The people nearby
Commentary
You know the experience of showing photographs to someone who was not part of the
trip, or group, or event where the pictures were taken. You walk the other person through
each photograph. You describe what the occasion was; where the place was; who the
people were.
Today may offer an opportunity to do just that again. Today, Good Friday, the pictures we sit down and look at together are from the passion of Christ.
We have three different pictures to view. Isaiah, John, and the writer of Hebrews all have their own portraits of the event.
John's camera, if you will, is more a movie camera than a still-shot camera. His pictures move us from place to place, as we follow Jesus from the last supper to the garden, then to the trials before the council and the governor, then up to Golgotha, and then to the tomb.
The writer of Hebrews, meanwhile, offers more of a still shot of the event. And, specifically, he takes the picture of Christ on Good Friday up against the backdrop of the Old Testament law, with its rituals, priests, sacrifices, and blood.
Finally, the prophet Isaiah's picture of the occasion is a sort of a collage. An assortment of images is employed in the Old Testament text: a variety of pieces that are arranged together to form a single whole.
We sit down today to look at these pictures together. We see the occasion: Christ's suffering and death. We also recognize the place involved in these pictures: Jerusalem, Gethsemane, a hill called "skull," and a nearby tomb. Then, finally, there are the assorted people we see in these pictures. Identifying and introducing them might be our special purpose on this day.
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
When Philip caught up with the chariot where the Ethiopian was riding and reading, this was the passage that sparked their conversation. The Ethiopian asked an excellent hermeneutical question: "About whom does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" (Acts 8:34). And Philip responded by proclaiming to him the good news about Jesus (v. 35).
On this Good Friday, we will dispense with the scholarly musings about the possible subjects of this passage, and instead we will follow Philip in his understanding that this prophecy anticipates and describes Jesus Christ.
So many of the Old Testament prophesies that foresee a messianic figure and age are pictures of victory, prosperity, and an everlasting reign of peace by some son of David. This portrait of a tortured victim, an apparently helpless martyr, however, does not seem to square with those other, more potent images of the Messiah. And clearly Jesus' own disciples did not, at first, recognize and understand this part of what it meant for Jesus to be the Christ (see, for example, Mark 8:29-33).
The traditional hero defeats the enemy, and he rescues the innocent and the oppressed at the expense of their oppressor. But the hero of this prophecy is of a very different sort. Consider these against-the-grain statements: "He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities," "the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all," and he "made intercession for the transgressors." The people this hero rescues are not at all innocent. He does not rescue at the expense of some antagonist, but at his own expense. This is the heroism of self-sacrifice and love.
The so-called suffering servant of this passage is revealed in terms of several relationships. There is a great fluidity in the author's use of personal pronouns, moving freely between first-, second-, and third-person references, both singular and plural, without any deliberate effort to identify the antecedents.
The insights to be discovered in an examination of these pronouns exceed the boundaries of this brief commentary. We could explore the relationships depicted between the servant and God, between the servant and us, between the servant and the unidentified "they" and "them" of the passage. As a starting point, however, I would recommend a careful look at just the first-person pronouns.
The first-person, singular pronouns, we presume, indicate that God is speaking. He is the one who would most naturally say things such as these: "See, my servant shall prosper," "[he was] stricken for the transgression of my people," and "I will allot him a portion with the great." The first-person, singular pronouns, therefore, give us a glimpse into the mind and purpose of God. And on this Good Friday, we may take the first-person, singular statements from this foreshadowing of the cross to explore what it was that God designed to accomplish on that day.
The first-person, plural pronouns, meanwhile, identify the statements that we can own. We may be the "we." One fruitful approach to this passage would be to look for ourselves in it. What part do we play on Good Friday? What is the suffering servant's relation to us, and what is our response to him? The old spiritual asks, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" And the first-person, plural pronouns of this suffering servant passage similarly invite us into the event.
