When I was a young teenager, I worked in a store in downtown St. Augustine. While taking a break, I went into the men’s store across the street to buy something for Easter. I only remember that Mom had sent me. While there, I questioned the practice of closing all the stores at noon on Good Friday. Being young, a member of a church, and a family that emphasized Easter over Passion or Holy Week, I commented that I did not understand why it was called Good Friday. After all, it was the day on which one of the most horrific things in history happened.
The man to whom I said it was a Roman Catholic. He responded, “Yes, but it is also the day that God procured salvation for all (hu)mankind.”
I had no response except to shrug my shoulders. It took me years in college courses on the Bible and theology, and some in seminary, to work that out. Even then, it took some more thinking to realize that we both had it right. Good Friday was the worst day in human history and the best day for the cosmos.
It is common to say that Jesus died to save the lost, but what does that mean? If we read scripture correctly, I believe we conclude Jesus came to save humans who had lost their way and walked headlong into inhumanity. How could the brutal crucifixion be anything but a horror for anyone, and especially for a Galilean who did nothing to hurt anyone but question what the religous leaders taught and be hailed as something he had chosen not to become?
In the Temptation narrative (Matthew, Luke and Mark in chapters 4), Jesus rejects dispensing food for everyone to gain incredible popularity. Still, his many acts of kindness resulted in great popularity. He rejects proving himself to be God’s son by doing acts of danger so the angels would miraculously save him. Finally, he is tempted to look at the nations and obtain power over them by allying himself with the devil.
In the end, Jesus did not desire to be hailed as King of the Jews, nor did he want hymns sung to him as he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Instead of the white horse, a symbol of a conquering general, he chose a donkey and wore his typical peasant attire, a sign of humility. Yet, the religious leaders said he sought a coup to become King of the Jews.
He was crucified because the governing authorities saw it as the easiest solution to a crowd of differing goals. Let’s be clear, not all Jews desired Jesus to be punished, let alone killed. Instead, a limited group of Jews in high places who were engaged in governing the religious or political life of Israel, the Temple, and orthodox dogma, did. They were not of one mind either.
The significant issue was that Jesus stood for social, economic, political, and religious justice. That was why he came. Like prophets before him, his positions caused conflict with those in power, and we see them stalking him throughout the Gospels. Many will say that he came to save sinners, with sinners being carefully defined as those who lived contrary to official moral beliefs. However, all we need to do is go to scripture, and we discover otherwise.
As I have written previously, the song we know as the Magnificat and sung by Mary, the mother of Jesus, when she felt the first stirrings of the babe in her womb, speaks of the theme I just mentioned. Why is Jesus being born?
Answer:
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)
When he was born, Jesus was immediately in conflict with Herod, King of the Jews. When the Magi appear before Herod with news to his ears of a child born to be a king(Matthew 2:1), Herod is astounded. Who is this? Where will they find him? Herod treats the news as news of an interloper. His family, as unjust and brutal as it was before him and would be after him, is the royal family. The interloper will be killed.
Thus, the chase is on. The power elite was after a child born in the arms of a peasant woman betrothed to a carpenter. What could be expected?
As the Gospels tell the story of Jesus’s life, we see the consistent conflict between the authorities and Jesus and his followers. The religious leaders were most prominent, but they were also collaborators with the Roman oppressors. If Jesus caused conflict between them and Rome, their world would collapse. They viewed his teachings and popularity among the masses as subversive. Indeed, they were. He taught that being a good Jew had nothing to do with sacrifices but with how one lived in relationships with others.
We see their oppressive ways when Jesus is taken to Jerusalem as a twelve-year-old. It’s just a narrative. No big deal was made, but it was a big deal. Making the trip to offer a sacrifice at the Temple was costly in time and silver. Jews were taught it was their duty to make this journey. It was an ultimate act of piety.
The problem was that few people had the resources to make this journey, and the farther away they lived, the less likely they were to make it. Their religious life centered around the synagogue, which the priestly class in Jerusalem considered second-rate piety. Being a good Jew costs money and a lot of time. Jesus could not have missed that his parents made a significant sacrifice for the trip.
We make little of this narrative and focus on Jesus becoming a teacher, if you will, to the people at the Temple. They even told his parents he was wise beyond his years. Fast forward to Holy Week when Jesus revisits the Temple. This time, Jesus does not astound with reasoned discourse but with disruptive action, what we may call “good trouble” today. We also call it cleansing the Temple. But it wasn’t the Temple but the patio in front of the Temple where the God-Fearers could worship. God-Fearers were Gentiles who adopted Judaism but did not get circumcised, so they were not considered converts. As was common, Jerusalem was filled with persons from all over the world who were Jews and God-Fearers. (Acts 2:8-10)
The area reserved for them to worship was filled with money changers. (Luke 19:45) These were people selling many things and exchanging currency. Unlike today, there were no laws or agencies assuring fairness. The ones changing money could cheat because there were few money exchangers around. Others selling animals suitable for sacrifice charged higher prices because they could. But how were the God-Fearers to worship among all this noise and confusion? Jesus saw the problem, probably one he had witnessed before. His anger at the injustice welled up, and he began turning over tables. ‘Good trouble,’ indeed!
That, among other things, did not settle well with either the Temple managers or their Roman overseers, who took their bite from the proceeds. Things had not changed much in Israel since Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, et al. Jesus may have even called out, “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24, NIV). Or Micah 6:8: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
I recall in my Old Testament course on the Pre-exilic prophets my professor mimicking how he believed the prophet or Jesus would say these things. He began with a booming voice that only grew as he repeated the words. Good trouble! He finished by saying, “Using those words was bound to create joy in some and anger in others.” Or maybe he read the Bible to them:
The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?” says the Lord.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.” (Isaiah 1:12-17 NIV)
Could he have been more clear?
