A God who is passionate about us

(To the Sources)

‘…Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?’…’ (John 18:11)

From John 18:1-19:42 (Year A: Good Friday)

(March 2005)

You may know that the ‘Passion of the Christ’ by Mel Gibson is on general release again in cinemas – this time with a relaxation of its restricted rating.  Apparently the gratuitously violent scenes of the scourging have been cut back.  In all the controversy about this film and the memories that it evokes of various devotions and spiritualities across our various Churches I wonder if we might be at risk of missing the point. 

What was Jesus passionate about?  What drove a God of passionate love to endure – in the person of Jesus –  such depths of human violence and cruelty?  Was the ‘passion’ mainly about a series of horrifically violent physical events? Or was it about something much more?  In an unrestricted version of the passion we read in the Gospel of Saint Matthew:

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”–which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

These words echoes those of the Psalmist:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me,  so far from the words of my groaning? (22:1)

I am told that in near death situations, words, images, memories often by past in one’s mind in quick succession.  For some, the words of a Psalm can spring up almost unconsciously.  In the case of Jesus’s loud cry, there is no answer from Heaven as in the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan or at the Transfiguration.  We do not hear ‘Father’ or ‘Abba’ coming from Jesus’s lips but bluntly ‘Eloi’ or ‘God’.  Here is a truly remarkable saying. 

The Son of God cries out in a loud voice: God why have you forsaken me?  If God in Jesus – the sinless one – became ‘become sin’ to quote St Paul – separated from God the Father –  has he taken on all our abandonments, all our despairing, all our meaningless? Has he more than tasted our absence of God, of faith, of hope, or unity?  This narrative and this saying in particular has a striking effect.  Could it be that the saying recorded in the ‘original’ Aramaic was just too haunting to be captured adequately in any way other than the ‘original’?  Is this the ultimate point of the Passion – namely that God has so loved not just the world but every person who will live to such an extent that he sent His only Son to experience the full sense of abandonment?

Is Psalm 22:1 the ultimate prayer for atheists, theists and everyone else besides?  A cry to a God who doesn’t seem to answer in the midst of abandonment?

And abandonment is what we see all around us.  We do not need to be reminded of the painful scenes of children, women and men brutalised by wars, Tsunamis and other disasters.   In our own lives and experience, we know of loved ones abandoned in dementia, of people with incurable illness, of situations that seem to have no solution, of people who are assigned to the margins of our organisations, families, neighbourhoods – even our Churches – because they don’t quite fit in for whatever reason. 

From Calvary and over the centuries we see vicious cycles of cruelty – of Romans against Jews, of Jews against Christians and vice versa, of believers against non-believers, of non-believers against believers, of one group of Christians against another group of Christians followed by retaliation, not to mention ‘holy’ crusades and jihads, of those on the inside against those on the outside.  Into these cycles of cruelty enters the Forsaken Son of God lifted up on the Cross and drawing all to His side.

Rather than constructing a theory of Substitution-Atonement to appease an angry Father …

I find it more meaningful to believe in terms of …

Jesus as pioneer opening, demonstrating and facilitating a way for us in the midst of abandonment by becoming abandoned himself out of love. 

To be risen is to participate in the new life he gives us here and now.

In the beginning was the Word;

And the Word became flesh;

And that flesh became Bread;

Which has now become us;

Broken for a united world;

Returning to the Source from which it came.

The Psalm of abandonment turns into a Psalm of affirmation and hope.  It says:

‘I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you’ (Ps 21:21)

I was shocked and amazed some years ago to hear the words ‘Lema, Lema, Lema’ uttered by a former prisoner of a Nazi Concentration camp speaking, during a sub-titled interview, in Hebrew: ‘Why, Why, Why’. At the heart of every abandonment, a Why spoken or unspoken.  At the heart of every Why a Way forward.  That Way – for me and for us –  is faith in the Risen Jesus.

Somehow the longer I live the more uncertain I become about many things I thought were certain and the less many things make sense to me.  At the same time, I seek to cling, more than ever, to the simple truth of the story of Jesus’s abandonment and resurrection. 

Jesus was abandoned for me, for you, for everyone.  Jesus is risen now, here and now, in our midst wherever two or three are gathered in his name. This is Church, this is Christianity and this is all that I need to know and live by.  All other beliefs, dogmas and truths take their place from the central truth that:

Christ has died

Christ is risen

Christ will come again.

Brother Roger of Taizé has written:

A luminous Gospel insight has come to light after remaining under the dust of the ages for a long time: even if the Risen Christ is unrecognized, he is present, "united to every human being without exception.

He goes on to say:

Where would we be today if certain women, men, young people and also children had not arisen at moments when the human family seemed destined for the worst? They did not say: "Let things take their course! Beyond the confrontations between persons, peoples and spiritual families, they prepared a way of trusting. Their lives bear witness to the fact that human beings have not been created for hopelessness

I believe that we are created for hope and it is in this sense that we can say this Day is a Good Day a Good Friday – because in simple faith and trust we can recognise the Risen Christ walking with us and among us – here in Saint Andrews this evening, in Saint Sylvester’s, in Saint Anne’s, and also in other places and occasions where people have no thought or realisation of the fundamental reality that the Risen Christ is with us.  Despair and abandonment are, ultimately, a transition, a wound in which we can find our risen self in the Risen Lord.

Risen Christ – you are in our midst this evening.  In faith we entrust ourselves to you.  We may feel far from you but you are never far from us.  What you have started for us on the first Easter we can continue.  You are our pioneer.

(spoken on Good Friday, 25^th March, 2005 at the Church of St Andrew’s, Malahide, Dublin)