Hebrews 10:16-25
When some authority figure walks into an existing situation -- especially when that situation is a bit of a mess -- and declares, "Now here's the way it's going to be from now on," it's usually a sign of a stricter regime. The fat will be cut. Discipline will be enforced. Heads will roll.
The writer of Hebrews, however, paints a very different picture of God's new regime. The situation is a mess, to be sure: a chronically sinful humanity, including a very disappointing chosen people. Yet, tellingly, when God declares the way it's going to be, it is not a message of martial law. Rather it's a message of love and grace.
Here is a great testimony to the heart of God -- and to a way in which he is so very different from us. He has not become fed up to the point where he has lost sight of his perfect picture. He has not been so discouraged or angered that he abandons his original plan. Instead, he declares how it's going to be, and the picture he paints is as gracious and perfect as it was at the start.
That God is willing -- no, eager! -- to make a new covenant, reveals his nature. He does not forfeit us to the sinfulness we have chosen. He does not lock the door behind the runaway child and say, "Good riddance!" Instead, he desires a new start with us, though we do not deserve it. And though we do not make very promising partners in this proposed arrangement, he is very promising.
He promises, first, to make a change within us. Rather than God's law remaining an external thing quite apart from us, he will make it an internal component -- a part of us. And he promises, second, to forgive our sins in this most remarkable way -- a way that we human beings find nearly impossible to achieve in our relationships -- he will "remember their sins ... no more."
The writer of Hebrews is the great expositor of the gospel according to the Old Testament. And so, after citing those Old Testament promises of God, he turns to the fulfillment of God's good purpose that is afforded us through Christ.
The statement that "we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus" will not make immediate sense to most of the people in our pews. Entering into the sanctuary, in our day, is about signage and accessibility. And confidence entering into the sanctuary is about user-friendliness and a welcoming atmosphere. Indeed, in so many churches, even the terminology of "sanctuary" has been abandoned.
Within the context that the writer of Hebrews has in mind, however, the sanctuary is the holy place. And who can enter there with confidence? Indeed, who can enter there at all?
The Old Testament design for regulations about the tabernacle all bear witness to a holy God. And human beings are not to wander casually in and out of the presence of this holy God. And when the high priest made his prescribed annual entrance into the Holy of Holies, he took blood with him.
Now the writer of Hebrews assures us that we are all invited to enter the holy place and to approach the presence of God. And we do so with confidence because of the blood by which we are saved, purified, and sanctified -- that is, the blood of Jesus.
Indeed, Jesus dominates the entire scene as the writer reflects on that tabernacle and its rituals. Jesus is the new "great high priest." It is his blood by which we enter. And it is through the curtain of his flesh that we approach the Father.
John 18:1--19:42
Customarily, we are given a paragraph or two as our gospel lection for an occasion. Not today. For this occasion, no excerpt will suffice. We need to see the whole scene. And so we are presented with two entire chapters from John's gospel: his account of Jesus' crucifixion, all the way from Gethsemane on Thursday night to the garden tomb late Friday afternoon.
The gospel reports that Jesus went to a garden across the Kidron valley -- a place that Judas knew, because Jesus had gone there often with his disciples. Here is one of so many pieces of evidence that Jesus was entering voluntarily into what was ahead for him. He knew what Judas was up to, and yet he did not take any evasive action. Instead, he went to precisely the place where Judas would find him.
The image of Judas arriving with soldiers, police, and weapons is a preposterous one twice over.
At a human level, it is a massive case of overkill. Jesus had been within their reach day after day in the temple, yet they took no action against him, and now did they think that he would resist? Did they think that there would be a great, violent resistance that would need to be overcome by force?
Meanwhile, at a supernatural level, this detachment is equally ridiculous, though in the other direction. While their show of force is laughably excessive, given Jesus' complete lack of resistance, it is embarrassingly paltry given Jesus' capacity. As he said in Matthew's account of the Gethsemane event, it would take just a word from him and the Father would dispatch twelve legions of angels to his aid (Matthew 26:53). How would the local soldiers and police have fared against that?
