Is Hope Absent?

on a Friday we dare to call Good

Good morning. 
Good Friday morning. 

We’re a little churchier than usual today—non-Christians, thanks for your patience, and/or feel free to peek into some of the inner workings of our worship and theology. 

I wrote this to the congregation I serve a couple weeks ago in our church newsletter:

Every year around this time, I find myself wishing I could snap my fingers and give all of us a small bit of collective amnesia. That may sound weird, but hear me out!

As I write this, we are making final preparations for Holy Week at Trinity—the triumphant joy of Palm Sunday, the love-filled meal on Maundy Thursday, the agony of Good Friday, and the resurrection triumph of Easter. It’s the last one I wish we could forget, at least temporarily. As we march through the drama of Holy Week, we always know that Sunday’s coming—that the end of the story is assured. But what would it be like not to know this? What would it be like to shout Hosanna to the King as he enters Jerusalem, with no idea what’s to come? What would it be like to remember Jesus’ last supper with his friends in the upper room while a sinister plot unfolded beyond those walls? What would it be like to hear the story of Jesus crying out in forsakenness on the cross, and have that cry be the final word? What if we didn’t know Easter was coming?

With that collective amnesia, we would experience some semblance of what Jesus’ friends and followers experienced. Imagine burying the body of the One believed to be the son of God, believing you’ll never see him again. Imagine wondering: Were we wrong this whole time? We know the end of the story, which can be a comfort. But I wonder sometimes whether knowing the end allows us to gloss over the full impact of the grief and despair. We can hold the horror at a distance, with our Easter bonnets and pastel neckties at the ready.

In his work, Christian ethicist Miguel de la Torre speaks on behalf of those on the margins—those still waiting for justice and peace, or even just the security of a decent meal or clean water—and reminds us that for the world’s oppressed, any given day can feel like a Holy Saturday experience. When we allow ourselves to feel the full impact of humanity’s separation from God, the good news of the resurrection has that much more impact—and our call to be Easter people is much more powerful.

Last Sunday, Palm/Passion Sunday, was my turn to preach. I believe there are certain texts that are powerful enough to essentially preach themselves; they stand on their own, no commentary needed. The crucifixion is one of them. Several years ago, I learned portions of Mark 14-15 by heart for a Lenten worship service, so I decided to dust off that learning and present the text again, not as something we read, but as a story to be told, person to person, without a big old book between us. You can watch that presentation at the link here, interspersed with short reflections I wrote on the theme “where are we going.” (Don’t miss the child who pipes up, Greek-chorus style! And feel free to back up the recording to view the whole service—the music was especially rich.) 

In the greeting line after the service, I got to talking to a member of the church about our shared love of Luke’s version of the story, especially Jesus’ sublime words of grace: “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” In the face of the worst torture the empire could dish up—an innocent man condemned to suffer and die—Jesus offers a message of redemption and hope. Mark’s Jesus doesn’t do that. Jesus cries out in grief at having been abandoned by God, then dies with a wrenching, inarticulate howl.

To be clear, I chose Mark this year because, well, it’s the version I already knew. There wasn’t anything strategic in my decision, other than giving an assist to my middle-aged brain. But it occurred to me later that Mark’s account helps simulate at least a little of that collective amnesia I mentioned above. There is no declaration of forgiveness. Mark’s version comes the closest, perhaps, to taking seriously Miguel de la Torre’s invitation to live in radical solidarity with those experiencing Holy Saturday. Mark gives us ample room to gaze upon the horror and ask, “What was it all for?” 

If there’s any hint of hope in Mark, it’s in the last line of Sunday’s telling… where I left it, anyway: with the bystanders. The Roman centurion, who felt the significance of what he’d witnessed and named it out loud: he was who he said he was. And the women, who had followed Jesus and supported his ministry, practically and financially, even to the very end. These women didn’t flinch as this great and good man died for fabricated charges at the hands of the state.

People sometimes ask me, did Jesus need to die? Why would God require a sacrifice in order to forgive and transform the world? What does it say about a God who would demand such a thing? 

Those questions are wrapped up in what we call the theology of the atonement, and there are many views of what Jesus “accomplished” on the cross. That’s a post in itself, and different atonement theories have their strengths and weaknesses; they also go in and out of fashion. But what I like to say is that while I can’t quite believe that ultimate forgiveness was contingent on a violent sacrificial death—I can’t wholeheartedly affirm that such an act was necessary—it was nonetheless inevitable. The world does what it does. A teacher who preached divine love, who modeled a way of being at odds with the powers and principalities of the day: could Jesus’ story really have ended any other way?

What we’re left with today, then, is the presence of that crowd: those bystanders who bore witness to the horror and didn’t turn away. Jesus may have felt forsaken, but I hope he saw those individuals—people just like us—and realized that even in his most agonizing hours, he was not alone. 

Perhaps there’s a little hope in Mark; it’s just not where we expect. 

~

Link Love 

Two Good Friday-inflected links: 

• First, Amanda Gorman’s soaring and searing Hymn for the Hurting. 

• Second, this time each year I have various Godspell soundtracks on rotation. Hunter Parrish’s plaintive rendition of Beautiful City is very appropriate for Mark’s text on Good Friday: 

 ~

What I’m Up To

• A new episode of the podcast! A conversation with friend of the pod Derrick Weston.

• I’m still dishing on Ted Lasso with a lot of you good folks at the Crown and Anchor. Here’s my post for episode 4.

• Upcoming posts for paid subscribers in April: a deep dive on toxic positivity, and by request, some thoughts on Artificial Intelligence and particularly ChatGPT. Yearly subscriptions are 10% off through April! Friday posts are free and always will be; members and friends of Trinity Presbyterian are eligible for complimentary subscriptions upon request.