April 6, 2007: Good Friday

According to the mathematician astrologers, Jesus was most likely killed on April 7, in year 30. Being north of the equator, it was springtime in Judea . Olive and other flowery trees were in bloom. In the garden of Gethsemane early flowers brought forth color, insects buzzed, and birds sang. The earth was coming to life once again from the death of winter. But from about noon to three on a hill just outside the walls of Jerusalem , death was in the air. Three men hung on rough wooden crosses, two common thieves and a man, who above his head was written, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. It was the charge for which he had been sentenced to die.

The four gospels and Paul's epistles give us five different pictures of this event, which maybe God's way of telling us there is always more than one way of looking at it. From these five accounts come a world of interpretation; artwork through the centuries, passion plays, movies and musical operas, various doctrinal statements, creeds and commentaries on THE meaning of this event.

Matthew and Mark's accounts are almost identical, and they both agree that Jesus last and only words from the cross were “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Words that perplex we who hold fiercely to the belief that God's essence is Holy Love: How could God abandon God's own Son at his time of greatest need?

Luke tells a different story. Jesus says a good deal more from the cross, asking God to forgive those who are putting him to death. He then endures the taunts and an argument between the two thieves, but ends by assuring one of them he will be with him that day in paradise. Jesus last words according to Luke are “Father into your hands I commend my spirit. “

John's account is the briefest, and Jesus is entirely in control. No one else helps him carry his cross. He does not stumble. The women of Jerusalem do not weep for him as they do in Luke. Hanging on the cross, he gives instructions to his mother Mary and his beloved disciple. Jesus' final words in John's account are: “It is finished.” Finished as “completed,” or “perfected” as the original Greek makes clear. Jesus has finished what he came into the world to do, and voluntarily gives up his spirit. Nothing is taken from Jesus in John's account. He gives it all willingly.

Then there is Paul, who is not a story teller but a missionary preacher helping people to make sense of the good news. His is the first record the church has in attempting to make sense of what happened this afternoon two thousand years ago. In his letter to the Colossians Paul writes: “When we were dead in our sin, God made us alive together with Christ. God erased the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.”

It is Paul's image we traditionally celebrate in our Good Friday lovefeast. God has erased our alienation caused by our sin and made relationship with God and one another possible through Christ. And through Christ's atoning death we gain access to eternal life both here and in the hereafter.

But this meaning Paul gives the Colossians is only one of several meanings we can glean out of Jesus' death on the cross. It is an important and vital meaning, make no mistake about that and we've just sung several hymns stanzas thanking God for it, but it is not the only meaning. There are other meanings and there is one in particular that speaks this week to us as citizens of the country that is the world's only military super power. The United States spends 48% of the world's total for military personnel and armaments and the rest of the countries in our world spend the remaining 52%. We spend 7 times more than the next biggest spender China , and 29x more than what the 6 rogue nations of North Korea , Iran , Cuba , Libya , Sudan and Syria spend in total for their military assets. If you add in China and Russia , these 8 enemies spend only 30% of what the United States spends. So the meaning of Jesus death that I focus on this evening is the myth that violence brings peace.

The scandal of Jesus' death is not only that an innocent man died but that he was killed in the name of religion and justice, by people who believed they were doing the right thing to maintain the peace and correct doctrine about who God is and what God does. If you've seen The Passion of the Christ movie, you know this is the unmistakable reason for Jesus' death that all four gospels give us. Jesus claiming to be God is sheer blasphemy to Jews both then and now. “Hear O Israel the Lord your God is One.” is the great prayer of Judaism. You are to worship no gods but the one, true God. So how could this son of a carpenter, this mortal being, be the almighty Yahweh? Yahweh who is more majestic than the thunder of mighty water, in whose hands is the depths of the earth, the heights of mountains? This Nazarene the Great God who brought our ancestors out of Egypt ?

Pilate and the Jewish authorities meet in the common ground of preventing an uprising. Isn't this what political and religious authorities are suppose to do? Maintain order and peace? Silence religious zealots who disturb the status quo? Why, Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple for heaven's sake, and just listen to what he's been saying the past few days!!

In " The Last Week ," their book about Christ's final days on Earth, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, write: "[Jesus] attracted a following and took his movement to Jerusalem at the season of Passover. There he challenged the authorities with public acts and public debates. All this was his passion, what he was passionate about: God and the Kingdom of God , God and God's passion for justice. Jesus' passion got him killed."