John's gospel does not give us the glimpse of tortured prayer that we find in other gospel accounts. Jesus is not facedown on a rock, sweating drops of blood, and praying that "this cup" be taken from him. Instead, Jesus stands tall in the face of his tormentors, in control of the entire situation, even though to all outward appearances he is the victim of jealousy, malevolence, and betrayal. He does not pray to have the cup taken from him, but rather challenges the sword-flashing Simon Peter: "Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?"
All four gospels record Peter's infamous denial of Jesus. John, however, may do the most artful job with the story, weaving it into the back-and-forth scene changes between Jesus' trial inside and Peter's pressure outside.
Meanwhile, the trajectory of Jesus' ordeal takes him from the garden to the house of the high priest. While Pilate's name is the notorious one, the high priest is the first to have a hand in the death of Jesus. His participation is a significant one, both in the tragic sense of God's own priest opposing his work and in the symbolic sense of the high priest's role in shedding blood to make atonement for the people.
From the high priest's house, Jesus was taken to the Roman governor, Pilate.
The picture of the Jewish leaders refusing to enter Pilate's headquarters in order "to avoid ritual defilement" is emblematic of the very kind of hypocrisy that Jesus so often criticized in them. Here, again, they strain the gnat but swallow the camel, for they are tiptoeing around ritual uncleanness, while running full-speed-ahead into conspiracy, injustice, and opposition to God.
Of the four gospel writers, John gives us perhaps the fullest picture of Pilate. We see more of the content of his dialogue with Jesus, in addition to the familiar tug-of-war with the Jewish leaders and with the incited mob. We see here a man perceptive enough to recognize Jesus' innocence; secure enough that he did not seem personally threatened by Jesus or his kingdom claims; and ethical enough that he was not cavalier about the prospect of executing an innocent man. Yet it seems that he was not strong enough to resist being pushed into doing what he did not want to do.
Later, after the Jewish leaders object to the wording of the sign that Pilate had had posted above Jesus' head, he is intractable: "What I have written I have written." It seems, however, that this occasional virtue of not being pushed around, not catering to pressure from the locals in his jurisdiction, came too late.
Nicodemus, whom we met in the shadows of John 3, now reemerges on this grim occasion. He did not know, it seems, how to believe and follow Jesus when he was alive, but as Johnny-on-the-spot, he had to pay his respects to the dead. There may always be some who prefer a dead Lord. It is easier to bring our myrrh and aloes than it is to take up his cross and follow.
The burial of Jesus seems to have been a matter of expediency. "The tomb was nearby." That hasty entombment reminds us of just how quickly these events unfolded. On Thursday afternoon, the disciples were excitedly making preparations for a holiday meal together with Jesus. By Friday afternoon, he was dead. The whole thing was so sudden: his strange predictions at the supper table, the ambush in the garden, the mock trial, the quick sentencing, and then he was gone.
Application
As we weave together three passages -- all very different, but which point to and depict the same event -- we catch a glimpse of the assortment of people who were nearby.
First, perhaps at the greatest distance, see the antagonists. They are the conspiring Jewish leaders, the Roman governor, the mocking guards and torturing soldiers, and the bloodthirsty crowd. See their pictures in John's gospel as they carry out their wickedness against Jesus. Below those pictures, then, add the captions from Isaiah: "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth." "By a perversion of justice he was taken away." "They made his grave with the wicked ... although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth."
Focus in more closely on that crowd of antagonists, and see there at the center the high priest. He, who was assigned by God to make atonement for the sins of the people, unknowingly prophesied that "it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed" (John 11:50). He is the one whose hand was so pivotal in shedding the blood of the once-for-all atoning sacrifice, unaware that his victim would become the new and eternal "great high priest over the house of God."
Now see the inner circle of people -- the disciples, followers, and believers. They misunderstand. They run and hide. They deny. See their pictures in John's gospel, and beneath their pictures add these captions from Isaiah's prophecy: "He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed." "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." "Who could have imagined his future?"
