A Reflection for Good Friday, March 29, 2013

Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered, “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.” When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face . . .

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and striking him on the face.

Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. (John 18:19-22, 19:1-2, 16-18)


There are many stories that deal with horror. But horror is not really a literary genre—it is a response to something horrific, an emotion that reflects the terror being encountered, whether in depiction or in experience.

It’s easy to revisit the story of Jesus’ arrest, abuse, suffering, and death abstractly, even theologically. But it’s a horror story of the first degree, a story of torture, humiliation, and a slow, painful death. While all the gospel accounts are relatively brief on this part of the narrative, they don’t skip it. Maybe this sort of thing happened often enough in first century Palestine that the story didn’t need an overabundance of detail. Nevertheless, they speak of it. And it’s a horror show.

Imagine this happening to someone you know, someone you care deeply about who is in your life right now—a friend, a brother, a son, a father, a husband. Imagine him being arrested on a false charge, cruelly beaten by soldiers and they nailed up on a cross of wood to die in the public square. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. There is no authority to stop the horror. The authorities are the authors of it all.

Jesus allows himself to be taken to this end. In his willingness to die, the power of evil ramps up to a fever pitch and has its way with him. If what we believe about Jesus is true—that he is the Word made flesh, that the fullness of God dwells in him—then that rabid force of evil has its way with God on that bleak Friday afternoon.

The most disturbing part of this horror story is that it didn’t come about by monsters or serial killers or phantoms. It came about in a way that was familiar to the people. The Romans were good at this sort of thing, and they plied their trade on Jesus with a well-rehearsed skill. It had happened before and it would happen again. But it was still an experience of horror for everyone.

It is an odd thing that our story of salvation could be classified as a horror story. But if it doesn’t invoke an emotion of horror at some point, then perhaps we have insulated ourselves against its gritty reality. Our story is not one divorced from the terrors of human history, but one that is grounded in a specific time and place, yet for all people in all times and places. And that one place, like all places, is a place where horror dwells.

It’s no wonder that the lights go out on Good Friday. Horror loves the dark.

A Lenten Reflection for March 15, 2013

For he satisfies the thirsty, and the hungry he fills with good things. Some sat in darkness and in gloom, prisoners in misery and in irons, for they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High. Their hearts were bowed down with hard labor; they fell down, with no one to help. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress . . . (Psalm 107:9-13)

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? (Romans 8:31)


It is usually at Christmas time that we sing songs about Jesus that employ the Hebrew name Emmanuel—God is with us. But we ought to sing songs like that all year round so that we never, never, forget that God is truly with us.

God’s withness is not meant to be an abstraction of theology. The Bible speaks of God as the One who allows his people to suffer the consequences of their actions and choices, but who also meets them in their desperation, hears their cry, and rescues them. God remains with us even in the worst of circumstances.

I once knew a woman who told me that, as a young teenager, having suffered through more pain than a kid should have to endure, she made a decision to stop trying to be good and to embrace the hard-drinking party life. And she told God she was going to do that. She said that she heard God say to her, “Alright. I’ll go with you.” Years later, when she cried out to God in her alcoholic desperation, he rescued her. She still carried the burden of her recovery, but she knew that God continued to be with her.

I’ve thought a lot about that over the years. Does God really stand by us when we deliberately choose paths that will inevitably result in pain and suffering? I believe that he does. I can imagine God standing next to that young, angry teenager, carrying the pain of her life on his shoulders while she vainly tried to medicate her agony. He said he would be with her, and he was.

And when I think of God doing that, I see Jesus.

Jesus was soundly criticized for coming alongside people considered to be sinners. But in Jesus the face of God was revealed in a way that scandalized those who thought they were above sin. But the sinners knew they were sinners, and Jesus knew that, too. He came alongside them and entered their pain. They took his hand as he reached out, and he rescued them. Jesus was with them.

God has, in human skin, become Emmanuel to us. Jesus is with us.

A Lenten Reflection for March 7, 2013

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. (Psalm 42:1-6a)


While leading an illegal, underground theological seminary just under the Nazi Gestapo’s radar, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about Christian community:

“It is true, of course, that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us . . .” (Life Together)

Like the psalmist, who reflects sadly on a time when he had the freedom to worship along with his companions, Bonhoeffer came to know what it meant to long for Christian community. When the gift of fellowship was easily accessible it would go unappreciated. Abundance can be the enemy of appreciation.

When I read the beautiful words of Psalm 42 that describe a thirst and longing for God, I am troubled. There are too many times when I lack such longing, as though the drink that is God is unnecessary to my well-being. It is the same difficulty that I have when I read the words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day, our daily bread.” I don’t ask for my daily bread, nor am I always thankful for it. I have plenty to eat. There is an abundance in my cupboard and more at the grocery store when it runs out. It is hard to be grateful for something that comes to me so easily and abundantly.

I do not desire to go hungry or to live in isolation. However, sometimes I wonder if it would take some severe stresses of life to enliven my longing for God. Certain garden plants should be deprived of water for a while in order that they would suffer stress and strengthen their roots. Could it be that lack of stress causes our roots to diminish? Has our abundance produced a lot of leaves but no fruit?

