April 10, 2020

by | Apr 6, 2020 | Peace Newsletter

Holy Week – A Fatally Flaw Friday?

Mark 14:53-65  Jesus interrogated by the high priest, chief priests, the elders, and the scribes

Mark 14:66-72  Peter denies knowing Jesus

Mark 15:1-15  Jesus interrogated and sentenced to death by the Roman Govern Pilate

Mark 15:16-20 Jesus tortured by the soldiers

Mark 15: 21-32  Jesus’ continued torture and execution

Mark 15:33-41  Jesus’ death

33 When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 35 When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” 36 And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” 37 Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son

40 There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41 These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.

A Fatally Flawed Friday?

The Friday of Holy Week begins before dawn and takes up a little more than a chapter in the Gospel of Mark. The outline of the day is above if you would like to read about all the events. 

You may notice I use different terms than are usually used for the events of Jesus’ last day. These terms that are traditionally used:  Jesus is on trial before the High Priest and then on trial before Pilate, Pilate then hands Jesus over to be crucified, the soldiers mock Jesus and then Jesus is crucified. 

I prefer terms that we can hear today that are connected up with authoritarian governments; Jesus is integrated – it is not a trial in the modern sense of the world, Pilate does not hand Jesus over to the Jews who are then responsible for Jesus’ death. Pilate sentences Jesus to death and then hands him over to the soldiers who torture him. Jesus is not mocked; he is tortured to death. He was flogged, had a crown of thorns so thick that they could be embedded in his skull, and was tortured to death by the Romans in a way that was reserved for their worst enemies – crucifixion.

This horror of torture has been slowly turned into an abstract, “Jesus died for our sins” in such a way that it has no connect with Jesus’ life and how it can impact our lives. It has turned into the cliché, “if you believe you are a sinner and accept Jesus died for your sins, you can be saved.” 

Let’s take a deeper look. The word we use today for “sin” was first used as a military term, used centuries before Jesus’ life, for Greek archers who could not hit their mark during battle. So, sin has something to do with “missing the mark.” It was then pick up by the Greek Philosopher Aristotle and used for tragic Greek heroes as the word to identify their fatal flaw. So, sin has something to do with being “fatally flawed.” 

Now let’s look at Jesus life and death reflecting how his torturous execution helps us understand who he is and who we are.

I like to think of Jesus life as a campaign on behalf of God’s governing grace, which he call the “Kingdom of God.” He campaigned and proclaimed a gracious kingdom in a Roman Province where power was maintained by violence. 

As his campaigning and proclaiming began to gain popularity, what were the Roman authorities and those Jews that collaborated with them supposed to do? They did what every authoritarian empire does to leaders of movements that oppose them, they torture and execute them.

This is the fatal flaw of empires. But not only empires, it is the fatal flaw of any nation or person who seeks to maintain power through any form of violence. But it is not only their fatal flaw, it is the fatal flaw that runs deep in the human species that gives us a tendency to too easily strike out rather than offer grace. It seems, as a species we struggles daily on personal, interpersonal, social, national, and international levels with the “fatal flaw” of violence that gives us a “tendency to miss the mark” of grace. This is what the death of Jesus, when seen within the context of his life, shows us.

We are at the turning point as a species, can we intentionally build a grace filled future or are we too fatally flawed that we are condemned to bringing about our own destruction?

This is the question that we need to struggle with today, on the Friday of Holy Week.