The Death of the Messiah: Why a Cross?
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
March 28, 2004 The Fifth Sunday of Lent
Mark 15: 16-39; I Corinthians 1: 18-31
During the Lenten season, particularly late in the season as we journey with Jesus ever closer to Jerusalem and Holy Week, we come face to face with the fact that the God we believe in is not just any God, not just any belief, not “It doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you believe in some god.” No, in this season; above all seasons, we dare to proclaim that we believe in the God we have come to understand and have seen revealed, in and through Jesus of Nazareth.
My favorite preacher, Fred Craddock, says it like this: “Jesus is the one who came to reveal God. When you think of it that way, the gospel becomes a rather beautiful and comforting story, because this man, Jesus, was so caring and gentle, going around teaching and preaching and healing. He was a blessing to everybody he met, regardless of who they were. So we can say to ourselves, ‘This is the way God is; not cruel and judging and harsh, but caring and lifting and loving. It’s a beautiful thing to believe in such a God.’” But, continues Craddock, “Sooner or later somebody is going to ask you, ‘Well, then what happened to this Jesus?’ And you will have to tell the truth: he was sentenced to die and was executed.” And the means of Jesus’ execution was not lethal injection or a gas chamber. No, he was nailed to a cross, where he was left to die, suffering for hours in the hot sun. There is no way to soften this. Crucifixion was a terrible, cruel, painful, slow, bloody death. New Testament scholar, Dominic Crossen, refers to crucifixion as nothing less that “state-sponsored terrorism.” This is what happened to Jesus, this beautiful, gentle, kind and caring man – this man who came to reveal God – left to die on a cross.
And so we have a little problem here. Because when you truthfully answer the question about what happened to Jesus, some people are going to walk away. They aren’t interested in a man who died like that and certainly not interested in any group that would see that event as somehow central. Look at the major symbol defining our worship space…a cross!
I’ve written before about a retreat I attended up in Mendocino County at Wellspring a while back. We spent the week with Marcus Borg (that was before he became so famous) talking about the historical Jesus. And inevitably, at the end of the week, we got around to His crucifixion and death. Most of the people, in spite of the fact that we were talking about Jesus, were not church folks. When we got to the cross, they had strong feelings. They found it repulsive, grotesque. It sounded to them like primitive human sacrifice; the idea that this could somehow be God’s will made God sound like he was guilty of nothing less than child abuse. Who would want to worship a God who would demand a blood sacrifice? Many of you have told me that the cross of Jesus continues to be a roadblock on your own path of faith. Why do we even need it? Why can’t we just tell nice stories about Jesus healing and teaching and preaching? The cross is so darn offensive. As one theologian has said, “Any church or any preacher who keeps preaching on the cross is not going to grow, because in our culture what we are interested in is success, not sacrifice.” A number of years ago, a pastor in San Francisco stood up before his congregation and said, “The cross has been the symbol of sacrifice and the acceptance of pain and suffering, and we are tired of it. We are not going to be a part of this anymore.” He then walked over and tore down the cross from the church. No more suffering. No more pain. No more weakness. Should we do that – tear down this huge cross?
Interestingly, looking at our text, clear back in the first century, the Apostle Paul seemed to feel the same kind of pressure about the cross – foolishness, weakness, a stumbling block to faith. But his response was this: “We proclaim Christ crucified.” He had to preach the cross, even though the surrounding culture regarded the message of the cross as foolish and weak, as something that made absolutely no sense. Why did he say that? Why did he insist he had no choice but to preach Christ crucified? Well, in all honesty, I don’t know. I can’t tell you what Paul was thinking. But I can tell you what I think he was thinking.
At that same retreat up at Wellspring, there was only one other minister, Fran Geddes, a colleague of mine. He was for many years the minister at our UCC church in Fairfax. Fran is also very involved in healing ministry, and in the spiritual growth movement in Marin County. He is fairly well known in the new-age circles of Marin and a lot of those folks were at our retreat. So as we were talking about the cross toward the end of that week, they were absolutely shocked when Fran Geddes of all people, said he still affirmed the cross of Jesus. He then told the tragic story of his son: When the family lived in San Francisco, his son went to school there in the city and rode the Muni bus every day. One day, coming home from school, he was the last one off the bus. This day, as he was getting off the bus - he didn’t know it, the bus driver didn’t know it – as the door closed, it caught some of his coat. The bus pulled away and before anyone could do anything, the boy was swept under the bus, run over and killed instantly. A tragic accident, it was no one’s fault, really.
Fran described for us the incredible dark night of grief that he and his wife went through. He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sleep, he didn’t know how he could ever pick up his life again. He said one night as he was lying awake, as he did so often then, he had this vision, this image of Jesus on the cross. He said in that moment, he suddenly realized, as he thought of Jesus on the cross, he realized, “that there was no pain I could feel that God didn’t feel, there was no grief I could feel that God didn’t feel.” In that moment he realized how intimately God shared this painful time in his life. He knew, in that moment, “Jesus walks with me." Geddes concluded, “And because of that, in my ministry, I will always affirm the cross of Christ.”
