The confidence of Christ

April 10, 2020 Good Friday   (today’s lectionary)

 

The confidence of Christ

Sometimes listening to Wendell Berry’s story A Place on Earth, I notice the calm confidence of most of his characters. They are comfortable with themselves and those around them, they fit like puzzle pieces into their hometown landscape and people-scape. This must reflect the first-born  confidence of their creator, the author, his life and his work, his families, immediate and extended.

Wendell’s characters move freely about their lives. They make choices and decisions for themselves but not for others. They lead when leading is called for, follow when following is called for. They listen for the guidance that comes  from their own intuition, imagination, intelligence, and information, but often even more from that of others. And in every case, especially striding through their direst straits, they wait for the calm wisdom of their portion of the earth.

They seem wise within their place and within their years. They have been partly protected from the insecurity of their time by the natural sheltering in place of any small town. Wars I and II invaded them and took some of their children. Floods and blizzards took some more. Their response to these disasters is regularly covered in acceptance and strength. How can that so regularly be?

Berry’s men and women are able to grieve. They can also breathe, and continue to breathe even as they weep. They do not keep secrets, although they often speak only when spoken to. They are able to ask tough questions, and they are willing to answer them.

 

And this morning as the sun shines and the cross looms, I think of Jesus and his own  first-born confidence. His parents taught him well – the ways of his culture and the ways to love rather than hate, the ways of healing rather than indifference or even harm, the ability to choose to bless or protect others rather than himself. As God’s son too (maybe mostly) and as the man Dallas Willard calls “the smartest ever born,” he took in these lessons like a sponge takes in water.

He grew like a sapling, like a shoot from the parched earth.

New every morning, Jesus carried himself in calm confidence. He walked through mobs anxious to throw stones, and they did not touch him. He chose to wait three days before starting for the home of Lazarus, knowing Lazarus is dying. He told more than one supplicant that he could rest, his prayer was answered, his child will live.

And now today (and I am reminded that Jesus’ Passover day began at sunset and ended at sunset the next day, so our Thursday night Last Supper and Good Friday crucifixion occur on the same Hebrew day), as Jesus nears the end of his physical life, Jesus walks through Gethsemane, held captive, speaking (or not speaking) only for himself and his Father, not for others. He faces into the lash and thorn. He bowls Pilate over with this confidence, with his lack of fear, sure, but more than lack, with his supernatural abundance of peace. Pilate must actively and strenuously resist this peace, pushing back hard in order to practice his accustomed violence.

Just walking into the room, Jesus changes everything.

Even as many were amazed at him, so marred was his look beyond human semblance, so shall he startle many nations and because of him kings shall stand speechless.”

Who would believe?

Everyone believed, and then no one, and then everyone again. But how about me? I close my eyes and walk with Jesus, and in the presence of this man I must, like Pilate, either believe or actively resist believing in order to practice my accustomed violence of omission. Will I be a child as he invites, and sit in the dust against the warm bricks of the village well, put my arms around his legs and look up believing? Or will I not?

It was my infirmities he bore, and my suffering that he endured. He was pierced for my offenses and crushed for my sins, and upon him was a punishment that makes me whole. By his stripes I am healed, by the lashes on his back, my back stands straight and strong.

There were slaves whipped for nothing, and on their backs they carry scars all their lives. Here is Jesus, whipped for everything. Heavy on his back, all my sins.

The Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all. He surrendered himself to death and was counted among the wicked. (Isaiah 52 and 53)

The guilt of all of us. Us all. The guilt of my family, my neighborhood, my village, my town. My country, my world. My guilt. My sins committed and omitted. Mea culpa. My fault, my fault, my most grievous fault. Oh, Lord, Jesus!

Simon of Cyrene carries Jesus’ cross to the top of Golgotha. The skull crawls with worms, the skull cackles, and Jesus is nailed. Raised off the earth into the sky, Jesus looks out in grief at all the earth. He is dying now. He has drank the dregs of Elijah’s cup, the fifth cup, the cup of wrath and damnation.

Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. My trust is in you, my Father, I say “You are my God.” Let your face shine upon your servant. (Psalm 31)

This messenger Jesus became our priest. He stands up for us in heaven, he imposes himself between us and the wrath of God, he changes the Abrahamic Covenant to the New Covenant in his Blood, he takes upon himself the guilt of all.

In those days he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one able to save him from death. He was heard because of his reverence, son though he was, he learned obedience from his suffering. And then, made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation. (Hebrews 4)

 

Judas is afoot. The demon has taken possession in his soul. He scrambles across the landscape, accompanied. The demon draws his bow, Judas readies the kiss that will complement the night.

Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?

Jesus is more than a match for Satan in this dark world, but Satan has no idea. He readies the killing stroke, growing in confidence with every step Jesus takes into accusation and death.

Jesus spoke sharply back to Anna, Caiaphas’ father, and Anna tied him up and sent him on to his son. Peter, in the wee hours of the night, stayed busy denying any friendship or even association with Jesus. The mob was licking its chops, and Peter was afraid. What’s a simple fisherman from Galilee doing in a place like this?

And then the cock crowed. The “gallicantu,” that chicken squawk, even this humiliation is commemorated in the interest of Jerusalem tourism – yes, there is a church named for this awful moment in Peter’s life.

Jesus slips out of Annas’ grasp and then out of Caiaphas’ grasp, into the slippery hands of Pilate. “Are you the king of the Jews?”

But Jesus’ words tell only a sliver of the story. It’s always his presence, the confidence God has placed in him, the confidence  he accepts. “My kingdom does not belong to this world. I have come into the world to testify to the truth.”

Pilate, nonplussed, falls back into philosophy. “What is truth?” he mumbles.

The truth is not in him. He asks the crowd what he should do. They shout curses at the Christ.

“But I find no guilt in him.” Pilate’s wife dreamed about Jesus the night before. “Leave him alone!” she said. “He is innocent.”

In our readings, Palm Sunday and today, the church congregation portrays the mob and shouts, “Give us Barrabas!” And we scream (or would if we could), “Crucify him!” The spit-soaked words rip through my brain and I feel the call of the demon even now, violence just offstage, barely in the wings.

The scourging begins. The crack of the whip and the nails embedded, they smash into the back of Mary too, so desperate to stand in for her son.

“Behold your king!” Pilate cries. “Ecce homo!!”

“We have no king but Caesar!” The cynics scream, the high priest gloats.

“Let him be crucified.” Thus begins the last dance of Jesus, the dance he came for, down the Via Dolorosa, up the hill, into the midday sun.

They whipped and they stripped and they hung him high, and they left him there on the cross to die.

Jesus finishes oh, so well. He speaks with kindness to one of the thieves crucified beside him. He calls out forgiveness for his torturers, even as he bleeds with every breath.

“It is finished,” he cries, and his head falls to the side. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (John 18 and 19)

And we, the congregation, sink to our knees. Again the pendulum swings, and we think, I think, “Yes, I do believe.”

High above us, in the midst of the earthquake at three pm, Jesus can barely be heard singing.

Dance, dance, wherever you may be,

I am the Lord of the dance, says he

And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be

And I’ll lead you all in the dance, says He

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