When I was growing up, the covers of Time magazine always featured someone who was newsworthy that week. One issue stood out, however, since the cover was black with the eye catching bold statement, “God is dead.”
That cover comes to mind when I hear Jesus say, “It is finished.” Then John tells us, “And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.” We hold the belief that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine; the two beings woven into one, the second person of the Trinity. So, if the human person died on the cross, so did the divine.
We must not fictionalize or trivialize what happened on Calvary that day. Jesus really suffered more than any of us can imagine. Do not presume that being divine, he felt pain any less than we do. If anything, he suffered more intensely. Having seen the movie, The Passion, I winced at the pain he must have felt as the crown of thorns was placed on his head. I cringed with each flick of the whip that made his back flinch. I recoil as the large nails were pounded into his wrists and feet. John certainly doesn’t minimize the violence of Jesus’ crucifixion. Unlike the rendering of the passion that we find in the other gospels, the Jesus of John’s gospel goes to his death with dignity. John’s Jesus is in control of his destiny. He has chosen this death. He gives Judas the go-ahead sign. He has answers for Pilate’s questions. He arranges for the care of his mother. He offers forgiveness to the criminals on either side of him. Having finished the mission entrusted to him by his Father, he even has the last word, spoken not with an air of defeat but of victory, “It is finished.”
He did not die in vain nor did he die for a misty mass called humanity. He died for Adam, for Judas, for Mary and John; he died for both thieves who were crucified with him. He died for you and me so that someday we could be with him in paradise. He died willingly because he loved us intimately and unconditionally. Exhausted, suffocating, and bleeding profusely, Jesus breathed his last. His body was finished but not his spirit, which lives on in those who follow him.
On Easter, he returned to pass the mission of building the Kingdom of God on to his apostles and to us. If you want to be counted among his disciples, he told us elsewhere in the gospel that we must take up our cross daily. We are here because we want to be saved. We also know that salvation is God’s gift to us, but that gift isn’t automatic. The cross of Christ has to touch us personally and individually.
Think of the many contemporary martyrs who lost their lives because they dared to take up the cross and follow Jesus: Archbishop Oscar Romero, the nuns in Yemen, the priests and many other Christians who have been tortured then killed by ISIS, the religious who were slain in Latin America, M. L. King. They each found their Good Friday, never forsaking their mission to live the gospel to the fullest, rather than lukewarmly, until they too said, “It is finished.”
Thus far Christianity has survived heresy and hatred, sin and persecution. What imperils our faith is our lukewarm attitude. Nowwadays, Jesus Christ doesn’t turn many of the baptized on. We call this event the Passion of the Lord and yet today is just another ordinary day in the lives of many Christians.
I’m not asking for wailing and weeping but I am asking you to let the Spirit of Jesus truly live on in you. You might wonder, “What is the Spirit of Jesus?” For me, the spirit of Jesus is love: visible, evident in action and word. To be loving is my response to the spirit of Jesus. With all the suffering we encounter in the world around us, I am asking you to live out your Christian commitment, to live day after day seizing opportunities to let others witness the ongoing presence of Jesus in our midst by what you say and do.
I’m asking instead that as we venture toward Easter we let others know God isn’t dead. To sum up the message of these three sacred days, God suffers, God dies, God rises again. Or as one minister at our ecumenical service shared in his reflection of Jesus’ last words, “Love suffers, love dies, love will rise again.”