whom I might gladly bend my knee and swear allegiance.

But then, suddenly, last night everything came unstuck. It was one of his closest friends that gave them their chance, inside information so that they could grab him while he was away from the crowds. I couldn’t believe it when I was summoned in the middle of the night to a hasty Sanhedrin meeting. The trial was a sham from start to finish. I certainly didn’t join in the chorus of those baying for his blood. But I couldn’t stop them. And then, off to Pilate to beg permission to execute him. For what reason? Fear. Jealousy. Impatience. For all any of us knew, this Joshua might have been God’s Messiah. But none of them cared enough to seriously investigate that possibility. He was a threat to their stable, comfortable lives and so he had to be rubbed out.

You all saw how the rest of the story unfolded earlier today: Pilate caved in to the pressure from the rent-a-mob the priests put together; the brutal flogging; the senseless mockery; the unspeakable execution itself, I won’t even use the shameful c-word. The blood; the humiliation; the mysterious darkness; and then, the end, the end of… a good man?

Who was he? He can’t have been Messiah: Surely God wouldn’t let his chosen one die in such humiliation and defeat. Was he a prophet, rejected by the people like so many of those of old? Why would God allow such a tragedy? Could I have tried harder to stop it?

What could I have done? I was one man against seventy. Do you blame me for his death? What could I do? I didn’t have the numbers in the council; I didn’t have… to be honest, I didn’t have the courage to stand up for him.

After it was all over, I did what I could. At least I gave him a proper burial. I couldn’t let him rot, hung up on a tree like a common bandit. Indeed, our scriptures forbid us to treat even a criminal so shamefully. So I had to act quickly to get him down before start of the Sabbath at nightfall a few hours ago. Why Pilate gave me permission for the body of a ‘traitor against the Emperor’, I’ll never know. Maybe he was lenient because he too knew that this man was innocent. In any case, with the help of Nicodemus and my servants, we got his official permission, we bought a shroud, took down the body and I washed it according to our customs. The flogging, the crown of thorns, the nails – there was a lot of blood to wash off, even though it means I’m now ritually unclean since I’ve been handling a corpse. I wrapped him in the shroud we’d bought. I folded his hands, hands that had lifted cripples to their feet, hands that had raised a young girl from her death-bed. I closed his eyes, the eyes of him who’d given sight to the blind. I bound up the mouth that had made the mute laugh again. His disciples or family should have done it, but where were they? I’d sent Nicodemus off to get spices – in the Jerusalem heat, you need something for the smell – he came back with enough spices to bury a king.

We buried him in my own freshly cut family tomb. I rolled the stone into place myself, just as the sun was setting.

It is dangerous, I know, publicly associating myself with this condemned rebel. Maybe it’s stupid. Maybe I’m just trying to ease my guilt over not doing more last night, not acting sooner. Maybe this is my little rebellion against the brutal Romans, against the rest of the spineless self-serving Sanhedrin, against the fears that gnaw at my own heart.

But this was all I could do. We won’t see another like him, that’s for sure. What is God up to? When will his kingdom come? When will we see his heavenly power here on earth? When will he forgive our sins? When will he deliver us from evildoers? When will he save us from ourselves?