Then see the Father and the Son.
There is the Son, who set aside every human reflex in order to submit to the Father's plan so that "through him the will of the Lord shall prosper." And there is the Father, whose will it was "to crush him with pain," to "make his life an offering for sin," and then to "prolong his days." It was the Father "who laid on him the iniquity of us all," and the Father who "will allot him a portion with the great."
And then, last of all, there is us. We are in the picture because it is our iniquity, our wounds, and our transgressions. And we are invited to be nearby, for by this event we are encouraged to "approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith."
Alternative Application
John 18:1--19:42. "The One That Got Away." It is a natural human reflex to defend oneself. Something comes at your eye, and you blink. It's a natural, physical reflex.
Defending oneself is also the developed reflex of fear. Someone raises a hand to strike you, and you brace yourself. Perhaps you put your own arms up to protect; perhaps even to defend yourself by striking back.
Of course, it is also the unwholesome reflex of the ego to defend oneself, too. If someone criticizes me, my instinct is to defend myself verbally. And, when I am at my worst, I respond by attacking verbally, as well. Someone misunderstands my actions or motives, and I am impatient to set the record straight. Someone finds fault with me, and I want to be able to answer with a reason, or at least an excuse.
See, then, how submissive to the Father's will Jesus was. He set aside the physical reflex, the fearful reaction, and the ego's instinct. Both the Isaiah prophecy and the gospel account bear witness to a man who made no natural effort to try to get away.
When he was being pursued, he did not run and hide. When he was surrounded, he did not lash out or resist. When he was accused, he did not defend himself. And when he was attacked and abused, he neither cursed nor cried for mercy, but prayed for the transgressors.
We have seen in other settings (like Luke 4:28-30 and John 8:58-59) that Jesus was able to get away from a physical threat. And we have seen in earlier episodes (such as Matthew 21:23-27 and 22:15-22) that Jesus was able to extrude himself from verbal traps, as well. And who can fathom what supernatural aid he had at his disposal (see Matthew 26:52-53). Yet, still, he made no effort to get away.
When it was all said and done, he did get away. He got away in a manner they could never have guessed. For while he made no effort to get away from the betrayer, the accusers, the tormentors, or the executioners, on the third day he rose up and got away from the tomb!
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 22
The opening words of this psalm are etched in the minds of millions of people. They are so familiar that even non-Christians who lack any substantive grip on the faith will nod in recognition when they hear them.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Of course, the words stay in memory because they are uttered at a high point in the Holy Week drama. The sacrifice is made, the step is taken, but more than the drama is the fact of our universal ability to identify with the words.
After all, nearly anyone hearing this story can identify with a sense that God has abandoned them. As humans endure suffering across the spectrum of existence, this experience echoes in the heart. After a crushing loss, in the wake of a devastating illness, in the waves of grief after a divorce, or in the maw of grinding poverty, it is easy to feel that the holy one, the one who could wiggle a finger and change it all, has simply packed up and left town. Indeed, even as the computer keys clack out these words, Christians from across the globe continue to wrestle with the question of how a loving God can allow suffering.
But the truth is that God doesn't allow suffering at all. It is, perhaps, our idolatrous insistence on imagining God as one of us that allows us to fall into the foibles of such a discussion. The reasoning goes like this. As a parent, who would allow a child to suffer the vagaries of cancer or sexual abuse? Of course, no loving parent would tolerate that. Therefore our Daddy God, who could wave a wand and stop it all, must be cruel. But God isn't like us. Scripture reminds us, that God is God: far more awesome and huge than we can comprehend.
So it is that we abandon the finger wagging at God and come to this beautiful truth. It is in the depths of it all that God is most present. Whether it is on the cross or in a hospital bed; in a war zone or a dirty back alley, God accompanies us in our suffering and walks through every moment of our agony with us.