British author Dorothy Sayers writes that Roman and Jewish temple authorities did away with God in the name of peace and quietness." Or in the words of the preacher Barbara Brown Taylor: "They did away with Jesus in the name of law and order, in defense of scripture and creed. Those were the values Jesus challenged, and those were the values by which he was condemned. He was not killed by vice and corruption. He was killed by piety and due process, but not before he pardoned them both."

This doing violence in the name of peace and righteousness is exactly what transpired two thousand years ago. While it is hard for us to grasp, Jesus was a villain for people in power. For the guardians of the law, Jesus is a charismatic leader who seems to think his understanding of what is best is superior to their tried and true system of justice and government. For the defenders of the Jewish faith, Jesus is a heretic who took outrageous liberties in the name of God. His only real fans were the common people. Yet even the ordinary folk deserted Jesus in the end. They wanted a revolution. He wanted something else that they never fully got, and we don't get today.

Jesus wanted to bring about God's reign through love, not violence. Yet sadly killing Jesus made perfect sense to the folks in charge then and now. Back then the high priest Caiphas scoffs to his critics. “You know nothing at all!” You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed!”

Kill the troublemaker and the trouble will go away. It's the only way to prevent violence—meet violence with violence.

In the last four years I have become somewhat numb to the ongoing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan . Where I use to look intently and pray for the dead soldiers whose pictures flashed on my TV at the end of The Newshour with Jim Lehr, now it's all I can do not to turn the TV off. Nearly 3300 US soldiers killed and over 65,000 Iraqi civilians. It is so disheartening that here 2,000 years later in supposedly the most Christian church going nation on earth that we are still caught up in the myth that violence can bring peace—that the way the world can be saved, that the only way peace can be maintained, is to get the weapons out of the hands of the bad guys and into the hands of the righteous good guys whom God will pardon for the blood they will spill. Isn't this sad-- that this seems to be the only point on which our Government and the Islamic religious extremists agree? If we kill off all the terrorists, peace and freedom, democracy and economic progress will come to Iraq and Afghanistan ! If the religious extremists prevail, Islamic law will reign, and Allah will bless our faithfulness and reward our martyrdom to bring about his reign. Peace and righteousness before God if we kill off the bad guys. On this both sides agree!!

We are collaborators in the myth of peace through violence even when all we do is sit and watch our TV screens and try to feel better by praying for peace, and doing the right thing by supporting our troops, who bravely serve our nation no matter what they think of the policies of our elected leaders. Because let's face it, when we get angry we really do believe that the way to fight fire is with fire—to meet force with superior force.

Meanwhile Jesus hangs on the cross, stubbornly refusing to fight at all. He has taken upon himself all the violence flung against him and will not give it back. Abused, he will not abuse. Condemned, he will not condemn. Abandoned he will remain faithful.

Fundamentally the cross represents the astonishing reality that God's power is not controlling. Fundamentally the cross shows God's powers standing silently by while violence does its worst, while rage is unleashed in the world in paroxysms of attempts to control the religious, ethical, and social structures of life. Fundamentally the cross shows God not in armed combat with the forces of evil, as so much Christian imagery would have it, but rather it shows God quietly, deeply, almost imperceptivity changing the terms of the conflict…God resets the terms of the violent conflict, and the terms are loving.

By choosing to die rather than to retaliate, Jesus disarms the power of violence, shows us another way to live. A way who's fruit you can read about in today's online New York Times about Dutch NATO forces in Afghanistan who are trying a form of this nonviolent way Jesus shows us. Rather than fighting the Taliban, they are focusing on making them irrelevant. Their counterinsurgency tactics emphasize efforts to improve Afghan living conditions and self-governance, rather than hunting the Taliban's fighters. Bloodshed is out. Reconstruction, mentoring and diplomacy are in. Most Dutch units now take extraordinary steps to avoid military escalation and risks of damage to property or harm to civilians, and when they are harmed, the Dutch try quickly to make amends. They have built or repaired schools, mosques, police garrisons, courtrooms and a hospital. They also have opened a trade school that teaches Afghan laborers basic job skills. The Dutch are betting respectful, and trustworthy political and social support will lure the population away from the Taliban, and realize it will take a decade or more of this kind of commitment.

As Christians who are citizens of the most powerful and richest nation on our earth, there is no greater challenge for us than to forsake the way violence, and follow our Lord's example of loving actions. For truly, the power of love, the power of God, is the greatest power under heaven and earth. That my brothers and sisters is good news!