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St. Martin's Episcopal Church | |
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St. Martin's Episcopal Church | |
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The Reverend Shirley Smith Graham
St. Martin’s
Episcopal Church,
Good Friday, March 21, 2008
How did we travel from last night to tonight? Last night, we listened to the new commandment of Jesus: love one another as I have loved you. We saw the mystery of Christ knitting us together into one fellowship by two practical acts: serving each other through the washing of feet and sharing in the bread and wine of Christ’s table with each other. On the wood of that altar table was distributed the bread that we call the life of the world. And, later last night, we watched as the cross was lowered to where it stands now, lying against the altar table. We see clearly the meaning underneath the symbols: we see that the hospitality that Jesus extended to us through the table is now the hospitality extended to us through the cross. Through both of these symbols – through Table and Cross – Jesus has given his life away, so that we would be restored to the life of God. Jesus, the very Son of God, has given his life away.
Please notice that I did not say that Jesus gave up his life, but rather than he gave it away. One little word, one small preposition, makes a world of difference in meaning. Even though that distinction may not make a lot of sense right now, hold on to it, and keep listening. Tonight we are wading through the deep waters of God’s grace, and God’s grace is not easy to understand.
Think with me what is meant when we say we’re giving something up. We might give up chocolate for Lent – I suppose that would be a sacrifice. If our household budget is tight, we might downgrade our cable service from regular cable to basic – do you know you can get basic cable for $15 a month? If we’re in school we might give up on a math problem that’s just too hard – that would be a surrender to a challenge, a challenge that, in this moment, we cannot master. If we are locked in a relationship with a work supervisor, and this relationship is too troubled by crossed agendas and motives, we might give up the job – recognizing our unwillingness to withstand the pain any longer. If we’ve had a fall or a change in condition, we might have to give up our mobility for awhile – that kind of giving up would be a surrender to a physical limitation.
In these instances, giving something up means one of two things: either surrender or sacrifice. In the case of surrender, we may be surrendering to a reality that we acknowledge is as unmovable as a solid object too big for us to move. In the case of sacrifice, we may be sacrificing something we value because we make a choice, or perhaps we make the sacrifice because we are forced into making a decision.
But neither this sort of surrender nor this kind of sacrifice best describes the mighty act of God as Jesus allows himself to be handed over to the authorities to be mocked, tortured, and killed. Surrender isn’t a word that fits the Son of God who stands before the religious authorities represented in the High Priest Caiaphas. Surrender isn’t the attitude Jesus presents when, under interrogation he is questioned about his teaching. Surrender isn’t the tone Jesus sets when he stands up to the High Priest and answers, “Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said” (John 18.21).
Well, if surrender doesn’t work, how about sacrifice? Perhaps this is a better word to describe the mighty act of God this night. Much of our religious thought has been shaped by the idea that Jesus offers himself as a sacrifice, a sacrifice for our sins and the sins of the whole world. And, in fact, thinking of Jesus’ crucifixion as sacrifice is a core part of our belief that I would not want to change. But I also think sacrifice has its limits in being helpful. Characterizing Jesus’ offering of himself as sacrifice limits the grace of what God does to a paradigm of sin and payment of sin. I think God intends something more.
For the past thirty years there has been a move within academic theology to go beyond the sacrifice aspect of the cross and understand more about the grace of the cross … specifically to understand the grace-filled action of God in the Cross. Sometimes this move gets a bad rap for trying to take the pain out of Christianity or shying away from the hard realities of the cross. However, it is not for those reasons that I urge us this night to think about the cross as grace. In fact, I want to keep the cross as sacrifice in our language and belief. But I also want us to be freed from the problems of using sacrifice-only.
Using sacrifice-only to describe the act of the Cross gets us into some nasty places. More to the point, using sacrifice-only takes us down an old road that gets us lost. Specifically, sacrifice-only takes us back to the Isaiah reading, chapter 53, verse 5:
“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.”
We read this passage tonight because historically this reading has been understood as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. In this sense, it is good news. In the face of the people’s inability to live according to the Law of Moses, in the face of the people’s unwillingness to turn from their ways of living that cause harm to themselves and others, God will at some future moment send one to “bear our infirmities and carry our diseases.” This is the one who will be struck down by God and afflicted. So then this is the good news ... that God will provide a person to be the sacrificial lamb, who will be slaughtered in the ancient practice of sacrifice – riven down the middle, blood poured out upon the altar and the ground. And because this sacrifice, the mark of the people’s sin and stiff-neckedness will be erased; their debt will be paid, and all will be made well.