On this day of crucifixion it isn't a God of cruelty we see, but a God of accompaniment; a God who goes through it all as one with us.
Today may offer an opportunity to do just that again. Today, Good Friday, the pictures we sit down and look at together are from the passion of Christ.
We have three different pictures to view. Isaiah, John, and the writer of Hebrews all have their own portraits of the event.
John's camera, if you will, is more a movie camera than a still-shot camera. His pictures move us from place to place, as we follow Jesus from the last supper to the garden, then to the trials before the council and the governor, then up to Golgotha, and then to the tomb.
The writer of Hebrews, meanwhile, offers more of a still shot of the event. And, specifically, he takes the picture of Christ on Good Friday up against the backdrop of the Old Testament law, with its rituals, priests, sacrifices, and blood.
Finally, the prophet Isaiah's picture of the occasion is a sort of a collage. An assortment of images is employed in the Old Testament text: a variety of pieces that are arranged together to form a single whole.
We sit down today to look at these pictures together. We see the occasion: Christ's suffering and death. We also recognize the place involved in these pictures: Jerusalem, Gethsemane, a hill called "skull," and a nearby tomb. Then, finally, there are the assorted people we see in these pictures. Identifying and introducing them might be our special purpose on this day.
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
When Philip caught up with the chariot where the Ethiopian was riding and reading, this was the passage that sparked their conversation. The Ethiopian asked an excellent hermeneutical question: "About whom does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" (Acts 8:34). And Philip responded by proclaiming to him the good news about Jesus (v. 35).
On this Good Friday, we will dispense with the scholarly musings about the possible subjects of this passage, and instead we will follow Philip in his understanding that this prophecy anticipates and describes Jesus Christ.
So many of the Old Testament prophesies that foresee a messianic figure and age are pictures of victory, prosperity, and an everlasting reign of peace by some son of David. This portrait of a tortured victim, an apparently helpless martyr, however, does not seem to square with those other, more potent images of the Messiah. And clearly Jesus' own disciples did not, at first, recognize and understand this part of what it meant for Jesus to be the Christ (see, for example, Mark 8:29-33).
The traditional hero defeats the enemy, and he rescues the innocent and the oppressed at the expense of their oppressor. But the hero of this prophecy is of a very different sort. Consider these against-the-grain statements: "He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities," "the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all," and he "made intercession for the transgressors." The people this hero rescues are not at all innocent. He does not rescue at the expense of some antagonist, but at his own expense. This is the heroism of self-sacrifice and love.
The so-called suffering servant of this passage is revealed in terms of several relationships. There is a great fluidity in the author's use of personal pronouns, moving freely between first-, second-, and third-person references, both singular and plural, without any deliberate effort to identify the antecedents.
The insights to be discovered in an examination of these pronouns exceed the boundaries of this brief commentary. We could explore the relationships depicted between the servant and God, between the servant and us, between the servant and the unidentified "they" and "them" of the passage. As a starting point, however, I would recommend a careful look at just the first-person pronouns.
The first-person, singular pronouns, we presume, indicate that God is speaking. He is the one who would most naturally say things such as these: "See, my servant shall prosper," "[he was] stricken for the transgression of my people," and "I will allot him a portion with the great." The first-person, singular pronouns, therefore, give us a glimpse into the mind and purpose of God. And on this Good Friday, we may take the first-person, singular statements from this foreshadowing of the cross to explore what it was that God designed to accomplish on that day.
The first-person, plural pronouns, meanwhile, identify the statements that we can own. We may be the "we." One fruitful approach to this passage would be to look for ourselves in it. What part do we play on Good Friday? What is the suffering servant's relation to us, and what is our response to him? The old spiritual asks, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" And the first-person, plural pronouns of this suffering servant passage similarly invite us into the event.
Hebrews 10:16-25
When some authority figure walks into an existing situation -- especially when that situation is a bit of a mess -- and declares, "Now here's the way it's going to be from now on," it's usually a sign of a stricter regime. The fat will be cut. Discipline will be enforced. Heads will roll.
