Good Friday 2015 - How Shall We Look at Jesus' Crucifixion?

“I danced on Friday when the world turned black/It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back.  They buried my body and they thought I’d gone/But I am the dance and I still go on . . .”  Do you recognize this?  Yes, "Lord of the Dance" is a hymn with words written by English songwriter Sydney Carter in 1963.  On this Good Friday we remember Jesus’ horrific torture and execution, alluded to in Carter’s words. 

Perhaps we will respond to it through a theological lens.  We call one of the most famous of these lenses “substitutionary atonement.”  This theology appears in a work by Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury who held this position in the latter part of the 11^th century and the early part of the 12^th.  He wrote a book about why Jesus had to die.  Its Latin title, Cur Deus Homo, can be loosely translated “Why God Became Man.”

Our sins, according to Anselm, cannot be forgiven without satisfaction, meaning God has been angered and injured by our sin—so we are damned for eternity. We were unable to do anything to satisfy God because of our massive sinfulness.  Only the physical sacrifice of a sinless person would make God relent and not damn us all.  Thus only Jesus, God-made-man, could be killed to satisfy God.

Although many of us were taught this as children in our Sunday School lessons, modern theologians reject this, because they view God as loving us without reserve.  Yes, we will be accountable for our lives, but in the end God’s grace will grant us eternal life. Jesus came to be with us, fully human and fully divine, to demonstrate God’s love for us—even allowing the world’s evil to do its worst on “Good Friday.” So our lives should be transformed by responding to God’s grace.  We will love God will all our heart, mind and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves.  We will do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. 

Or we might respond to it through a biblical lens.  From the earliest days of Christianity the passages from Isaiah’s prophecy have been applied to Jesus.  Historically this may not be the most correct way to interpret this passage, but through the eyes of faith we can see Jesus pre-figured in Isaiah’s fourth servant song.

Isaiah 53: 4-6 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But 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.

This passage could be said to speak about a model servant of God who willing becomes a scapegoat, killed for the sake of his community. Yet through that servant’s death the community is restored, healed and made whole.  For many of us a modern example of this suffering servant would be Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Or we might respond to this day through a personal lens.  As you may know, my husband died in November of last year. He suffered from lung cancer, which took away, piece by piece, all the activities he held most dear, including attending classical music concerts and spending happy times with his family, especially his beloved grandson, Jacob.  You may have witnessed such suffering in a loved one or friend.  We bring our experience of suffering unto death with us to our worship on Good Friday.  We pray that this suffering not to be the last word in the life of this person we held dear—or even in our own lives.

John Donne, a priest in the Church of England in the 17^th century, wrote a sonnet, which spoke to his belief that death would not have the last word. Through this poem, he told death off. I read it at my husband’s funeral, and I want to share it with you today.

A Holy Sonnet:  “Death be not Proud” by John Donne

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow.

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Whatever lens we use today to help us understand the meaning of this dark day we call Good Friday, let us ask God to touch our hearts and give us the strength to bear our own crosses, to live as Jesus taught us to live, and to die with a holy hope in the grace and glorious victory of God.