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Foundry United Rev. |
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“Godforsaken” Good Friday, March 21,
2008 |
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Matthew 27: 45-50
Rev. |
Socrates
died a good death. He believed in the immortality of the soul and for him
death was a breakthrough to a higher, purer life. Calmly and even cheerfully,
he drank the cup of hemlock.[i] Rabbi Akiba
died a courageous death. He was a Zealot revolutionary crucified like Jesus
by the Romans. He died with the words of the Shema on his lips: “ The
Stoics’ martyrs died stoic deaths. Torn into pieces by wild animals in the
arena, it was said that they drew unusually large crowds because people were fascinated
by their complete lack of emotion at their own deaths. They died, one
historian says, “without terror and without hope.” The
Christian martyr Perpetua died a dignified death. As she went to meet the
wild beasts in the arena, she asked for a pin to fasten her hair, for she
thought it was not seemly that a martyr should suffer with her hair disheveled,
lest she should seem to be sad in the hour of her glory. She died with
dignity. Jesus’
death was different. The theologian Jurgen Moltmann says Jesus’ death was not
a “fine death.” The Gospel of Mark describes his dying as “greatly distressed
and troubled.” (Mark 14:33) Mark says he died with a loud incoherent cry. (Mark
15: 37) The Book of Hebrews says he died “with loud cries and tears.”
(Hebrews 5:7) Matthew
and Mark both say he died shouting in a loud voice the words: “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?” Only in Luke and John, later Gospels, does
Jesus’ death become more peaceful and heroic. The early Gospels tell us Jesus
died in profound despair. He died feeling abandoned by God. Over time we have
tried to soften the harshness of it, but, if we assume Mark and Matthew are
close to the reality, as I do, Jesus’ dying was not pretty. He dies
godforsaken. The only begotten Child of God dies without God, without
comfort, without meaning. He descends into hell. Yet
this strange religion of ours teaches this – that this most godforsaken of
deaths is the precise moment in human history when we see God most clearly. How
can this be? What does this mean? Professor
Moltmann tells us it must mean something about where God chooses to be in our
world…that God chooses to be at the very places that, by all our human senses
and assumptions, we assume are most godforsaken. It must mean, Professor Moltmann
says, that God is in the places of our world where we most assume God isn’t. Where
do we assume in our world God most isn’t? The prisons? The places where
people most abandon themselves to their raw appetites? The sex dens? The
crack houses? In the midst of war and terror? Terrorist cells? Nursing homes
that smell of death? I want
to ask Professor Moltmann: Are we to believe that these sorts of godforsaken
places are where God is most present? That these are the places we are most likely to see God? It is hard to
imagine. Are we
then to assume, Professor, that this is also true of our personal lives? …that
God chooses to be at the very place within us where we feel we are most
distant from God? The darkest shadows inside of us where we are most vile?
The buried and repressed stuff? The jealousy and selfishness and out-of-control
appetites? These godforsaken places within us that we try to deny to even our
own consciousness? Can this godforsaken place in me be the place of
resurrection and new life? Is that what you are saying, Professor Moltmann?
It is hard to imagine. What
about the godforsaken places within us as a nation? The racism. Who doesn’t
feel the despair about that these days?
When are we ever going to be able to talk with each other reasonably
about race in Who
doesn’t want to say God damn to this part of our national life together in
which we just keep crucifying each other over and over again? Can you really
mean, Professor Moltmann, to say that this godforsaken place within our
national soul is where we are most likely to find God in The
biblical scholar Walter Brueggeman tells us that if there is any truth at all
to the biblical account of the crucifixion and death and resurrection of
Jesus, it must mean this: that in the darkest of times, there is something
afoot in the darkness that the prince of darkness himself knows nothing
about.[ii]
The invisible God is there in the darkness. This is why God is invisible
because he plants himself in the places without a particle of light or hope. But we
make a mistake if we try to make too much sense of Good Friday. Today is a
confusing day. Martin Luther was said to have sat at his desk in his study
for hours on end studying the words – “My God, my God why have you forsaken
me?” Those who observed him said that he appeared to be as a corpse. Finally,
he rose from his chair in exasperation and was overheard to say, “God forsaking
God! No [one] can understand that.” There
are no neat and clean conclusions on Friday. No message that a preacher can
wrap in a neat package and tie up with a pretty bow. Reason reaches it limits
at the cross of Good Friday. This is a day that makes no sense. Perhaps
it is enough to say that there is no hell that Christ hasn’t already visited.
So when we find ourselves in our own little hells, we should look for the
footprints of Christ and follow them through the hell we are in. The
poet, Miriam Kessler writes: My God,
My God, he cried, if he
is quoted right . . . Somehow
that moan is comforting to us,
alone at night, who
tremble, daring dawn that
He, so wise and strong, should
weep and ask for aid. Somehow, my lovely distant god, it makes me less afraid.[iii] Jesus
did not die a good death. He did not die a courageous death. He did not die a
stoic death. He did not die a dignified death. He died godforsaken. And
somehow it makes us less afraid. www.foundryumc.org |
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