The Rev. Abel E. Lopez
John 19:28–31, 38–42
About sixteen years ago, I visited the Niagara Falls. I was
driving and finally came to a point where I could park, get out of the car and
see the incredible magnificence of the fall. As far as my eyes could see there
were these beautiful different shades of green from the trees and blue raging
water that made me think of life as the unstoppable force of the universe, and
that that life was God. It was an
amazing experience. The beauty and splendor of the view is difficult to grasp
by someone else’s description or even by seeing a good photograph. What I found
particularly amazing as I was standing there, was that despite the incredible
grandeur of what I was seeing, if I would just turn around and face in the
other direction, all I would see is a parking lot, a flat lifeless area. Which
way I was facing made a huge difference in the view. We can be in the same
spot. Where we stand is important, but also the direction we face because it
determines what we see. Every year during this Good Friday service I’m reminded
of that old experience I had at the Niagara Falls.
Please, summon all of your senses; your imagination and
stand with me at the cross for a moment. I want you to look with me in that direction.
Biblically speaking, what we see in today’s reading is a
landscape of anguish. Today’s gospel story is a reading that pushes us into a
world of darkness, betrayal, naked power, cowardice and of death. We see
violence, betrayal, humiliation, suffering, abandonment, cruelty, devastated
hopes, bloodshed and death. Wouldn’t you tremble at the scene? Imagine the
trauma of a mother at seeing her own son nailed to a cross, in pain, in agony? How must have been for the others Mary and the
disciple Jesus loved? Did Jesus have a
break down moment because of the upcoming betrayal of Judas, one of his own,
his friend; or was he greatly disappointed with Peter’s violent action of
cutting off the ear of Malchus, which contradicted the nature of God’s Kingdom
and Jesus’ ministry? Jesus tells Peter: “Put your sword back into its case!
Most likely meaning: I’m not about retaliation, cruelty and violence but about
love, forgiveness, acceptance and compassion.
Do we have the bravery to witness such horror today? My friends, in this 21st century
what crucifixions are we witnessing in our time? How our modern crosses look like? Who are we hanging in them? Are you on a cross?
I once read how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. After the caterpillar spins its cocoon, its
body and all its organs break down into an amorphous, formless soup. But within this lifeless paste are a few
cells that scientists call “imaginal cells.”
It is as though their molecular structure has the “imagination” for a
whole new creature. And as these
“imaginal cells” begin to gather themselves together, a genetic code wakes
up. These “imaginal cells” use the old
carcass as their nutrition, and they multiply and grow into a new body, a
beautiful new creature with wings that seeks its way to freedom, flight and
migration--things that the caterpillar knew nothing of.
I wondered if Jesus might have gone through something like
this spiritually in his way from the garden to his death in the cross. I like
to believe that maybe Jesus’ spirit’s imaginal cells took over, and reorganized
his whole being in a way that was totally free of sadness and distress; free of
fear, free of his own suffering and death.
This is our potential and our destiny as spiritual beings. I
believe that you and I can go through the same transformative, imaginal process
spiritually and theologically. I’d like very much for that to be our experience
particularly, in regards to the way much of Christianity has interpreted and
formulated a theology of the cross, an atonement theology that can so easily
freeze our growth and faith at the caterpillar stage.
That theology tells us that “Jesus’ crucifixion is God’s
design and will.” That in my mind is
sadistic theology. I believe God doesn’t want death on the cross for any, much
less for Jesus, God’s own. It
seems to me that an anthropology of the cross is essential to a theology of the
cross because it helps us to know more clearly who we are as human beings and
how it is that we so tenaciously cling to our idols, our dark gods to perform
our dark deeds against one another and somehow inflict suffering and feel
justified in doing so.
As I think about our life journey’s and the journey we will
take today, I want to speak to you in
the Good Fridays of your own life. It is not a perspective on suffering, but
rather a perspective from your suffering.
First, I personally believe that the suffering of Jesus is
not what makes this week holy. Rather, it is holy because of the inexplicable
and immeasurable love that prompted that suffering. So, today I want to remind
you of this magnanimous, infinite, life giving love, a love that took the son
of God all the way to the cross. I want
more than anything, for you to know, in the depths of your soul that this same
love remains with you today. Know that
where ever you are, in the low of the valleys, alone and lost in the forest, or
standing and declaring victory from the tallest hill the love of God always
break through to embrace you with the warmth and comfort. God will also break
down your cocoons of life and help you find your imaginal cells and organize
your life around the gifts you would love to develop and offer to the world.
God will let your body and mind be linked to your heart and soul. God will let your words speak the language of
love. You are a child of the Eternal.
Your purpose is to find as many ways as you can to link your mortal life with
the eternal by loving yourself and others and by making that love a reality in
your own life, in someone else’ life, and in this world at large.
This transformation that renews
our minds and carries us beyond our own ego drive for pleasure, comfort and
security, places us at a higher vantage point.
From that vantage point we see that there are no inherently “evil”
people or inherently “good” people–just people with the capacity for both good
and evil. From that vantage point we can
see how deceit, violence, domination, and exploitation set in motion the energy
of destruction. And we can see how compassion, generosity, forgiveness, and
selfless sacrifice set in motion the energy of creation.
When you begin seeing the world
in this way, you are no longer content to just “get along” or “go along” with
the way things are. You become willing,
even compelled, to throw your gifts, your time and your life into God’s ongoing
work of transforming the kingdom of greed into the kingdom of God.
One person who became very well
known for seeing that and acting on it, was Mahatma Gandhi.
Gandhi believed completely and
totally in what he called “truth force,” “love force” or “soul force.” Gandhi staked everything on his belief that
the truth of our inherent interconnectedness is woven into the fabric of
creation, and that it has an unstoppable dynamic power within it. When we align ourselves with it, it transforms
us, the world around us, and even those who oppose and persecute us.
So as Gandhi struggled to
liberate the people of India from colonialism, he persuaded the Indian freedom
fighters not to fight against their enemies, but with courage and compassion,
make themselves vulnerable to them.
Their actions countered their oppressors in a way that confused and
disarmed. They said:
“We will match our capacity to
suffer against your capacity to inflict the suffering,
our soul force against your
physical force. We will not obey you, but we will not hate you. Do what you
like, and we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.
And in the winning of the
freedom we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you. So
ours will be a double victory; we will win our freedom and our captors in the
process.”1
I
believe that this Good Friday service offers an invitation to reposition
ourselves; it calls us to examine where we stand as a human race, as followers
of Jesus, as individuals. Where we stand as a church today is important. The
direction we face will reveal what we see, will determine what we do, will
define our mission. It calls us to turn the flat lifeless desolations of our
time into a landscape of justice, peace, beauty, reconciliation and love. Amen
1. E. Stanley Jones, Mahatma Gandhi–An Interpretation,
published in 1948, and later re-published by Abingdon Press under the title Gandhi–Portrayal
of a Friend. The piece quoted is
from pp. 88-89 in both editions.
No comments:
Post a Comment