MEDITATION AT St JOHN’S, EAST
BENTLEIGH
GOOD FRIDAY (April 24th) 1987
I was recently asked by a boy of
about twelve why today is called Good Friday. One of his classmates immediately
provided the right answer – that the name was a corruption of the older name, “God’s
Friday.”
But this very correct answer given
by the second boy does little justice to the theological significance of the
first boy’s question. Why is the tragic death of a cult hero executed in
Palestine nearly two thousand years ago, “good news”? Because as Christians we
accept the belief that Jesus is God, why do we claim that the death of our God
on a cross, at the hands of corrupt humans, is “good”?
The Archbishop,[1]
In his first mission address to us, spoke of a sermon that he had heard
preached by a Christian clergyman, and lamented that it could have been
preached by the adherent of any of the world’s great religions – let alone one
of the world’s monotheistic religions. Sadly, I believe that far too much that
is spoken from the Christian pulpit has nothing to do with the Christian gospel.
Says St. Paul, “I preach Christ, and him crucified.” That is the Christian
gospel, and any preaching that does not grapple with the events we recall today
fails to stand up to Paul’s criteria.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ …
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God …
for our sake he was crucified under
Pontius Pilate,
he suffered
death and was buried.
At the very centre of our faith are
two seemingly incompatible beliefs about Jesus. He was (and is) God, and he was
(and is) human. He was (and is) as St. Anselm put it, the deus homo, the
God-man. There is no more difficult tension to maintain in our faith. To
emphasise Christ as God at the expense of his being human is heresy. To
emphasise Christ as human to the exclusion of his being divine is heresy. Both heresies
have surfaced again and again in the history of our faith. But why are they
heresies, why does it matter?
If Christ were merely divine then
he cannot die for us. His death is not the same as our death. His
suffering is not the same as our suffering. The great modern atheists
pronounced that God had died, and that human beings must therefore take
responsibility for their existence in a universe without God. Were God to have
died in such a way, merely, that is, to have drifted out of human experience,
then there is for us no good news. God’s death, if it is as the atheists
metaphorically proposed, leaves us alone and defenceless in an unfriendly
universe, responsible to work out our own salvation. We have only to remember
Auschwitz and Nagasaki to recall how horribly wrong human nature can be. If
this nature is all we have to trust for our salvation then our present, to say
nothing of our future, is bleak.
Those of us who faithfully watched Paradise
Postponed[2]
over the past several weeks may remember another powerful symbol of what came
to be known in theological circles as the “death of God.” Dear old Simeon
Simcox sincerely saw the Christian gospel in terms of the human drive for a
better world, a world of equality between classes and races – and the sexes. Commendable
though Simeon’s dreams and life were, he died knowing that his dream had failed,
that God had not ushered in the age of equality he longed for. God had failed,
and for Simeon’s son was effectively dead.
This though is not the good news
death of God we come to recall today. Christ’s death is not good news if he is
merely a divine hero, seeking to improve the world on our behalf. Were that the
case, his death was in vain, for our world remains, as we can see only too
clearly, enmeshed in sin.
Similarly, if Christ is merely
human, we have no good news by which to make this Friday “good.” We may greatly
admire in our century Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, or even
John Lennon,[3] all
who in their own ways sought to transform this world into a better place. Shocked
as we might be by each of their tragic and unnecessary deaths, their lives have
not ultimately changed society. Racism still survives, despite Martin Luther
King’s great dream; the social evils Kennedy sought to eradicate continue, the
colonial exploitation against which Ghandi spoke reemerges in new forms, the
utopia of which Lennon sang to his generation is still as far away as ever.
But Jesus is the God-man. In his
death both God and humanity are somehow mysteriously entwined, and humanity is
provided with an answer to the problems of this world and of this life.
An answer? Does the death of Jesus
provide an answer to the problem of human suffering? If God exists, we will
constantly be asked, why is there suffering in the world? I believe our faith
does have an answer to that question, but today we have a more urgent question
still to answer: does so-called Good Friday provide meaning to life in the face
of Nagasaki and Auschwitz, in the face of cancer, Aids, the road toll?
If Christ is God, then in the
events of Thursday night and Good Friday suffering becomes an integral part of
the experience of the godhead. God, as revealed to his people in the Old
Testament, was never unmoved by suffering, but had never himself physically
suffered. Emotionally, as the parent of a miscreant nation, but never
physically. He is never the unmoved “God Out There” of the philosophers, but
neither is he incarnate amongst his people, sharing physically in their plight.
But in the incarnation, in becoming flesh of God in Christ, a new dimension is
added to the experience of God, and to the relationship of God to humanity.
For the nails that pierce Christ’s
hands are piercing God’s hands. The whips that scourge Christ’s back scourge
God’s back. The vinegar offered to Christ is offered to God. The excruciating
loneliness and sense of utter rejection experienced by Christ on the cross, my
God, my God, why have you forsaken me, is likewise the experience of God the
Father and God the Holy Spirit, as they in perfect union experience utter
separation from God the Son. For the communication between. Father, Son, and Spirit
is such that the pain of one is the pain of three, the joy of one is the joy of
three, God is one in three.
Human experience then, is absorbed
into the experience of God. God becomes present not only on Golgotha, but in
all experience of human suffering: in Auschwitz, Nagasaki, in AIDS, cancer,
starvation.
Where is God when it hurts? If God
is merely “out there,” distant, unmoved, the God of the philosophers, then God
offers no solution to pain. If God is merely the unmoved mover, then he is not
the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ, not the God who makes this Friday Good
Friday. Such a distant God is an impostor, and I for one want nothing to do
with him. Were the God of Christianity this distant God I would rejoin the
atheists, for even well intended humans provide more hope for the world than an
unmoved, distant God.
But it is the Christian belief that
God was in Christ. That the man on the cross in pain, hanging between two hardened
criminals, is God on the Cross. The reason why we believe this is to be
celebrated on Sunday.
To that day we look forward with
longing. But let us first remember that the death and suffering that we shall
all experience, you and I, is also part of the experience of the God who we
have come to love and serve.
And therein lies the good news that
makes this otherwise very black Friday Good Friday.
Now to him who suffered and died,
and who was buried, who conquered, who was, is, and ever shall be God, we all
honour and glory now and forever. Amen.
[1]
David John Penman (1936-1989) was Archbishop of Melbourne from 1984-1989.
[2]
Based on a novel by John Mortimer, Paradise Postponed aired on BBCTV and
the ABC over 11 episodes in 1985.
[3] I
admit I was not a fan of John Lennon, but the elder daughter of my training
vicar was!
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