I went hiking yesterday. Saturday of Holy Week seems like the perfect day to go on a hike. It’s the perfect day to get away from everything, get out in nature, and just think, and ponder, and reflect.
It’s a strange day, that day in between Good Friday and Easter, an empty day in a full week… a day to ponder all the questions and thoughts that this week brings.
I can’t help but think that maybe it was that way for the disciples, too… For them, Saturday was a Sabbath day, a day of rest, a day when their Jewish law dictated that they do no work, which meant they could just sit... and think... and let the thoughts floating around in their minds try to order themselves into some sort of pattern that made sense...
...because on that particular Saturday, there were a lot of thoughts going through heads.
One of the thoughts that I’m sure was on the disciples minds - a thought that crosses my mind every year on the day before Easter - is: Why did Jesus have to die?
It’s a question people throughout history have been asking.
About one thousand years after Jesus was crucified, a church leader named Anselm spent some time thinking about this. (I don’t know if his thinking took place on the day before Easter, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had.)
Anselm wanted to know why Jesus died, why Jesus was killed, and what Anselm came up with was that Jesus was killed because God demanded that someone take the place of all of us who are sinners. Anselm said sin demands punishment, and if we are to be saved, someone who was innocent has to die. In our place.
Anselm was a good man and a good leader in the church.
He was also wrong…. His idea makes no sense. Spend some time thinking about it on the day before Easter, and you’ll realize it makes no sense.
“God demands someone to die.” What kind of theology is that? What kind of a God is that? A God who demands the torture and death of his own son? Who would even want to worship such a God?
No. Our God is the God of life, and life is stronger than death, so why would God demand that someone has to die? How does that even make sense?
Despite its absurdity, Anselm’s idea caught on. Even today, people share this idea of why Jesus died. Even today, it’s hard to find praise songs for worship that don’t include this idea, that Jesus had to die in our place so that we could be saved.
Keep in mind, though, that Christianity existed just fine for 1,000 years before Anselm came up with his “someone must die in our place” idea.
So if that’s not the answer, then what is? Why did Jesus die?
Let’s start by considering that Jesus died in a very specific way: he was crucified.
Crucifixion is the form of capital punishment the Romans used for traitors. Anyone who led a rebellion and was caught was crucified - executed in a graphic and excruciating manner, in a very public place, as a warning to others who might challenge the authority of the emperor.
So the crucifixion was political. It was Rome’s final judgment on Jesus and all he stood for:
It was Rome’s final judgment on Jesus’ proclamation of a new kingdom, and his talk of bringing good news to the poor, and his talk of the first being last and the last being first, and his talk of exalting every valley and bringing down low every mountain.
Rome knew exactly what Jesus meant when he said these things. Jesus meant that all people would be equal, that all people would share in God’s abundance. And for that to happen, those at the top would have to be brought down, so that those at the bottom could be lifted up.
To Rome, this teaching was subversive and revolutionary. It went against the hierarchical society that Rome worked to maintain. It went against all that Rome stood for.
So Rome passed judgment on Jesus, and crucified him.
And when Jesus was crucified, his followers had a lot to think about.
They knew that Jesus died because he challenged the authorities. But they thought God would protect him. They thought God would protect Jesus and that Jesus would prevail. But instead, Jesus was killed.
The crucifixion was Rome’s judgment on Jesus - but was it God’s judgment, too? The disciples wanted to know: Where was God?
One of the most memorable passages in Elie Wiesel’s Night describes the hanging of three prisoners - one of them a small boy - from the gallows in the concentration camp. All the prisoners’ eyes were on that child.
And one of the prisoners said, “Where is God?”
The three chairs were tipped over. The three bodies fell. The two adults died quickly. “But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing...and he remained so for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death.”
The same voice said again: “For God’s sake, where is God?”
And Elie Wiesel wrote that, from within, he heard a voice answer: “where is God? This is where - hanging here from this gallows.”
God wasn’t demanding that child’s death, and God wasn’t demanding Jesus’s death. God was there, on the gallows, suffering under the judgment of the Nazis. God was there, on the cross, suffering under the judgment of Rome.
But Rome’s judgment was not the last word, just like any judgment made by forces of evil and violence are not ever the last word.