The writer of Hebrews, however, paints a very different picture of God's new regime. The situation is a mess, to be sure: a chronically sinful humanity, including a very disappointing chosen people. Yet, tellingly, when God declares the way it's going to be, it is not a message of martial law. Rather it's a message of love and grace.
Here is a great testimony to the heart of God -- and to a way in which he is so very different from us. He has not become fed up to the point where he has lost sight of his perfect picture. He has not been so discouraged or angered that he abandons his original plan. Instead, he declares how it's going to be, and the picture he paints is as gracious and perfect as it was at the start.
That God is willing -- no, eager! -- to make a new covenant, reveals his nature. He does not forfeit us to the sinfulness we have chosen. He does not lock the door behind the runaway child and say, "Good riddance!" Instead, he desires a new start with us, though we do not deserve it. And though we do not make very promising partners in this proposed arrangement, he is very promising.
He promises, first, to make a change within us. Rather than God's law remaining an external thing quite apart from us, he will make it an internal component -- a part of us. And he promises, second, to forgive our sins in this most remarkable way -- a way that we human beings find nearly impossible to achieve in our relationships -- he will "remember their sins ... no more."
The writer of Hebrews is the great expositor of the gospel according to the Old Testament. And so, after citing those Old Testament promises of God, he turns to the fulfillment of God's good purpose that is afforded us through Christ.
The statement that "we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus" will not make immediate sense to most of the people in our pews. Entering into the sanctuary, in our day, is about signage and accessibility. And confidence entering into the sanctuary is about user-friendliness and a welcoming atmosphere. Indeed, in so many churches, even the terminology of "sanctuary" has been abandoned.
Within the context that the writer of Hebrews has in mind, however, the sanctuary is the holy place. And who can enter there with confidence? Indeed, who can enter there at all?
The Old Testament design for regulations about the tabernacle all bear witness to a holy God. And human beings are not to wander casually in and out of the presence of this holy God. And when the high priest made his prescribed annual entrance into the Holy of Holies, he took blood with him.
Now the writer of Hebrews assures us that we are all invited to enter the holy place and to approach the presence of God. And we do so with confidence because of the blood by which we are saved, purified, and sanctified -- that is, the blood of Jesus.
Indeed, Jesus dominates the entire scene as the writer reflects on that tabernacle and its rituals. Jesus is the new "great high priest." It is his blood by which we enter. And it is through the curtain of his flesh that we approach the Father.
John 18:1--19:42
Customarily, we are given a paragraph or two as our gospel lection for an occasion. Not today. For this occasion, no excerpt will suffice. We need to see the whole scene. And so we are presented with two entire chapters from John's gospel: his account of Jesus' crucifixion, all the way from Gethsemane on Thursday night to the garden tomb late Friday afternoon.
The gospel reports that Jesus went to a garden across the Kidron valley -- a place that Judas knew, because Jesus had gone there often with his disciples. Here is one of so many pieces of evidence that Jesus was entering voluntarily into what was ahead for him. He knew what Judas was up to, and yet he did not take any evasive action. Instead, he went to precisely the place where Judas would find him.
The image of Judas arriving with soldiers, police, and weapons is a preposterous one twice over.
At a human level, it is a massive case of overkill. Jesus had been within their reach day after day in the temple, yet they took no action against him, and now did they think that he would resist? Did they think that there would be a great, violent resistance that would need to be overcome by force?
Meanwhile, at a supernatural level, this detachment is equally ridiculous, though in the other direction. While their show of force is laughably excessive, given Jesus' complete lack of resistance, it is embarrassingly paltry given Jesus' capacity. As he said in Matthew's account of the Gethsemane event, it would take just a word from him and the Father would dispatch twelve legions of angels to his aid (Matthew 26:53). How would the local soldiers and police have fared against that?