Why preach Christ crucified? Perhaps because it is only a crucified Christ who can help. Only a crucified Christ can meet us in the depths of our pain, our grief, our darkness. Only a crucified Christ can serve as a window into the great heart of God, revealing a God who loves us endlessly because God suffers with us endlessly; a God who does not circumvent our pain, but who rather chooses to enter into our pain. On the cross we meet a God willing to go to any extreme to meet us where we are as we are. As one author has said: “Jesus on the cross was not a teacher anymore. He was a teaching – a window into the depths of God, a God who enters all the torn and broken, places in our lives.” Paul says, “I have to preach that!” And so do I.
And then one final point. (So many points, Tara and I thought that maybe next year at Lent, we should spend every Sunday with a reflection on the cross, but one quick final point today) Why do we preach Christ crucified? Because we must never forget that Jesus was killed in the name of law and order, in the name of peace and quiet, in defense of scripture and creed. It was all perfectly legal…perfectly logical. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, pretty well trashes the high priest, Caiaphas, who presided over Jesus’ trial. He wants to get rid of Jesus from the very beginning and we never really know why. Pilate, on the other hand, is treated rather sympathetically, pressured by Rome, pressured by Jewish leaders, pressured by his wife, he doesn’t want to get involved in this religious dispute, he wants to get rid of it. But how is he going to keep the peace he wonders? One author has suggested that in this film, Pilate comes across as a Roman Dr. Phil. One can almost feel sympathetic for this Pilate, forgetting that the real Pilate was a brutal despot who would crucify anyone at the drop of a hat. But no sympathy for Caiaphas - we don’t get to think about his motives, what he might be thinking and how he might be trying to keep the peace between the people and Rome. But the hard fact of the matter here is that probably both of them were just doing their job, and as a result, Jesus is executed. Nothing personal, Jesus, it’s just that we really have no other choice. Jesus is not killed by malice, by hatred, by vice and corruption. He is killed by piety and due process, as a threat to both church and state. Little wonder that I have heard Good Friday called, “the most political day for the church.” On the one hand, Jesus, harbinger of the kingdom of God. On the other side, Pilate and Caiaphas, representatives of the kingdoms of this world, political and religious, protectors of the status quo, defenders of conventional wisdom. Whose kingdom, whose politics, will triumph? Whose kingdom, whose politics, will we choose? For if Jesus is Lord, then Caesar, in whatever form Caesar might take, cannot be.
Jesus just won’t compromise. He won’t buy into their kingdom. He won’t buy into ours. And the cross won’t let us forget that. The vultures are perched low over his head, his friends have vanished, enemies are everywhere, laughing at him even as he dies, yet he continues to speak the truth, to live the truth, even though it brings all the kingdoms of the world crashing down upon his head. Is this the Lord for us?
After worship today, we will walk out into the late-March sunshine and all of our kingdoms will be there – the courthouse, the hospital, the corporate headquarters, the school, the shopping mall, the bank, the military base, even, yes, the church. Here are our kingdoms. Here is our power. Here is our security – seemingly something we can never get enough of anymore – we will elect whoever promises the most! We honor the world’s kingdoms, we bow before their thrones and images, we thrill at all that they promise.
And then we stand before the cross, and we are struck with the harsh realization that these kingdoms, which you and I hold dear, are the very kingdoms which conspired to put Jesus there. Jesus crucified in the name of law and order, peace, piety, and prosperity.
Do you recall the scene in the film, Gandhi, where the British and their Indian cohorts have come to break up a demonstration being led by Gandhi? The British arrive with trucks, heavy armament and soldiers – they possess all the symbols of worldly power and influence. Gandhi and his followers have nothing…just themselves and their conviction. They are ordered to disperse. They are warned that if they refuse to disperse, they will be forcibly moved. Again, it would seem that the empire has all the power. Gandhi tells his followers to stand firm, and not to respond to the threats of violence with violence.
The beatings begin. As the soldiers beat down one group of men, another steps forward to take their place. All day and into the night the beatings continue. The resisters step forward, receive the blows, but do not strike back. A reporter on the scene radios this report back to England: “This day the British Empire lost any claim to moral justification.” Without a shot being fired, the Empire was defeated and dismantled by another kingdom of a very different source.
And folks, that is the cross. It speaks of another kingdom – the Kingdom of God – taking form in our world, not with government buildings, military bases, shopping malls and tax subsidies, but around a table, with ordinary people sharing bread and a cup, and answering a call to follow an alternative path of justice and compassion, of personal and political transformation. This is no philosophy, no set of abstract ideas to be debated and discussed. This is a way of life, a way defined by One who is willing to go into the deepest darkness that he might lead us through the darkness. “I have to preach that,” said Paul. And yes, so do I.