Good Friday: By His Bruises We Are Healed. Or Are We?

Scriptural Basis


Isaiah 53: 1-9 (NRSV)

Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.

Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.

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.

All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

By a perversion of justice he was taken away.

Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.

They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Blog Reflection

The events of Good Friday are every person's story of life and death. 

Just a few moments ago before I began writing this blog, I completed my yearly Stations of the Cross that I do on my own.  You can find an internet copy of the Stations of the Cross at this link.

As I prayed through those Stations that are so heart wrenching, we contemplate the steps and actions of Jesus as he experienced his passion and death, I was also made aware of how much our world, our Church, our communities remain broken and wounded. 

This past year we have heard Jesus being given a bad name by those who practice Christianity from the point of view that Christianity supercedes all other religions.  The cross on which Jesus died out of love for all of God's people has become a weapon that somehow justifies actions and rhetoric that is so cruel and vicious, and hateful, that there remains no responsibility for the wanton destruction of religious based bigotry. 

Our reading from Isaiah today says that "by his (meaning Christ for Christians) bruises we are healed."  Yet all around us in the Christian Church we see wound after wound inflicted on those who are not Caucasian, male, straight, wealthy, healthy, speak and write a particular language and on the list goes.  Are we healed through the bruises and wounds of Christ's death upon the cross?  Or not yet?

We have read the accounts of the Pastor who burned the Quoran. The remarks made about Native Americans, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ, women and many others. Has the cross really been a source of healing, or has it been used as an excuse?

If we see and understand the death of Christ on the cross as being the opportunity and reason to become inclusive and to work for justice and equality for all people, then the cross is a source of healing.  The death of Christ that we recall today, with all of its horrible imagery, becomes the story of Christians.   People can believe in the goodness of what Christ did on the cross, because the fruits of the Crucifixion become real and visible and believable. 

If on the other hand, the cross is the reason to scapegoat, hate, destroy individuals and communities that we despise because of our own bias, then the events of Christ's death are nothing more than a fable, another legend.  Another piece of artwork on the wall that is nice to look at.  But, what does it really mean?

The Stations that I made reference to earlier invite those who pray them, to meditate upon the suffering of the world around us.  Especially third world countries and communities.  Places like South Africa where HIV/AIDS is the story of pretty much every man, woman or child.  Places like Libya where war and an evil dictator have been tearing apart the lives of real people for decades.  Yet we cannot be looking too far across the oceans to see suffering and oppression.  Here in the United States we have been hearing of tremendous political and social violence and oppression towards a woman's right to choose, LGBTQ people, the poor, the sick, the immigrants, youth and others who want the power to vote for people to represent the issues that are important to them. 

How is the death of Christ upon the cross going to become real where political, religious and social oppression and suppression are the way of life for so many people?   Didn't the death of Jesus end that kind of thing?

Among the things we need to remember is that Jesus was crucified on the cross, to pay the price for the sins of the world, yes.  But as the author of a blog post in Enlightened Catholicism wrote:

For almost 2000 years, believers have found hope and light in recognizing the primacy of the Incarnation. God’s overflowing love wants to embody itself in and for others. Jesus is the first thought, not an afterthought. Does this remarkable belief make any difference in our lives? Absolutely, especially for those of us whose faith has been shaped by images of atonement and expiation.

First, the perspective of creation-for-Incarnation highlights the rich meaning of Jesus. He is not Plan B, sent simply to make up for sin. As Duns Scotus emphasized so well, God’s masterpiece must result from something much greater and more positive (God’s desire to share life and love). Jesus is the culmination of God’s self-gift to the world.

Second, the focus on the Word made flesh helps us to appreciate the depth of our humanness and the importance of our actions. Rahner’s marvelous musings on our life in a world of grace give us renewed understanding of the biblical phrase “created in God’s image”—along with many implications for how we treat all our sisters and brothers in the human family and the earth itself.  (Jesus shows us how to be fully human, to touch and act from our own shared divine life, not necessarily to save us from our fallen humanity.)

Third and most important, our alternate view offers us a new and transformed image of God. Many people suspect that the dominant perspective of God demanding the suffering and death of the Son as atonement somehow missed the mark. (Ya think?)

Indeed, Rahner gently says that the idea of a sacrifice of blood offered to God may have been current at the time of Jesus, but is of little help today. Rahner offers other interpretations of how Jesus saves us, emphasizing that God’s saving will for all people was fully realized in Jesus through the response of his whole life.

 

Other contemporary scholars, including Walter Wink, are more direct. He states that the early disciples simply were unable to sustain Jesus’ vision of the compassionate and nonviolent reign of God. Overwhelmed by Jesus’ horrible death and searching for some meaning, the disciples slipped back into an older religious conviction that believed violence (sacrifice) saves. (This implies the early disciples never got the point of the resurrection, which is Jesus's culminating statement about the truth of humanity.)

The emphasis on Jesus as the first thought can free us from those images and allows us to focus on God’s overflowing love. This love is the very life of the Trinity and spills over into creation, grace, Incarnation, and final flourishing and fulfillment.

What a difference this makes for our relationship with God! We are invited into this divine dance. Life and love, not suffering and death, become the core of our spirituality and our morality.

I believe that central to the idea of experiencing that new life through the cross of Christ is to become active in loving others as Christ loved others.  The experience of Jesus' death and resurrection should cause us to come to a new life where there are no excuses for scapegoating or reasons for promoting violence and oppression.  On the contrary, the crucifixion should open our eyes to the wonder of God's unconditional and all inclusive love for all humankind. 

This love is one that sees God's goodness in homosexuality, bisexuality and transgender people as well as heterosexual people. The love of God does not see us according to our labels or the prejudices of Christianists and arch-conservative Catholics.  It is a love that cries when LGBT youth take their lives because of bullying by peers and family alike. It is a love that feels anger when Muslims are investigated for trying to make Sharia Law the laws of the United States. Even though many Christianists are all too happy to see to it that the Christianist view of the Bible is made the law of the land.

The death of Christ on the cross should mean that by his bruises we are healed.   And through the Sacrament of Baptism and the faith of the Christian religion, indeed we are healed.  But, in the matter of living what our Baptism means, in the matter of "seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves" we a long way to go.  In regards to "striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every human being"  the Christian Church (and this means all of them, Catholic, Episcopalian, etc) has a long way to go.

That is why we return year after year to this holy day of Good Friday.  It is the day to remember that Christ suffered greatly for all of us, so that we might experience God's saving power and love one another as Christ has loved all of us.

Prayers

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. (Collect for Good Friday, Book of Common Prayer, page 276).  

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, page 99).

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. (Book of Common Prayer, page 101).


Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies' sake. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, page 123).


Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, page 124).