Whole Bones in a Shattered World: John 19:14-42
Good Friday
It was about noon on the Preparation Day for the
Passover. Pilate said to the Jewish leaders, "Here's your king." 15The Jewish leaders cried out,
"Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!" Pilate responded,
"What? Do you want me to crucify your king?" "We have no king
except the emperor," the chief priests answered. Then Pilate handed Jesus over to be
crucified.
16The soldiers took Jesus prisoner. 17Carrying his cross by himself,
he went out to a place called Skull Place (in Aramaic, Golgotha). 18That's where they crucified
him—and two others with him, one on each side and Jesus in the middle.
19Pilate had a public notice written and
posted on the cross. It read "Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the
Jews." 20Many of the
Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city
and it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. 21Therefore, the Jewish chief
priests complained to Pilate, "Don't write, ‘The king of the Jews' but
‘This man said, 'I am the king of the Jews.''" 22Pilate answered, "What I've
written, I've written."
23When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they
took his clothes and his sandals, and divided them into four shares, one for
each soldier. His shirt was seamless, woven as one piece from the top to the
bottom. 24They said to each
other, "Let's not tear it. Let's cast lots to see who will get it."
This was to fulfill the scripture, They divided my clothes among themselves,
and they cast lots for my clothing. That's what the soldiers did.
25 Jesus' mother and his mother's sister, Mary the
wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene stood near the cross. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple
whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, " Woman, here is
your son." 27 Then he said to the
disciple, " Here is your mother." And from that time on, this disciple
took her into his home.
28 After this, knowing that everything was already
completed, in order to fulfill the scripture, Jesus said, " I am
thirsty." 29 A jar full of sour
wine was nearby, so the soldiers soaked a sponge in it, placed it on a hyssop
branch, and held it up to his lips. 30
When he had received the sour wine, Jesus said, " It is completed."
Bowing his head, he gave up his life.
31 It was the Preparation Day and the Jewish leaders
didn't want the bodies to remain on the cross on the Sabbath, especially since
that Sabbath was an important day. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of
those crucified broken and the bodies taken down. 32 Therefore, the soldiers came and broke the
legs of the two men who were crucified with Jesus.
33 When they came to Jesus, they saw that he was
already dead so they didn't break his legs. 34 However, one of the soldiers
pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. 35 The one who saw this has testified, and
his testimony is true. He knows that he speaks the truth, and he has testified
so that you also can believe. 36 These
things happened to fulfill the scripture, They won't break any of his bones.
37 And another scripture says, They will look at him
whom they have pierced.
38 After this Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate if he
could take away the body of Jesus. Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but a secret
one because he feared the Jewish authorities. Pilate gave him permission, so he
came and took the body away. 39
Nicodemus, the one who at first had come to Jesus at night, was there too. He
brought a mixture of myrrh and aloe, nearly seventy-five pounds in all. 40 Following Jewish burial customs, they took
Jesus' body and wrapped it, with the spices, in linen cloths. 41 There was a garden in the place where
Jesus was crucified, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever
been laid. 42 Because it was the Jewish
Preparation Day and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus in it. (CEB)
For the past month or so, I’ve been
in love with a video game called “Gris” developed by the Spanish studio Nomada
and published by the French Devolver Digital.
It’s a platform-adventure game in watercolor and orchestral sweeps, and
it has no words. Everything is imagery,
and the images are incredibly powerful.
The game opens
with a girl in the palm of a statue. The
girl, blue-haired and covered in a long, dark grey cloak, sings to the statue
until black shadows cover everything and break the statue. The girl falls, and falls, and falls, and the
player’s part begins when she lands in a completely greyscale world where she
cannot sing, cannot jump, can barely walk forward without collapsing. The game, you see, is to work through the
five stages of grief. We are never told
what her particular grief is for, but each level brings back one color, one
ability, one step at a time as the girl discovers the strength and hope to
heal.
Part of the
magnificent imagery is the statues littered through each level. Some of them are whole, but cracked—pictures
of a girl curled up in sobbing sorrow, of a girl raising stone-empty eyes to
the sky. Some of them are merely pieces;
an arched foot here, an open hand there, the lifeless curve of a shoulder. At the end of the game, the statue from the
beginning returns in pieces and the girl sings them back together until she can
climb into the statue’s hand and lean against the stone cheek, weeping at
last.
The final
statue blinks, sings back, and offers the girl a lift into the stars. The final statue is cracked the whole way
through.
I find it one
of the most amazing decisions the game developers made, that the statue comes
back together but does not fully heal.
The cracks remain forever; the tragedy will always have happened; the
ability to move forward is not in ignorance but inclusion of the thing that
shattered them both. There is no
resurrection that disavows death.
