Culmination Friday

Good Friday.

It’s the day that all the horrible things that people can do to each other — all the bombings, the lynchings, the 9-11’s. The calling of names, the abandonments. The unforgiveness and the betrayals — they all culminate, into and onto one innocent man.

It’s on this day that all hope was seemingly lost — friends denied, lots were cast, the tomb undeniably closed.

It represents the darkest throes of humanity, the deepest place to which we can descend, scars dug deep into our spiritual flesh like the stripes ripped into his back, the thorns shredding his scalp.

Every prisoner mistreated or, for that matter, getting exactly what he deserves. It all culminates in all of us getting exactly what we deserve and the slaughter of the innocent.

It’s every assasinated cop and every young black man killed.

It’s every kidnapped woman, stolen girl, murdered daughter. It’s every time a woman is silenced through harsh looks, dismissive tones, or physical violence.

It’s every time we hear the tug on our heart that God — he loves us and wants to hang. And we, like Peter, say, “I don’t know you.”

It’s every ounce of pride we feel, it’s every time we shrug and say, “God doesn’t really matter, even if he does exist,” when ultimately he’s the only reason anything matters.

It’s casting people out of God’s house, keeping them from worshipping because they sin differently than we do.

It’s the conspiring for profit and murder; it’s the nurturing of bitterness in our hearts. It’s the rolling of eyes, it’s the hardened hearts. The stubborn hardened hearts who refuse to do the really hard things for the people we love and who love us — the forgiving, the grace-offering, the allowing, the going-with.

It’s the kiss of the betrayal.

And yet even in the middle of it — in the midst of all of this, Jesus is forgiving. Not forgiving as in Jesus is being forgiving, although he is. I mean that Jesus, in the middle of our sin, is actively forgiving. It’s his constant state of being and his ongoing activity. He calls us friends.

In the midst of the betrayal, when Judas identifies him with a kiss, Jesus looks at him and says,

Friend, why this charade?

Friend.

There is never any rejection from Jesus.

There is anger, yes. There is that small issue of the turning of tables. There is the sarcasm and the frustration with our inability to grasp what he is saying. There is the total lack of patience with the religious elite, those who pretend to know it all.

But there is also the chasing down of sinners, the going out and finding them. The worst of the sinners — the untouchables, the unclean, the regular people who just went through life, never able to live up to the elitist rules and regulations — he sought them out during his life. He ran after them in the streets, he laughed with them, he drank wine with them. He healed their hurts and their brokeness not with rejection but with whole and complete acceptance.

And it was in the sparkling waters of that acceptance that they were changed. When he first called them Friend, and asked, Why this charade?

And when all the people left him — exept the women; the women stayed — and he breathed his last, the curtain tore in half. That curtain that separated the merely holy from the holiest of holies ripped open, and in that moment, any sinner could enter God’s presence, no middle-man needed. In that moment, we all became elite insiders, should we want to eat at that private banquet.

So we became elite, but this does not mean we should be elitist. Jesus’ very ministry was all about turning the elitist out of their chairs and putting the outcast in their place.

So what does the cross mean for us, the regular joe schmoes who live our lives, convinced we are “good people”? We of the mediocre goodness and the mediocre sin. Are our little tiny hurts, and our little tiny sins really worthy of the horrific redemption of the cross?

Does Jesus chase even us down, we of the suburban mediocrity?

We all have our own personal Golgothas. There were many joes who walked by that hill that day. They joined in the fun, with a shrug, a smirk, a curious drive by. It’s easy to judge when you’re not the one hanging there.

Friend, why this charade?

I read that the cross was probably only about 6 feet high. So Jesus would have been almost at eye level of most of the people walking by. He would have heard everything in his painful forgiving, in his sense of abandonment.

Friend, why this charade?

Put down your mediocre, luke warm indifference and make a choice. Because that’s the thing about this Jesus. He forces you to choose. He chases you down and asks you to decide. Do you believe? Are you willing to put down the charade?

Continue, if you want, to continue the charade of indifference, but Jesus knows you’re special. He knows you are worth chasing down.

And even on this dark, dark day, the best is yet to come.