None of this settled well because Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem a couple of days earlier, and the crowds were crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (“Hosanna” means “Save Us!”)This chant is reminiscent of much in the Old Testament, but also resembles the chant when the emperor or a general rode victoriously into a city.
In fact, during Passover, the city of Jerusalem swelled to an uncontrollable crowd of people: Jews, converts, and the God-Fearers. The crowds were so great that the Romans staged a show of force in another part of the city on Palm Sunday. Pilate, the governor, rode his white stallion before an army of marching soldiers as if to say, “Don’t mess with us!”
The conflict was not missed by the religious leaders who had been stalking Jesus. On the one hand, Jesus and on the other hand, Pilate. Pilate had to have seen Jesus as a threat, as treasonous. The plot thickened only to be made worse by the visit to the Temple. In that visit, Jesus cost them money, condemning the economic oppression of those who could not worship there because of them and the exorbitant prices they charged the worshippers. It is one thing to make a claim to power and authority and another to mess with their money.
The religious leaders did not anticipate the reaction, so as Matthew 21:14-16 tells it:
The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
“Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,
“ ‘From the lips of children and infants
you, Lord, have called forth your praise’ ?” (NIV)
If the children know who saves them, surely the religious leaders should. But they had other fish to fry: their economic and political power.
I won’t reiterate the whole narrative of Holy Week, but fast forward to Friday morning, Jesus has been arrested with complicity from Judas, a sign of how oppressive systems reach out to control the narrative. Jesus had experienced anxiety not long before the arrest, asking that he not have to endure this judgment. Yet, the guards marched on up the hill guided by Judas, and the trajectory to the cross was set. Such events have been portrayed throughout history. Millions of people whose fates were sealed because they were Jews, LGBTQ+, or Roma died in German concentration camps. Japanese were held in concentration camps in the U.S. during World War II for no crime other than being Japanese. In our own time, black men were lynched without a trial because someone had implicated them in some crime. Now, our government is deporting persons who have not committed any crimes and were once promised safety in the U.S. Human systems are guilty of many injustices to protect the system. Jesus was afforded more due process.
Jesus, like all the prophets, criticized the systems and proposed a different one. So when the guards came, he followed his own advice and did not use force to overcome evil. Instead, he responded with love and grace. The narrative includes Peter cutting off the ear of one of the soldiers. Jesus told Peter to put his sword away. Then he healed the man’s ear. Would that soldier ever forget that act of kindness and grace? This subversive act judges all systems that rely on violence.
Having been arrested by soldiers who were just doing their job, Jesus went before Herod and then Pilate, who were just doing their job. Pilate was enlisted to execute Jesus because Herod did not have that authority. So Pilate, who showed signs of uncertainty about Jesus’s guilt, caved to the system. He could not show weakness during Passover. It could be calamitous. Just days before he entered Jerusalem in a show of great power. To not execute Jesus would have been weak. He was doing his job, following orders.
Probably, without even witnessing the drama of the trial, soldiers followed orders and marched Jesus to Golgotha, nailed him to the cross, lifted the cross, and dropped it into the hole between two others. There he is reported to have said seven various sayings, one of which was, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do,” subverting the system of retribution.
Who is the they? The human race—past, present, future—because humans had learned violence early on. Genesis records the escalation of violence beginning with Cain killing Abel. The Old Testament tells the history of how Israel was caught up in spiraling violence, only to experience temporary times of justice. Even David, a man after God’s own heart, was a perpetrator of horrible violence. God forbid him from building the Temple because of his life of warfare and injustice. Even though he knew about kindness, grace, love and justice, he often behaved otherwise. He knew to love his enemy and his neighbor. But he didn’t love Uriah or Bathsheba.
So was the case with all the kings, but they all came under the judgment of the prophets for their economic, social, political, and religious injustices. So this day, when Jesus was crucified, was a bad day for humanity because it pointed the finger clearly at what human systems could do. They could send an innocent man to the cross to die simply because it needed release, or it would explode.
Diana Butler Bass wrote about this moment:
A corrupt, authoritarian government seizes an innocent man, tortures and jails him on trumped-up charges that change during a manipulated "legal" process. The prisoner is left at the mercy of dehumanizing politicians & jailers to do with what they please.
Holy Week then. America now.
We could add the name of every nation.
Galatians 5:20 lists the fruit of the flesh as including: hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy. Humans know these sentiments lead to injustice. Our laws demonstrate it. Our list of human rights tells us so. (See the U.N. Charter on Human Rights). When we acquiesce by our silence and inaction to the powers that deny these rights, we hit the hammer on the spikes that nailed Jesus to the cross.
So Jesus died for all these reasons. Yet, he forgives us because, while we were not there, in a metaphorical narrative we were, because when we “do it to the least of these, we do it to him.” (Matthew 25:45) What we do to prisoners, to immigrants, to systems of government intended to provide better health care, or clean water and air, and so on and so forth, we do to every child, adult, native citizen or foreigner, etc., who will die because the aid is not there.
Jesus transformed the world with his story. We celebrate the resurrection as the day he won the victory over death. Thus, Good Friday had a new meaning by the resurrection narratives. In it, we see God’s plan for redemption, but not so we can go to heaven. No, so heaven can come to us, and God can create a New Heaven and a New Earth where justice will be practiced. The history of the Cosmos bends ever so slowly towards justice because of Jesus and his followers who pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth.”