THE GOOD FRIDAY-EASTER TRUTH IS RADICAL - DEAL WITH IT

 

©Wendell Griffen, 2022 

This weekend people will attend Christian worship services to observe Good Friday and Easter. What will they hear?  What will they see? What will they do?

Some persons will gather to merely observe the colors, lilies, music, and speeches/sermons of a religious pageant about the arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Those persons will attend as spectators.

Some persons will gather out of a sense of tradition. Being in a religious service for Easter is part of their annual routine.

Some persons will attend the worship services because they were not able to do so for the past two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

People will also attend the worship services because they are followers of Jesus, the dark-skinned Palestinian Jewish rabbi who lived under Roman occupation for his entire life. They will attend to honor the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

These and other reasons will influence why people will attend Good Friday and Easter religious services. The question is whether we will deal with the radical truth affirmed by Good Friday and Easter as we do so.

That radical truth is not about chocolate bunny rabbits. It is not about spring outfits to wear. It is not about hunting for eggs. Those things are about something besides truth.

Good Friday challenges us with a radical truth. The gospel of unconditional love that Jesus preached, taught, and practiced is threatening.  It is threatening to systems of religion, commerce, and government based on lust for power. It is threatening to people whose lives are directed by fear, hate, and bigotry.

The unconditional love for God and others that Jesus preached, taught, and practiced is threatening to religion that is based on ritualized materialism and greed.  Jesus preached, taught, and practiced a life devoted to care for the least, left-out, marginalized, and exploited. His ministry embraced people who were considered moral misfits and social outcasts. 

Traditional religious leaders finally schemed to have Jesus killed because they considered him a threat to their influence over the masses. Political leaders went along with the plot to kill Jesus knowing it was based on lies.

Good Friday forces us to face the radical truth about how people who love power resort to hypocrisy, deceit, treachery, and violence to achieve political goals. Using the pretext of devotion to religious faith and domestic security – “law and order” – people will lie, scheme, murder, and justify doing so.

Good Friday reminds us that what happened to Jesus was legal. What happened to Jesus was upheld by religious leaders. What happened to Jesus was politically popular.  

What happened to Jesus happens whenever people are terrorized, brutalized, and killed by police and military agents in the name of “law and order.” What happened to Jesus happened to Michael Brown, Jr., George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Sandra Bland.  What happened to Jesus happened to Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and countless others whose names are recognized and remembered as well as those whose lives have been forgotten or whose deaths have been concealed by lies, hypocrisy, and schemes.

Good Friday presents the radical truth that people who do not love God, others, and truth will lie, scheme, work, and even murder God to remain in power. They will do so in the name of God. They will do so while claiming to love their country. That truth is not presented by chocolate bunnies and egg-hunts, but by the lynching tree known as the Cross.

We pay little attention to Holy Saturday. Yet, part of the radical truth of Good Friday and Easter is that we live in a Holy Saturday world under the shadow of Good Friday. We live in a Holy Saturday world where religious, commercial, and political worship of greed, hate, fear, and violence constantly produce suffering, pain, and death.

Whether one is in Arkansas or Afghanistan, the United States or Ukraine, Philadelphia, Gaza, Palestine, or Yemen, people are suffering. People are dying.

Their suffering and deaths are not inadvertent. The suffering and deaths are not natural. It is calculated, deliberate, and willful. It is politically, commercially, and religiously orchestrated suffering and death. It is wicked.

We live in a Holy Saturday world shadowed by Good Friday wickedness, suffering, death, and sorrow on countless levels. Yet, we are inspired by the radical truth of Easter that the power of God’s love is death-proof. God’s truth is hypocrisy-proof, murder-proof, empire-proof, hate-proof, and greed-proof. It is war-proof, demagogue-proof, and imposter proof.

The radical truth of Easter is that death cannot stop God’s love and truth. Hypocrisy cannot hide it. Murder cannot obliterate it. Empires cannot conquer it. Hate cannot prevail over it. God’s love and truth cannot be bought out or sold out.

The radical truth of the resurrection of Jesus is that God’s love and truth are unstoppable. Good Friday wickedness, suffering, pain, death, and sorrow are real. Holy Saturday gloom is real. Yet, the resurrection of Jesus shows that God’s love and truth are more real.

That, beloved, is the radical truth of Good Friday and Easter. That is the truth followers of Jesus are committed to live, teach, and practice day by day, in every breath, every heartbeat, and every context, however strange it may appear.

That is the radical truth followers of Jesus should ponder, proclaim, and celebrate this Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter. That truth should guide our living. May it be so.