Apr 10 2009
Good Friday Reflection
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John 18:1-19:42
For the text see the separate post
He gave up his spirit.
There is nothing else, all is emptied out. It is often noted that John’s gospel does not contain the same sense of agony and struggle that one finds in the synoptic gospels. Jesus needs no help with the cross and from the cross Jesus calmly orders the last affairs of the chaotic world about him. I am reminded of the painting by Hieronymus Bosch, Christ carrying the cross. Jesus, eyes closed, is an island of tranquility in the middle of faces contorted by every horror of which humanity is capable.
Seen from the cross - that point to which, as Jesus said, all the world will stream - all other actions become pitiful. Little people ordering little affairs. Pilate, on a whim perhaps because he’s hedging his bets and might believe in Jesus or perhaps because he’s frustrated with Rome for sticking him in this redneck Palestinian backwater, calls Jesus a king. It doesn’t hurt him, after all, it’s a little joke between him, Jesus and the people that Pilate despises. The priests, who have already won the day, complain. In essence Pilate says, “oh will you get over it, it doesn’t change the nature of things. I could have you all killed if I wanted to.”
Each one of us, ordering our little lives, each one of our little games and prejudices. Every little comeuppance that we feel others should have received – can we see them from the fulcrum of the cross?
In ancient China it is said that the sacred princes could make no commands. If they lived into the ritualistic role fully then the entire state could be ordered by the prince standing in one place moving no more than the blink of his eyes. From the cross all motion is removed. Jesus, naked, watches his clothes be divided and still he turns to his mother who is more truly naked in a world that did not offer support or aid to the widowed and childless. In this case the widow will live the rest of her life as the mother of a bastard child left naked on a cross – an implement of death so barbaric that civilized Romans did not mention it in polite conversation. Jesus gives his mother a child.
Come up to the cross and see. Does the world change? Can we become naked on the cross and not lament the petty pursuits of others? What mother on the edge of civilization soon to be abandoned by the world can we care for?
The subjects of the Chinese princes, by law, had to move quickly arms outstretched like a bird. This action demonstrated they were quickened by the energy and life of the prince who needs must be still.
In Midrash we are told that when crossing the red sea the waters would not part for the Israelites until one person, Nachson, trusting or desperate, walked all the way out into the water until he could no longer breathe. Only then did the waters part.
The nose,
that place into which breath enters,
into which the spirit or breath of God enters,
the spirit that blew across the waters of creation,
when the spirit could not enter,
when life could no longer be felt,
the waters parted and life came again.
HE bowed his head and gave up his Spirit.
Breathe in the spirit, come onto the cross and see the waters part.
Mirroring the one on the cross
Stretch forth your arms like a bird,
For we must be quickened by the prince now nailed in place.
