Good Friday and the New Sabbath (2 April 2010)
Paya Lebar Chinese Methodist Church (The Methodist Church in Singapore)
Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12
John 18:1-19:42
Meditation on the cross: The violence of human nature and the grace of God
Today the Straits Times headlines say that Singapore will seek an indictment against Romanian diplomat for a hit-and-run death. Today’s reading from gospel of John is also an indictment against the human race. Betrayals, tortures, murders, assassinations – these are all part of our world. From a strictly human point of view, the events that we commemorate today only exemplify the long history of murder and genocide that characterized the human race in every age, from the killing of the Hebrew babies of Goshen to slaughters of the 20th century. In Red Scarf Girl: Memories of the Cultural Revolution by Jiang Ji-Li, we are told of how, during China's Cultural Revolution, family members, especially children were used by the party to spy on the family, and turn them over if they should say against the party. And it’s not only in China that such things happened, as history tells of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and many other places. We are a violent race, and only occasionally have nations owned up to their guilt, such as the recent apology by the Serbian parliament for the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in 2005. What is most disturbing is that some of the most cultured and sophisticated lands have produced some of the world’s worst fiends. The account of Jesus passion is, in part, a study of how ordinary people can become violent. Judas Iscariot, one of the 12, betrayed him for a bag of silver; Peter, suddenly fearing for his own security, flat out denied knowing Jesus. The crowd that thronged to make him king a week ago, demands his execution today. Would we be any better?
Good Friday is a meditation on the cross of Jesus. And it confronts us with the twin realities of our dreadful human nature on the one hand, and the marvelous grace of God that is able to transform us. For in the mystery of God, who, in all things works for the good, the death of Jesus is pivotal for the fulfilment of creation. His death, horrible as it is, becomes the entrance to the new Sabbath, the goal of creation, God’s reign of peace and justice. God took the worst and made it the best. Before explaining that, let’s look at some details of the crucifixion.
The cruelty of a legalistic sabbath
As you heard the passion narrative today you may have noticed John’s reference to the Sabbath. “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath” (19:31a). In fact, John points out a special cruelty that was justified by strict or legalistic observance of the Sabbath, a cruelty that contrasts sharply with the Sabbath rest that God intends for all of creation. “Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down” (19:31b). Rather than being a day of rest, Sabbath had become a legalistic institution that needed to be preserved at all costs.
The reason for breaking the legs probably has to do with the physiology of crucifixion. Studies on affects of crucifixion suggest that the posture of the crucified placed extra stress on the heart and lung, so that you must continually push and pull yourself up to keep breathing (Cahleen Shrier, In Focus, Azusa Pacific University website. http://www.apu.edu/infocus/2002/03/crucifixion/ accessed April 1, 2010). While a stronger person might last for days, in this case a special Sabbath was arriving at sundown. It simply wouldn’t do to have crucified people hanging around. Too messy; besides the law prohibited it. “Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse” (Deuteronomy 21:23). So one practice to speed death was to break the legs, eliminating the ability of the crucified to push themselves up and breath. They would die sooner and the bodies could be discarded for a clean Sabbath.
Are we like that sometimes, as we try to be religious, do we end up doing greater violence to those around us? In the rush to fulfil religious duties, do we become monsters to our family members? Do we rage against spouse or children or parents on the way to church? Are we more interested in keeping up appearances of religious respectability than sharing the love of God. John Wesley said that the “righteousness of a real Christian” is not about keeping up appearances, but living a holy life that springs from “a holy heart” (Sermon 25 “Sermon on the Mount – Discourse 5,” Jackson [Providence House, 1995], 325).
So the soldiers broke the legs of those crucified with Jesus, but when they came to our Lord, they found he had already expired. To certify death, a spear is thrust into his, releasing the fluid that has built up around his severely stressed lungs and heart. By dusk, a small remnant of Jesus followers performed the final kindness of wrapping his body in grave clothes. Our Lord, “despised and rejected” a “man of sorrows,” was placed in the tomb.