John’s
portrayal of Jesus, writes Professor O. Wesley Allen, Jr., “as the one who in
some sense choreographs his own suffering and death reinforces the presentation
of the crucifixion as an element of God’s plan instead of a defeat which God
must overcome with the resurrection.”[1] William Loader agrees that, “John presents
Jesus as assured and confident throughout. There is none of the brokenness of
Gethsemane and the cry of despair we find in Mark. The confidence of Christian
faith which knows that this is really a confrontation between the human and the
divine paints Jesus as an icon of faith.”[2]
I will admit,
on this Friday we call “good,” that I’m not usually much a fan of John and his
gospel. He’s my best friend’s favorite,
so I tread lightly, but I’m far more of a Luke guy myself. I sometimes find John’s adherence to
symbolism frustrating because of the certainty with which he writes it. Everything points to the conclusion;
everything is fortified by the strength and power of God. It is no accident that the very first sign in
the gospel of John is the transformation of water to wine at a wedding in Cana
and the last action of the Christ is drinking wine after saying He is
thirsty. It is a cycle, a dance, a
deliberate show of control from the beginning when there was the Word until the
end of all things with the triumphant Christ.
This passion narrative—from Latin passio, “suffering”—of chapters
18 and 19 is overflowing with moments of an assured Christ walking with
measured steps to a death He knows, and we two thousand years later know, is
not permanent.
And I’m glad
of that, I am; I can preach on Friday only because I know that Sunday is
coming, that my black robes will be swapped for white and there will be dancing
here on the chancel. But at the same
time, I am so frustrated with John’s reassurance because I don’t know what to
do with it. I preach a resurrection
faith in a crucifixion world, and I, like the girl in Gris, know that the
statue will always have cracks.
I wrote and
rewrote this every time I read my news feed over the last few days; I wanted to
talk about how Psalm 34 is a celebration of God’s deliverance—“taste and see
that the Lord is good,” for “the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves
those who are crushed in spirit. The
righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them
all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.”[3] Yet I have been watching brokenness splinter
in the Tennessee legislature as the partisan body expelled Representatives
Justin Jones and Justin Pearson—two of the youngest black lawmakers in the general
assembly—for speaking out against the idolization of guns.[4] I want to talk about the long history of
anti-Semitism that John’s words have inspired and how it was impossible for the
Jewish people to make a “right” move when they were crushed under the imperial
heel of Rome that did not care about their holy rituals or their hopes as the
chosen people. Yet I have been watching the
infection of imperialism spread with another rocket attack on Lebanon and the
Gaza Strip that included a strike that hit a children’s hospital.[5] I wanted to talk about how beautiful it is
that Jesus gave His mother a family even while He was actively dying because
Mary would have no protection in society without a husband or son and He was
making both a grand declaration of love triumphing through His death and
resurrection but also this wonderful, small announcement that no one would be
left behind, that the last and the least were seen and taken care of. Yet I have been watching state after state
tear transgender children away from any kind of support system and care and
tell trans adults that we are no part of society but are to be broken and left
by the side of the road for the sin of being ourselves.
I wanted to
preach on the fact that John riddles his account of Friday with the hope of
Sunday and that not even the bones are broken, but I am surrounded by the
pieces of shattered statues and I cannot sing in the shadow of this Roman
instrument of death.
In the first
level of “Gris,” the character can’t do anything. She cannot jump, she cannot run, she cannot
move objects. When the player tries to do any of these things, she slumps to
the ground. Yet the only way to play the
game is to move, to take each agonizingly slow step until the world swirls
around you and you gain the ability to run again, to go and find the stars you
collect to keep playing. The only way to
be able to have a world full of color again is to trust that the gray is not
forever and to keep going as though it matters to try.
It is Good Friday,
people of faith, and we have crucified Jesus with our hatred and our
selfishness just as thoroughly as Rome did.
It is Good Friday, and we will continue our day knowing that the statue
will always have cracks, that Jesus will always have died, that we remember
this every year not because it’s fun but because it’s true, and necessary, and
right to remind ourselves that Easter Sundays anchor their light in the shadows
of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. It
is Good Friday, and all your other plans for today will be covered in the
knowledge that the resurrection is not yet.
And.
And, it is this
Friday, and the resurrection is already.
It is this Friday, and the statue has been brought back together
and we can sing through tears and sorrow because we keep walking. It is this Friday, and this is the
gospel of John that demands we recognize the triumph of love over and over and
over again in the found family that protects, in the strength and courage of
the Jewish people who celebrate the hope God gave them in the form of Passover,
in the wild miracle of bones that were not broken. This is the gospel of John in which Jesus
says not that “I am finished” but that “it is finished,” that the work of
salvation, salve, healing is done and handed to us as we huddle with our
chosen mothers and brothers and siblings and loved ones because it is our turn,
now, to find the broken pieces of each other and say I see who you are,
whole and beloved, and I have a story of hope to share..
The trauma and the grief and the
sorrow are always part of the story; Friday is always part of this week called
Holy; the scar in Jesus’ side is always there.
And the joy is coming, is here in a beautiful sunrise and dinner
with friends; Sunday has happened and will happen again; the bones are not
broken. Truly, we say to each other,
truly this is the Son of God and we, here, now, believe.
It is finished. Let us begin again, again, again.
Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment