Finding good in Good Friday, humanity
With polarisation, distrust and violence all on the rise in our contemporary world, there is a different way on display in the very human story of Easter, writes Andrew Shepherd
Easter is, literally, the crux of Christianity. At Christmas, Christians celebrate the Incarnation: the audacious belief that God comes into the world as a baby, vulnerable and receptive to experiencing all the complexity of human life: joy and despair, pain and pleasure, love and grief.
But three decades later, the life of this Jewish rabbi is ended brutally. Viewed as a political agitator, his ideas, actions, and growing popularity threaten the imposed status quo and fragile concord of firstcentury Palestine.
Jesus, like thousands of others before him, experiences the horror of execution by crucifixion – a mode of state terror, humiliating and excruciating, devised to invoke fear and serve as a deterrent.
Over Easter, Christians around the globe will gather to remember this story.
Gospel accounts draw attention to Jesus’ awareness that he was under surveillance by authorities, his life under threat. He is betrayed by Judas, deserted by his supporters, subjected to a hastily arranged kangaroo court, and condemned by a political bureaucrat uninterested in providing moral leadership.
The gospels don’t shy away from the physical, emotional, and mental suffering of Jesus. They describe how unwelcome occupying military forces, despised by locals, unleash their anger on the helpless innocent prisoner in their hands.
The Easter story is thus a very human story. Parallels between this episode from two millennia ago and our contemporary world are clear to see. Overseas, dissidents are murdered by despotic regimes, corrupt courts perpetuate injustice, descendants of victims of historical hatred perpetrate violence on others. Closer to home, populist, pragmatic politics takes precedence over principles and due process.
On a personal level, the story also rings true. Who of us hasn’t experienced the loss of friends, the betrayal of colleagues, a sense of abandonment, isolation, physical pain or psychological suffering? Which of us has not felt, at some point in our lives, the emotions present within the Easter story: anxiety, loneliness, anger, hatred, guilt, grief?
Good Friday, of course, is a misnomer. Little in the story is uplifting or morally praiseworthy. As an account of man's inhumanity to man, the Easter story is a brutal read.
For Christians, the episode illustrates the depths of human depravity. Jesus, who creates and sustains the cosmos, enters creation – and humanity, pronouncing ourselves self-made rulers, nails him to a cross. Good Friday exposes the full horrors of the human condition, past and present: our tendency to deny and thus deform the image of God in ourselves and others – our penchant for dealing in death and desecrating the created world.
Good Friday is a disturbing tale of injustice, abdication of leadership, and human viciousness, and yet, in snippets, it displays the best of humanity.
Faithful family standing vigil at the foot of the cross, attentive to the suffering Jesus. The wealthy and well-connected man who prevents a final indignity – Jesus’ body left on the cross to be picked upon by birds before being tossed into an unmarked grave. Instead, this secret follower of Jesus claims his body and lays him to rest in his own family tomb. And yet, for Christians, there is more to be said. Easter is not merely a human story, but ultimately, a divine one.
The primary agent within the events of Easter is God. The gospel accounts climax not with the violence, grief, and pain of Good Friday, but with the resurrection of Jesus, performed by God’s power, that occurs on Easter Sunday.
For those of Christian faith, this miraculous resurrection turns the world upside-down, establishing the basis for a new way of being. The earliest Christians laid claim to the promises of the Hebrew Scriptures, in describing the consequences of Jesus’ resurrection: “Death had been swallowed up in victory. Love is stronger than death.”
And the nature of this new way? In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus, on the cross, asks his Father to forgive those responsible for his murder. This practice of forgiveness and reconciling love, displayed in his bleakest moment, typifies the post-resurrection episodes recorded.
In the Gospel of John, encountering again those who had deserted him in his moment of greatest need, Jesus declares: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
He extends his forgiveness and commissions them to be people of peace – a people who, having received forgiveness, now forgive themselves and those who harm them, thus breaking the spiral of hatred and violence.
Polarisation, distrust, and violence is on the rise in our contemporary world. We are prone to see other people as obstacles to our own ambitions; to hold onto historical hurts that fuel animosity; to normalise the demeaning, devaluing and violent destruction of others.
But at a global, local, and personal level, Easter is still our story. Jesus’ invitation for us to follow a new way as people of forgiveness and peacemaking still stands.
Responding to that invitation is as vital as ever – for ourselves, our communities, and the world.
Dr Andrew Shepherd is a lecturer in theology and public issues at the University of Otago.