And then there must have been a great quiet over the land. J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion closes with the word, “Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh!” “Lie, thou softly, softly here. Rest thy worn and bruised body. Lie thou softly, softly here. At thy grave, O Jesus blest. May the sinner, worn with weeping comfort find in thy dear keeping, and the weary soul find rest, sleep in peace, sleep thou in the father’s breast.”
The new Sabbath
There are several traditions about what actually happened to Jesus at his death, one based on 1 Peter 3:19, and preserved in some versions of the Apostles Creed, that Jesus descended to the land of the dead to redeem the saints of old. For the Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jesus’ death ushered in the new or true Sabbath, in fulfilment of the creation story itself. Genesis 1-2 speaks of God’s ordering of creation, in which everything leads to the day of rest. “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” The goal of all creation is God’s Sabbath rest. But the book of Hebrews tells us that disobedience prevented God’s ancient covenant people from entering that rest. Through Christ’s death, the way to Sabbath rest is initiated. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God” (Hebrew 4:9). Paul in Romans also reminds us that even creation groans. The ancient Byzantine hymn speaks the wonder of the new Sabbath:
In the Orthodox Church tomorrow is Great Saturday, a day in which they envision all the saints, who have gone before us in death, now gathered in Sabbath around Christ, and awaiting his glorious resurrection.
In the new Sabbath, God gives us grace for transformation. I have list of five Rs, means of grace, for God to transform us. You might think of others.
• Reflect on our own violence, especially toward family members, and how it comes from the same impulse that put Jesus on the cross.
• Repent of that sin.
• Remember Jesus, and call on him to remember you – “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
• Release your control and anger; let God take over.
• Restore – your congregational theme says "be restored and grow." We can be restored as we make room for the Spirit in our lives.
Today as we quietly depart from this place, let us enter with Christ into that Sabbath rest, not a legal but a spiritual Sabbath. For we know that because of Jesus’ death all things have become new. We are no longer bound to the old ways of violence that shred human society. We need not be bound any longer by fear of death. Jesus has faced it down, and now waits in Sabbath for a new day.
Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12
John 18:1-19:42
Meditation on the cross: The violence of human nature and the grace of God
Today the Straits Times headlines say that Singapore will seek an indictment against Romanian diplomat for a hit-and-run death. Today’s reading from gospel of John is also an indictment against the human race. Betrayals, tortures, murders, assassinations – these are all part of our world. From a strictly human point of view, the events that we commemorate today only exemplify the long history of murder and genocide that characterized the human race in every age, from the killing of the Hebrew babies of Goshen to slaughters of the 20th century. In Red Scarf Girl: Memories of the Cultural Revolution by Jiang Ji-Li, we are told of how, during China's Cultural Revolution, family members, especially children were used by the party to spy on the family, and turn them over if they should say against the party. And it’s not only in China that such things happened, as history tells of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and many other places. We are a violent race, and only occasionally have nations owned up to their guilt, such as the recent apology by the Serbian parliament for the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in 2005. What is most disturbing is that some of the most cultured and sophisticated lands have produced some of the world’s worst fiends. The account of Jesus passion is, in part, a study of how ordinary people can become violent. Judas Iscariot, one of the 12, betrayed him for a bag of silver; Peter, suddenly fearing for his own security, flat out denied knowing Jesus. The crowd that thronged to make him king a week ago, demands his execution today. Would we be any better?
Good Friday is a meditation on the cross of Jesus. And it confronts us with the twin realities of our dreadful human nature on the one hand, and the marvelous grace of God that is able to transform us. For in the mystery of God, who, in all things works for the good, the death of Jesus is pivotal for the fulfilment of creation. His death, horrible as it is, becomes the entrance to the new Sabbath, the goal of creation, God’s reign of peace and justice. God took the worst and made it the best. Before explaining that, let’s look at some details of the crucifixion.
The cruelty of a legalistic sabbath
As you heard the passion narrative today you may have noticed John’s reference to the Sabbath. “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath” (19:31a). In fact, John points out a special cruelty that was justified by strict or legalistic observance of the Sabbath, a cruelty that contrasts sharply with the Sabbath rest that God intends for all of creation. “Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down” (19:31b). Rather than being a day of rest, Sabbath had become a legalistic institution that needed to be preserved at all costs.
The reason for breaking the legs probably has to do with the physiology of crucifixion. Studies on affects of crucifixion suggest that the posture of the crucified placed extra stress on the heart and lung, so that you must continually push and pull yourself up to keep breathing (Cahleen Shrier, In Focus, Azusa Pacific University website. http://www.apu.edu/infocus/2002/03/crucifixion/ accessed April 1, 2010). While a stronger person might last for days, in this case a special Sabbath was arriving at sundown. It simply wouldn’t do to have crucified people hanging around. Too messy; besides the law prohibited it. “Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse” (Deuteronomy 21:23). So one practice to speed death was to break the legs, eliminating the ability of the crucified to push themselves up and breath. They would die sooner and the bodies could be discarded for a clean Sabbath.
Are we like that sometimes, as we try to be religious, do we end up doing greater violence to those around us? In the rush to fulfil religious duties, do we become monsters to our family members? Do we rage against spouse or children or parents on the way to church? Are we more interested in keeping up appearances of religious respectability than sharing the love of God. John Wesley said that the “righteousness of a real Christian” is not about keeping up appearances, but living a holy life that springs from “a holy heart” (Sermon 25 “Sermon on the Mount – Discourse 5,” Jackson [Providence House, 1995], 325).
So the soldiers broke the legs of those crucified with Jesus, but when they came to our Lord, they found he had already expired. To certify death, a spear is thrust into his, releasing the fluid that has built up around his severely stressed lungs and heart. By dusk, a small remnant of Jesus followers performed the final kindness of wrapping his body in grave clothes. Our Lord, “despised and rejected” a “man of sorrows,” was placed in the tomb.
And then there must have been a great quiet over the land. J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion closes with the word, “Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh!” “Lie, thou softly, softly here. Rest thy worn and bruised body. Lie thou softly, softly here. At thy grave, O Jesus blest. May the sinner, worn with weeping comfort find in thy dear keeping, and the weary soul find rest, sleep in peace, sleep thou in the father’s breast.”
The new Sabbath
There are several traditions about what actually happened to Jesus at his death, one based on 1 Peter 3:19, and preserved in some versions of the Apostles Creed, that Jesus descended to the land of the dead to redeem the saints of old. For the Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jesus’ death ushered in the new or true Sabbath, in fulfilment of the creation story itself. Genesis 1-2 speaks of God’s ordering of creation, in which everything leads to the day of rest. “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” The goal of all creation is God’s Sabbath rest. But the book of Hebrews tells us that disobedience prevented God’s ancient covenant people from entering that rest. Through Christ’s death, the way to Sabbath rest is initiated. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God” (Hebrew 4:9). Paul in Romans also reminds us that even creation groans. The ancient Byzantine hymn speaks the wonder of the new Sabbath:
Today a tomb holds Him who holds creation in the hollow of His hand; a stone covers Him who covered the heavens with glory ... What is this sight that we behold? What is this present rest? The King of the ages, having through His Passion fulfilled the plan of salvation, keeps Sabbath in the tomb, granting us a new Sabbath. (Biblicalia, archive of Eastern Orthodoxy, http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/?cat=27)
In the Orthodox Church tomorrow is Great Saturday, a day in which they envision all the saints, who have gone before us in death, now gathered in Sabbath around Christ, and awaiting his glorious resurrection.
In the new Sabbath, God gives us grace for transformation. I have list of five Rs, means of grace, for God to transform us. You might think of others.
• Reflect on our own violence, especially toward family members, and how it comes from the same impulse that put Jesus on the cross.
• Repent of that sin.
• Remember Jesus, and call on him to remember you – “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
• Release your control and anger; let God take over.
• Restore – your congregational theme says "be restored and grow." We can be restored as we make room for the Spirit in our lives.
Today as we quietly depart from this place, let us enter with Christ into that Sabbath rest, not a legal but a spiritual Sabbath. For we know that because of Jesus’ death all things have become new. We are no longer bound to the old ways of violence that shred human society. We need not be bound any longer by fear of death. Jesus has faced it down, and now waits in Sabbath for a new day.
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