Perhaps the unwanted stresses will come, and in the lack of abundance we can cry out with the psalmist, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”

A Lenten Reflection for March 6, 2013

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)


I don’t know that much about suffering, really. I know people who have suffered deep loss and pain; by comparison, my sufferings have been minimal. I recognize that there are people in the world suffering from hunger, disease, and oppression. I do not suffer from these kinds of things.

But I do know something about hope, and the Bible speaks of it quite a bit, as it does about suffering. When you hope for something, you are very happy when that hope is fulfilled—after all, hope has, as its object, an encounter with the thing for which you have hoped. On the other side, we also speak of hopes unfulfilled, hopes being dashed, and so on. When our hopes bring us no payback, no honoring of a promise, then we are disappointed. Hope is the thing we look forward to. We stop hoping when we get what we desire.

Except that’s not what the apostle Paul says.

He says that hope doesn’t disappoint us, and not because we’ve received a release from suffering or some other tangible reward. He says that hope doesn’t disappoint because of the outpouring of the love of God through the Holy Spirit. And Paul was writing to people who knew a thing or two about suffering.

Over the years I’ve heard of the potential rewards of following Jesus: You enjoy prosperity, your ailments get healed, you feel great all the time, you have all the answers. Those are some of the things you hope for, and if you don’t receive them it might be your lack of faith or lack of understanding.

But that’s not what the apostle Paul says.

In the midst of suffering, marginalization, and loss, hope is not disappointed because of the outpouring of God’s love. His Spirit is already with us, and our hope is there. And hope is always alive and operational. We’re not anticipating something else, looking for another answer, waiting for our spiritual or material ship to come in. Our hope is already fulfilled in the outpouring of God’s love, and yet hope still remains alive.

God’s love is already there. It precedes our own fractured loves and our own misplaced hopes.

“In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us . . .” (1 John 4:10a)

A Lenten Reflection for February 23, 2013

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn from the way that I am commanding you today, to follow other gods that you have not known. (Deuteronomy 11:26-28)

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him . . . (Hebrews 5:7-9)


Everyone knows that, when God hears your prayer, the prayer gets answered, right? As Moses declared, obedience to God results in blessing, and turning away becomes a curse. It makes sense, especially when you remember that God loves us.

Of course, God loved Jesus when he prayed. The writer of Hebrews refers to Jesus as an obedient Son, one whose prayers were heard because of his reverent submission. Jesus offered those prayers “with loud cries and tears.” Why? Because he knew he was facing horrific suffering and death. And “the one who was able to save him from death” heard those prayers.

And Jesus still suffered and died. Not the answer I would have expected.

Most of us would prefer a quid pro quo relationship with God, a kind of trade off of goods and services. In exchange for my obedience and reverence, God offers blessing and answers to prayers. Right answers to prayers, I might add. If I pray for a great job, I don’t want a mediocre job. If I pray that my car will magically start after it breaks down, I don’t want to see it hauled off by a tow truck.

And if I pray to escape suffering and death, I don’t want to suffer and die.

But Jesus accepted his suffering and death as the answer to his prayer, and then went willingly to the cross. While dying he identified his ravaged body with the people of Israel and even asked his Father to forgive the ones who had orchestrated his death. His final words were ones that continued to reflect reverent submission: “In your hands I commit my spirit.”

Jesus apparently recognized that struggling with God in prayer didn’t necessarily result in getting one’s way. My obedience isn’t rule-keeping, but instead is participation with God and his mission in the world. My prayer might be about trading participation for self-interest. In those instances it might be that the answer is an uncomfortable—even painful—realignment with what God is doing.

I think I have a lot to learn about prayer.

A Lenten Reflection for February 16, 2013

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them. (John 12:27-36)


This is the part of the story where Jesus starts focusing on the death he fully expects to die. He knows that it is coming, that it will be horrible, and the life he has known among humans is about to crash and burn.

Jesus asks the question, “And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’?” Well, if it were me, I would probably say a big YES to that question. I would explain to myself that my grisly death might satisfy the local religious big shots, but it really wouldn’t do anyone any good. They’d bury me when it was over, forget about me, and move on. Surely my heavenly father wouldn’t care if I slipped out of town and just behaved myself until I died quietly in my bed fifty years later.

But this wasn’t my question. I hear the question as one who considers illness to be an inconvenience easily resolved by medication, and death something to be managed, sanitized, and put off as long as possible. The question belonged to Jesus, and for him it was apparently rhetorical. He would not beg to be spared the suffering and death that came with his prophetic territory, suffering and death that would allow the people of God to be reborn as people inhabited by the Holy Spirit, participating in God’s mission in the world.

There is something disturbing, however, in Jesus’ words about his impending death. In the text preceding this one, he says something that doesn’t allow me (or you) to stand at a distance, appreciating and admiring Jesus’ courage and willingness to die on our behalf. His words haunt me:

“Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”

In this Lenten season, I remember that following Jesus means more than working up the discipline to act like he did and reflecting abstractly about his sacrifice. It means really following him. And it means that suffering and death remains a possibility for us within that followership. This is serious discipleship.

God help us.