At the Foot of the Cross

Their Calvaries.
Left, the road in Jasper, Texas, where James Byrd Jr. died.
Right, the fence in Laramie, Wyoming, where Matt Shepard was lashed and died.

Good Friday
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Today, on this Good Friday, we commemorate Jesus Christ’s passion. Once again, we retell the story of Our Lord’s betrayal, arrest, trial, death sentence, execution and burial.

Bible scholars teach us that there are different layers of meaning in the Scriptures. There’s a historical layer. We can learn about events to give us a perspective about what really went on in the story of the human race. We learn about kings like David and Solomon, religious leaders like Moses, and crucial events like the Exodus or, like today, the story of the end of Jesus Christ’s earthly life. Almost like you’d expect to hear in a history book, we hear the blow by blow description of the entire chain of events.

There’s also a spiritual sense to the bible. We take the lessons of Good Friday and draw from them deeper understandings about sin, evil, forgiveness, love, mercy, compassion. We pray that those lessons can sink in so we can become better people, holier people…

Still a third layer of scripture is the personal meaning and impact that it has for me. One way to experience this is to put yourself in the picture—either as one of the characters in the story or just as a fly on the wall watching everything unfold. Walking in someone’s shoes or even witnessing a profoundly stirring event is a powerful way to bring alive God’s truth and make it personally real. Certainly the story of the passion is rich with that kind of possibilities.

Come with me for a moment as we take this third approach.

Even though some of the language in the passion accounts is pretty graphic, I think we’ve become desensitized to much of it. We hear in the Stations of the Cross, in our prayers, in our readings, in sermons that Jesus was spit on, pummeled, scourged, bloodied, cut, nailed through flesh and bone. Several hundred years before this blackest day in human history, the prophet Isaiah predicted the horrors to come. In the first reading we heard this noon, Isaiah wrote that God’s Servant was so marred, so battered, that he barely looked human any more. Let that reality sink in…

On five occasions in the gospel, John—and I’m proud to say the namesake and patron of this very church—is referred to as Jesus’ beloved. He’s the only apostle described with that unique relationship. During the events of this day, that love between them really takes on an intense power.

In the three days of the passion, John struggled to stay near Jesus. He was the only apostle who did not run away. He was therefore the only apostle who stood at the foot of the cross watching as his beloved friend, Master, Lord finished his life. He was the only one willing to look on this man who was so messed up and swollen that he barely looked human.

Lots of other people claimed to love Jesus deeply. Where were they? Where was Peter? Andrew? James? Matthew the tax-collector whose life was turned around? Any of the people he healed?

Most of us in this church today are blessed to have people who are beloved to us, too. Can you imagine what it would be like to stand at their feet in death? To look at their barely-recognizable remains on the slab of a morgue? Could you—or would you run away?

I cannot understand the pain of James Byrd Jr.’s friends and family when they saw what was left of this black man who was dragged to death from the back of a pickup truck in Texas.

I cannot fathom the agony of Matthew Shepard’s mother when she saw her son crucified on a fence in Wyoming. His crime was that he was gay.

I cannot grasp the horror of the 9-year-old Muslim girl’s Daddy as he looked upon his innocent young daughter who was beaten to death and stabbed eleven times by Russian neo-Nazi skinheads in Moscow merely because of her ethnic identity.

And I cannot comprehend the dreadfulness of hate even as I witness it daily in the newspaper and television news: war, bombings, violence… pure evil.

But am I standing at the foot of the cross—or do I flee to my private, safe little world and bury my head in the sand?

Everyone’s heard the expression that if you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem. I think that unless we are really willing to stand at the foot of the cross and take in the unretouched horror, then we are never in a position to recognize our need—make that our craving—for God’s hope. And that’s what Good Friday is about: hope.

Jesus’ passion is replayed day after day after day in our world. Maybe the actors and the stage change, but the story’s exactly the same. Only the power and strength of God himself can redeem us and overcome the tragedy.

I weep, O Lord, on this Good Friday. I do not understand the horror. Be my strength through this dark night.