So then, Jesus is “wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”
Much of early and classic Christian thought found this to be a sufficient explanation of what Jesus did by offering himself for the Cross. But let’s look again at this verse from Isaiah, as we’re interpreting Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecy:
Jesus is “wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”
Many people, even people for whom this reading brings comfort and hope, are deeply uncomfortable with most of this verse and the view of God it presents. We are given hope by the thought that, by his bruises we are healed, because we are so aware of how much we need the healing. But the other parts may give us pause as they reflect on the character of God. Why must there be a sacrificial animal to be wounded for our sins? And why must that “animal” be crushed for our wrong doings? Why must our punishment be transferred to someone else at all? Is God so angry that only punishment will assuage his anger? Is God so out of control that only violence will dissipate his passion? Is there something about God’s justice that demands blood?
And frankly it is these questions that often go unasked and therefore unanswered. But remember, questions are the sign of an inquiring faith, a heart yearning for God. So when the questions go unasked or when the questions are not sufficiently wrestled with, a person yearning for God might find herself walking right out of the church door. We want to believe that God is better than Caiaphas, the High Priest. We want to be believe that God has a way of expressing his love for humanity that is more than the sacrificial theology represented in the Caiaphas’ words: “It is better to have one person die for the people” (John 18.14).
There may be nothing objectionable in the interpretation that Jesus offered himself up as blood-sacrifice, but there is plenty that is problematic about God demanding blood-sacrifice. And it is this difference that has caused many people to be very fond of Jesus but not very trusting of God the Father, who would demand the sacrifice of his Son. This is the difference that has caused many, to my sadness, to be admiring of the New Testament but find the Old Testament difficult at best. So difficult is the problem for some people that they refer to “the God of the New Testament” as being different from “the God of the Old Testament.” But what a danger that is – for as soon as we divide up God into parts we loose the whole, which is best expressed in that mystery we call the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We do not wish to take God out of Jesus as hangs on that Cross.
So what are we to do?
Let me return to my original guidance. Let’s accept that the notion of sacrifice is deep in our Judeo-Christian bones and that it yields great benefit. But sacrifice is not adequate to describe the whole gift of what God does when he gives himself away on that cross.
… when he gives himself away … when he gives himself away. Ah … there’s the clue … when Jesus gives himself away on the cross. The wood that is made into the cross can as easily be made into a table, a table over which Jesus gives himself away.
Remember that, in the table fellowship that Jesus shared with his disciples, he brought all manner of person to the table – sinner and righteous, tax collector and Pharisee, woman and man. Jesus made the same offer to every kind of person: repent and believe in me. Open your eyes, open your heart, and accept the mercy of God. Jesus justified every kind and quality of person: he made each person qualified to sit at his table by the reality of who he was – that he was the very God with the power to extend hospitality to every person, if they agreed to sit at table with him.
Now think of the cross as Jesus’ ultimate way of extending table fellowship to all people. This Jesus is the one who gathered all the fish and loaves and made them enough, and now he gathers up his own body and presents himself as enough to feed the whole world. Jesus is crucified not to satisfy the rage of an angry God but to satisfy the appetite of a hungry world that yearns to feast at God’s table. As one scholar explains, “Jesus gave [away] his life to his disciples as an expression of the fullness of his relationship with God and of God’s love for the world. Jesus’ death in love, therefore, was not an act of self-denial, but an act of fullness, of living out his life and identity fully, even when that [way of] living would ultimately lead to death (Gail O’Day, The New Interpreters Bible, p. 734).
At no time do we
wish to take God out of Jesus. God incarnate
in Jesus was always God. In that moment
swaddled in cloths in the manger, lying under the adoring gaze of his mother
and father and those scraggly shepherds, Jesus was God. In that moment in the splendor of the
So then, through the framework of love, we interpret Jesus’ death as the ultimate act of love: not just a sacrificial act of giving up his life but also an act of giving away his life – spending his life until there is no more. This is the grace-moment of God spending his own incarnate life for us until seemingly there is no more – only to find, because of grace, that there is more than we could have imagined: It’s the loaves and fishes all over again.
So then, the wood that is made into the cross is made into a table. And reading across that table, Jesus gives himself away: this is my Body, which is given for you; take and eat it in remembrance of me. So the body that was crucified finds its fulfillment and best expression as the One who reaches across the table to feed us for ever. Amen.