John's gospel does not give us the glimpse of tortured prayer that we find in other gospel accounts. Jesus is not facedown on a rock, sweating drops of blood, and praying that "this cup" be taken from him. Instead, Jesus stands tall in the face of his tormentors, in control of the entire situation, even though to all outward appearances he is the victim of jealousy, malevolence, and betrayal. He does not pray to have the cup taken from him, but rather challenges the sword-flashing Simon Peter: "Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?"
All four gospels record Peter's infamous denial of Jesus. John, however, may do the most artful job with the story, weaving it into the back-and-forth scene changes between Jesus' trial inside and Peter's pressure outside.
Meanwhile, the trajectory of Jesus' ordeal takes him from the garden to the house of the high priest. While Pilate's name is the notorious one, the high priest is the first to have a hand in the death of Jesus. His participation is a significant one, both in the tragic sense of God's own priest opposing his work and in the symbolic sense of the high priest's role in shedding blood to make atonement for the people.
From the high priest's house, Jesus was taken to the Roman governor, Pilate.
The picture of the Jewish leaders refusing to enter Pilate's headquarters in order "to avoid ritual defilement" is emblematic of the very kind of hypocrisy that Jesus so often criticized in them. Here, again, they strain the gnat but swallow the camel, for they are tiptoeing around ritual uncleanness, while running full-speed-ahead into conspiracy, injustice, and opposition to God.
Of the four gospel writers, John gives us perhaps the fullest picture of Pilate. We see more of the content of his dialogue with Jesus, in addition to the familiar tug-of-war with the Jewish leaders and with the incited mob. We see here a man perceptive enough to recognize Jesus' innocence; secure enough that he did not seem personally threatened by Jesus or his kingdom claims; and ethical enough that he was not cavalier about the prospect of executing an innocent man. Yet it seems that he was not strong enough to resist being pushed into doing what he did not want to do.
Later, after the Jewish leaders object to the wording of the sign that Pilate had had posted above Jesus' head, he is intractable: "What I have written I have written." It seems, however, that this occasional virtue of not being pushed around, not catering to pressure from the locals in his jurisdiction, came too late.
Nicodemus, whom we met in the shadows of John 3, now reemerges on this grim occasion. He did not know, it seems, how to believe and follow Jesus when he was alive, but as Johnny-on-the-spot, he had to pay his respects to the dead. There may always be some who prefer a dead Lord. It is easier to bring our myrrh and aloes than it is to take up his cross and follow.
The burial of Jesus seems to have been a matter of expediency. "The tomb was nearby." That hasty entombment reminds us of just how quickly these events unfolded. On Thursday afternoon, the disciples were excitedly making preparations for a holiday meal together with Jesus. By Friday afternoon, he was dead. The whole thing was so sudden: his strange predictions at the supper table, the ambush in the garden, the mock trial, the quick sentencing, and then he was gone.
Application
As we weave together three passages -- all very different, but which point to and depict the same event -- we catch a glimpse of the assortment of people who were nearby.
First, perhaps at the greatest distance, see the antagonists. They are the conspiring Jewish leaders, the Roman governor, the mocking guards and torturing soldiers, and the bloodthirsty crowd. See their pictures in John's gospel as they carry out their wickedness against Jesus. Below those pictures, then, add the captions from Isaiah: "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth." "By a perversion of justice he was taken away." "They made his grave with the wicked ... although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth."
Focus in more closely on that crowd of antagonists, and see there at the center the high priest. He, who was assigned by God to make atonement for the sins of the people, unknowingly prophesied that "it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed" (John 11:50). He is the one whose hand was so pivotal in shedding the blood of the once-for-all atoning sacrifice, unaware that his victim would become the new and eternal "great high priest over the house of God."
Now see the inner circle of people -- the disciples, followers, and believers. They misunderstand. They run and hide. They deny. See their pictures in John's gospel, and beneath their pictures add these captions from Isaiah's prophecy: "He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed." "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." "Who could have imagined his future?"
