Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” John 18:36-37
Thought for the Day: The Crucified God by the Rev. Laurens Hall
One of the great movies that I remember seeing as a young eight year old boy was the 1950’s war picture, The Sands of Iwo Jima. The feature casted John Wayne as its principal character, the rough talking, tough acting marine Sergeant, John Stryker. Although with evidence of melodrama characteristic of that era of film-making, I found the film most engaging. While including original film footage of battle scenes, the movie was an admirable effort of presenting for its audience the view as well as evoking the feelings of the virtual reality of combat— its chaos and unpredictability, its brutality and destruction. Of all the World War II films, and there were many in those years, The Sands of Iwo Jima, may have been the best, having several Academy Award nominations. Still, what I remember most about the film, a memory stamped into my brain, is how the film ended!
The marines had begun to secure the island and whereas there would be much more fighting to follow, the American Flag had been hosted onto the top of Mount Saribochi, forecasting the allied victory that would be declared weeks later! Sergeant Stryker and his squad were resting after a several horrendous fire fights, the viewers of the film mostly relaxed preparing for “The End” to appear, when suddenly a Japanese sniper popped out of a camouflaged subterranean hole and shoots several machine gun rounds into Sergeant Stryker’s back and kills him to the collective shock and loud gasp of the entire audience. I was stunned; I could not believe it! John Wayne killed? How in the world could a movie end like that? I thought to myself that such a thing couldn’t happen. Surely he was only wounded and would be taken to a field hospital where he would recover. But it wasn’t to occur. “The End” with the triumphant band sounds of the Marine Hymn did appear; the lights came on; and for the longest time, people just sat in their seats contemplating the impossible, the death of John Wayne! Truth be known, I still remain in shock and disbelief over it. Just like I have never gotten over the movie actress, Janet Leigh, dying in the early scenes of the movie, Psycho, but that is another story!
Yet, it is those emotional responses—shock and disbelief—that all significant losses provoke. When a person of significance dies—a beloved family member, a best friend, a prominent person known respectfully and admirably only through his or her public persona as a politician, entertainer, or sports figure dies—even when the death is anticipated, feelings of shock and disbelief, even denial normally follow.
Such was the shock, disbelief and denial in the mindset of a first-century Jew’s musings and agitation when pondering the death of Jesus. The two men on the road to Emmaus display such elements of grief in their explanation to the stranger walking alongside of them as St. Luke records: “They were so very sad,” and then earnestly confessed with noticeable, passionate disappointment, “we had hoped that this Jesus was the one to redeem Israel!” Still, it was one thing to experience the death and immediate disbelief and denial of a noble, honorable, and beloved human being; it was quite another to contemplate the death of one whom some claimed to be the Savior of ancient prophecy, the long anticipated biblical Messiah, God Himself! Such a notion alone, would make null and void all other evidence—righteous character, performer of miracles, eloquent speaker of supernatural wisdom— of such a Divine identity. Such a happening of a Crucified God could not be!
Certainly there was a Jewish tradition that prophets could be and were killed while a righteous person could be exulted through suffering and death, but a crucified God, dead and buried, would be an oxymoron. It would be an idea of blatant nonsense derived from a barbaric and insane mind of an obvious infidel, completely unacceptable to a pious Jew. Such a proclamation of madness would provoke only shock, disbelief, and zealous—perhaps even fanatical—denial from the Jewish community.
Still at risk of ridicule, threats of extreme punishment and incarceration, and even execution, this proclamation was made boldly without compromise to the world by the devoted followers of the Crucified Christ and has since been confessed steadfastly generation after generation by the Christian Community. In fact, it was by the shock, disbelief, and impulsive denial, confirmed by resurrection encounters, that the Christian Church held its unwavering faith in a Crucified God. Christian believers reasoned and continue to affirm that what the God of infinite love, goodness, and grace did in this Jesus, the Christ, the Savior, on the Cross, is precisely what such a God would do—it is His Amazing Grace— to redeem His creation and his creatures. It is what Kazah Kitamori in his book The Theology of the Pain of God means with his statement: God has died! If this does not startle us, what will? The Church must keep this astonishment alive. The Church ceases to exist when she loses this astonishment.” It is a truth found in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah (2:12): Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate.
In the death of Jesus, God suffered and died. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself! Some theologians have claimed that it is only the sure fact that God experienced all the pain and suffering that humankind can experience in any given period which makes belief in God even possible to them. As one writes: It is only because I can see God entering the darkness of human suffering and evil in his creation, recognizing if for what it really is, meeting it and conquering it, that I can accept a Christian view of the world. Without this Christian dimension, life would be senseless, and endurance of its cruelty pointless. Without the cross, it would be impossible to believe in God.
Now there are people, we all know them, who might hold to a belief in a suffering crucified God in Christ and welcome the fact that God has experienced in every way their pain, but who will not go any further in their belief in God’s infinite love and capacity to have done whatever it took to make possible a redeemed creation with redeemed creatures. But they must as we must!
The crucified God must also be seen as the God beyond crucifixion. He must be seen, embraced, and followed as risen Savior! Without that reality and a living faith in it, there would be no victory over death and nothing would be changed. God would have simply expressed sympathy and even a oneness with us, but that would be all. So as Jesus can never be the “uncrucified,” he is nevertheless the God in Christ who lives beyond crucifixion.
As the suffering and pain of Jesus has been liturgically observed and devotionally experienced through this season of Lent, even now in shock, disbelief, and maybe for some a denial of the notion of a Crucified God, let us in our darkness and pondering expect the Risen God to light our way forward as we joyfully greet the dawn of the Approaching Easter!
Self-examination, repentance, prayer, and worship:
Today is Good Friday. We offer a service from 12 noon to 3:00 pm, remembering the time Jesus hung on the cross. Consider taking that time to be with us as our bishop, the Rt. Rev. Andy Doyle, shares his reflections on the cross with us in our Good Friday service. This is also a day many choose to fast, refraining from eating until after the 3 o’clock hour when Jesus died for the sins of the world. As you spend time with God today and tomorrow, consider using the prayers below:
Friday: Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Saturday: O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of our Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Spend time in family or individual worship as found on the back cover before studying the Gospel of John below.
Study: John 19, Jesus Delivered to Be Crucified
1Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. 3They came up to him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and struck him with their hands. 4Pilate went out again and said to them, "See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him." 5So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold the man!" 6When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him." 7The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God." 8When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 9 He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, "Where are you from?" But Jesus gave him no answer. 10So Pilate said to him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?" 11Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin."
12From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, "If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar." 13So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. 14Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, "Behold your King!" 15They cried out, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." 16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.
The Crucifixion
So they took Jesus, 17and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. 19Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." 20Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. 21So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews,' but rather, 'This man said, I am King of the Jews.'" 22Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written."
23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, 24so they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be." This was to fulfill the Scripture which says,
"They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots."
So the soldiers did these things, 25 but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" 27Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
The Death of Jesus
28After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), "I thirst." 29A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Jesus’ Side Is Pierced
31Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. 32So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness— his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth— that you also may believe. 36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken." 37And again another Scripture says, "They will look on him whom they have pierced."
Jesus Is Buried
38 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. 39 Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. 40So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 41Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
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