Genesis 22:1-18, Hebrews 10:1-25, John (18:1-40) 19:1-37
Good Friday, 2009

The other night on the National Geographic channel, they aired a program called: Who really killed Jesus? I did not set out to watch the program, but in the process of surfing the channels I happened to be on the National Geographic channel just as they were showing and describing the graphic details of what crucifixion entailed. I am really a wimp when it comes to blood and gore, and so within a few minutes into the program I had to tell my husband to switch channels. But the other channels were not airing anything more cheerful either. One channel was airing “The monster,” another had a documentary on women behind maximum-security prisons, and the news was filled with even more depressing news of job losses, earthquakes, bombings, and shootings. One would think that I was right in the middle of a war zone for all the uneasiness I felt within me. But of course, all that discomfort came just from watching TV from the luxurious comfort of our 15th floor apartment, where with our windows shut even the ambulance sirens can become just white noise, and I could easily remove myself from all the disturbing images.  It is one thing to be shaken momentarily by snapshots of violence and suffering in our deeply saturated media and quite another thing to be the bearers of that suffering in real life. We have mastered the art of manipulating any picture to convey any kind of message we want that real violence and suffering becomes merely iconic pictures confined in a frame. We think and even allow ourselves to believe that we have seen and felt suffering because of a dramatic picture. But for the majority of people in this world violence and suffering cannot be captured in a frame. For thousands of people life offers no choice but violence and suffering and they do not have the luxury of protecting their sensibilities.

For the 25,000 Tutsi women who have to accept and love the children they bore from the brutal rape by Hutu men during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, they have no choice but to embrace the evidence of their violation right in their homes. For the hundreds of Iraqi children, who have lost their limbs, their eyes, their hearing, their speech, and their families they have no other story but the story of war and losses. And for the families of soldiers who have died fighting a war thousands of miles away from home, everyday is a reminder of their loved ones not coming home. After all these years since the first Good Friday when Jesus carried that cross up to Golgotha, violence and suffering still remain woven into the fabric of our lives.

Year after year I come to the foot of the cross on Good Friday, and I still cannot fathom the whole picture of why Jesus had to die in such a manner. Very often the question of “how much” he suffered brings so much of discomfort that I am way too eager to move on to the story of Easter. However, by getting stuck in thinking about the quality and quantity of his suffering I get into the danger of confining Jesus’ suffering into mere frames of disturbing snapshots. Yes, we do have to think about how much he suffered but we must move beyond the “how” of his suffering and death to “why” he chose to take that road. In focusing too much on “how” much he suffered we also run the risk of trivializing the tremendous suffering and pain people still have to live with. In other words, Jesus did not suffer and die to make our suffering insignificant in comparison to his. In fact, he took on that unwarranted suffering and death to show us that our pain and suffering matter very much to God and him. To the one who suffers any kind of pain the depth of his or her suffering is magnified only in the absence of support.

When we suffer, how easy it is for us to think and imagine that God has forsaken us. Jesus too cried, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus knows exactly what it means to suffer alone. We forget very easily that Jesus’ prayer for God to take away the cup of suffering is the same kind of prayers offered time and time again by people faced with no other choice but violence and suffering. Jesus talking about his betrayal to his friends is the same kind of painful sharing people do amongst their closest friends. The humiliation and pain suffered by Jesus as he was mocked, lashed and spat upon is the same pain that men, women and children continue to endure in many parts of the world from people who have power over them. Many people known and unknown to us continue to die senseless deaths every day. The incredible thing is that Jesus did have the capacity and the following to rally up support for his defense or even an army if he chose to. Like us he too had to face the decision of whether or not to trust in God through his suffering and death. In all his interaction with people, we see that Jesus reached out to the least and the most despised, bringing healing and restoration. He understood profoundly our human condition of pain and suffering, of our tendency toward injustice and destruction, and he knew he needed to take on that cross. And he also understood by faith the very difficult call from The Father to identify with our suffering and death.

Far from trivializing the pain and suffering of this world, Jesus chose to immerse himself in our suffering and stand forgivingly in the midst of our violence. In the surrender of his life to all that pain and suffering Jesus forever remains identified with our own suffering. In his forgiveness of the betrayal and all the violence inflicted on him Jesus has shown us that we need not remain shackled to the continuous cycle of violence and death.

Easter is coming we know, we also know that we continue to live through Good Friday not just for the day, but until Jesus comes back in glory. Our resurrection will surely come too, but for now, in our long Good Friday let us go out to where Jesus has chosen to go, to Golgotha, out in the outskirts of the town beyond our insulated apartments and lives. Jesus’ suffering is not meant to be idolized in our stained glasses, in our paintings, in our poems and songs, nor in our worship, he suffered so that we will know we do not suffer alone. Let this cross in our sanctuary be for us the sign of our call to immerse ourselves in the suffering of our weakest and the most defenseless, to be the presence of Jesus in our suffering world. Amen.