God has God’s own judgment to make. And God’s judgment is this:
Death will not win. (That is God’s judgment.) Death will not have the final answer. And the ways that lead to death - hate, and violence, and fear - will give way to love and harmony and peace.
God’s judgment is that life will triumph over death.
God’s judgment is that all the ways that lead to life will triumph over all the ways that lead to death.
And the resurrection shows… that God’s judgment prevails!
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God would never mistreat any of God’s children by demanding their death. It’s Rome that mistreats people, not God. Jesus was mistreated by Rome, but God’s judgment favors those who have been mistreated. God’s judgment favors those who have been victims of hate. God’s judgment favors those who have been victims of oppression.
Remember the Beatitudes? “Blessed are the poor,” Jesus said. “Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the persecuted. Blessed are those who hunger for truth. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are those who work for peace.”
They have all found God’s favorable judgment!
All these who Jesus pronounces as “blessed” are they who have been beaten down by the empire. Rome’s judgment is against all of them… The empire’s judgment is against the poor, against those who hunger for truth...
But God’s judgment is for them, because God is merciful, and loving, and good.
And fortunately for them, God is more powerful than Rome, so when Rome pronounces judgment against them, God pronounces judgment for them; when Rome puts to death the one who proclaimed God’s favorable judgment, God raises him back to life.
Emily Kegler is a Lutheran pastor who has just written a remarkable book called One Coin Found. In it she speaks of God's judgment. She says: the prophets "proclaimed a God of judgment, yes… but the longer I read, the more I found they proclaimed a God of judgment not against the minority on the edge but against the powers of their day."
The powers that oppress and mistreat.
A remarkably intelligent Disciples of Christ colleague of mine, Derek Penwell, has written about this in his book Outlandish. Here’s how he puts it:
“Jesus organized his ministry around politics, a revolutionary politics that challenged the powerful in an attempt to protect the powerless...the ruling authorities executed Jesus to signal their judgment on any challenge to their power…
“Easter is God's judgment on systems of domination, which use violence, coercion and thievery to get and retain the kind of power used to take advantage of the poor and powerless… In raising Jesus God makes the unambiguous statement that the new kingdom of justice and peace will displace the oppressive kingdoms of this world that put him to death.”
It is the oppressive kingdoms of this world that separate migrant children from their families; it is the oppressive kingdoms of this world that deny health care to the people; it is the oppressive kingdoms of this world that deny rights and dignity to transgender people; it is the oppressive kingdoms of this world that cut services to the poor so they can give tax breaks to the wealthy.
God’s judgment may not be good news for them, but it is good news for those who suffer. For the migrant children, for those who cannot afford healthcare, for those mistreated because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, for those who find the economy stacked against them...
God’s judgment is good news. And God’s judgment is good news for those who, like Jesus, hunger for the truth, and who have taken a stand on behalf of the poor, on behalf of the hungry, on behalf of the mistreated.
In his letter from a Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. said that God’s judgment is upon the church as never before. That judgment is bad news for those churches that support systems of oppression, but good news for those churches which seek to undermine those systems and replace them with justice and equality and love for one’s neighbor - all the things that lead to life.
JSo. Easter is God's judgment against a world of death; and Easter is God’s judgment in favor of life, and everything that leads to life.
Easter is God's demonstration that life will prevail, despite this world's deathly ways. Life will ultimately prevail! Life and love are bound together, and they will triumph. All the ways of death will end.
And this is good news for everyone. In First Corinthians it says: “We are not all going to die. We shall ALL be changed.” Eventually ALL will be brought over to the side of life and love. “For God so loved the WORLD.”
And all the deathly ways will end.
Death - and all the ways that lead to death - will be overcome. All the hate, all the abuse, all the greed, will be overcome.
There will be good news of life & love & joy…
… for the poor
… for the forgotten
… for the mistreated
… for LGBTQ folks who are denied their rights
… for immigrant families separated
… for victims of white supremacist hate
… for innocents caught in lands where wars rage
… for all those who struggle to find a place in the world, where they can live in peace, contribute to the good of society, and be who God created them to be.
For them - for us! - there is good news of life & love & joy...
This is the kingdom of life, and it is always God’s judgment that life will prevail.
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