Then see the Father and the Son.
There is the Son, who set aside every human reflex in order to submit to the Father's plan so that "through him the will of the Lord shall prosper." And there is the Father, whose will it was "to crush him with pain," to "make his life an offering for sin," and then to "prolong his days." It was the Father "who laid on him the iniquity of us all," and the Father who "will allot him a portion with the great."
And then, last of all, there is us. We are in the picture because it is our iniquity, our wounds, and our transgressions. And we are invited to be nearby, for by this event we are encouraged to "approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith."
Alternative Application
John 18:1--19:42. "The One That Got Away." It is a natural human reflex to defend oneself. Something comes at your eye, and you blink. It's a natural, physical reflex.
Defending oneself is also the developed reflex of fear. Someone raises a hand to strike you, and you brace yourself. Perhaps you put your own arms up to protect; perhaps even to defend yourself by striking back.
Of course, it is also the unwholesome reflex of the ego to defend oneself, too. If someone criticizes me, my instinct is to defend myself verbally. And, when I am at my worst, I respond by attacking verbally, as well. Someone misunderstands my actions or motives, and I am impatient to set the record straight. Someone finds fault with me, and I want to be able to answer with a reason, or at least an excuse.
See, then, how submissive to the Father's will Jesus was. He set aside the physical reflex, the fearful reaction, and the ego's instinct. Both the Isaiah prophecy and the gospel account bear witness to a man who made no natural effort to try to get away.
When he was being pursued, he did not run and hide. When he was surrounded, he did not lash out or resist. When he was accused, he did not defend himself. And when he was attacked and abused, he neither cursed nor cried for mercy, but prayed for the transgressors.
We have seen in other settings (like Luke 4:28-30 and John 8:58-59) that Jesus was able to get away from a physical threat. And we have seen in earlier episodes (such as Matthew 21:23-27 and 22:15-22) that Jesus was able to extrude himself from verbal traps, as well. And who can fathom what supernatural aid he had at his disposal (see Matthew 26:52-53). Yet, still, he made no effort to get away.
When it was all said and done, he did get away. He got away in a manner they could never have guessed. For while he made no effort to get away from the betrayer, the accusers, the tormentors, or the executioners, on the third day he rose up and got away from the tomb!
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 22
The opening words of this psalm are etched in the minds of millions of people. They are so familiar that even non-Christians who lack any substantive grip on the faith will nod in recognition when they hear them.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Of course, the words stay in memory because they are uttered at a high point in the Holy Week drama. The sacrifice is made, the step is taken, but more than the drama is the fact of our universal ability to identify with the words.
After all, nearly anyone hearing this story can identify with a sense that God has abandoned them. As humans endure suffering across the spectrum of existence, this experience echoes in the heart. After a crushing loss, in the wake of a devastating illness, in the waves of grief after a divorce, or in the maw of grinding poverty, it is easy to feel that the holy one, the one who could wiggle a finger and change it all, has simply packed up and left town. Indeed, even as the computer keys clack out these words, Christians from across the globe continue to wrestle with the question of how a loving God can allow suffering.
But the truth is that God doesn't allow suffering at all. It is, perhaps, our idolatrous insistence on imagining God as one of us that allows us to fall into the foibles of such a discussion. The reasoning goes like this. As a parent, who would allow a child to suffer the vagaries of cancer or sexual abuse? Of course, no loving parent would tolerate that. Therefore our Daddy God, who could wave a wand and stop it all, must be cruel. But God isn't like us. Scripture reminds us, that God is God: far more awesome and huge than we can comprehend.
So it is that we abandon the finger wagging at God and come to this beautiful truth. It is in the depths of it all that God is most present. Whether it is on the cross or in a hospital bed; in a war zone or a dirty back alley, God accompanies us in our suffering and walks through every moment of our agony with us.
On this day of crucifixion it isn't a God of cruelty we see, but a God of accompaniment; a God who goes through it all as one with us.
