gazing on the good of good friday
How much pain? For how long? How much blood? How many layers
of flesh removed by the lash? How heavy the beam he carried? How far the
distance he walked? Between which sinews were the nails placed? How sharp the
thorns? How precise the work of the spear? Tell me, was it death by suffocation
or blood loss? Show me. Re-enact it. Film it. Paint it. Describe it in song
lyric and sacred reading. Carve it in detail and hang it on a wall. Give me the
sound, the smell, the spectacle of it. Take me back to those moments, and spare no effort to help
me enter into the scene.
Because if I had just been there to see
it I would understand - I would understand the extent of my sin and the miracle
of the resurrection. Because if I could just register these images and
speculations deeply enough in my psyche I might better celebrate the beauty of three-days-later.
But would I? Do I? Or shall I look beyond the suffering of skin,
scalp, sinews, suffocation to the harder truth to which they point? Shall I
look beyond the stock-in-trade of Good Friday observance, these CSI-worthy
musings, capable of capturing only the smallest part of what transpired on the
cross? For if I seek to internalize the suffering of Christ, surely I must look
beneath the externals. If I seek to internalize the sufferings of Christ, surely I
must look to his rejection.
Rejection. I have known it – I have known the visceral shock,
the hot-and-cold nausea of learning that another human being believed me guilty
of something I had not done, believed it to the core of their understanding,
believed it to the exclusion of hearing any defense on my behalf. You hate me. You hate who you think I am. You
wish me harm. You have passed your sentence on me. You will not change your
mind.
Now it begins to come into view, what happened that day. It begins to, yes, if I extrapolate the depth
of that pain, multiplied out to the nth degree. Rejection to the multi-billionth
power. The Passion Play, seen through this lens, begins to feel flat. The
crucifix above the altar begins to look like so much wood and pigment. As hard
as I gaze, it does not speak of this weight, this crushing weight, so much
greater than a timber across the back. As intently as I focus, it does not
render the sting of this scourging lash, so much more brutal than a cat-of
nine-tails.
But I am not there yet, no – my understanding is not yet as
awakened as Good Friday demands. For in my limited experience of human rejection,
on the day that my fellow man turns his gaze from me, the loving gaze of my Father
does not waver. On the day that my fellow man pronounces me cursed, my Father
still shouts that I am blessed. Blessed
to the uttermost.
But not so, the Son. Not so, the sinless Son, rejected to
the uttermost.
So my gaze is lifted to the great good of Good Friday: the Father’s
face turned eternally toward me because it was turned from the Son. The sinner
accepted, the sinless rejected. The punishment that brought me peace, no mere
matter of thorn and nail. The curse that brought me blessing, no mere matter of
blood and bone.
This Good Friday may the eyes of my body soberly acknowledge
the blood and the nails. But may the eyes of my heart gaze on the rejection
that secured my acceptance, and glory in the willing death that brought me
life.