A long time ago in this very Galaxy, an Eternal Son took on the form of a human body and was given the name Jesus, for He would save His people from their sins. Exactly how this happened is a deep mystery, but it is obviously something important because we here in the West make a great deal of celebration at the remembrance of His birth. He would turn out to be something powerful and influential – at least according to the many events and predictions meted out at the time of his birth! Some would say He is The One. (Sorry Neo.)
This Friday is the day we see the Promise of Christmas die. His own mother witnesses his abuse, bravely standing at the foot of the cross, her heart torn to pieces whilst standing next to her Son’s bestie. She gained a ‘son’ in His place, and he a mother. Such is the power of the eyewitness testimony of Jesus’ crucifixion.
I considered these events again this week, and thought of the grim obedience of the Roman executioners whose job it was to ensure Jesus’ death was as excruciating and public as possible. Ask them what they were doing and they would tell you ‘my job’. A perfectly acceptable, single-minded, time-bound answer from those who could see no further than their political role in a foreign country’s affairs. They were simply executing judgement on an insurgent traitor.
And they were killing Christmas.
The Roman soldiers were at pains to allow the public shaming and humiliation of any ‘crucifixee’, up to but not including them dying before they reached their final hanging place. It is difficult to bring yourself to the point of imagining what crucifixion would feel like and thankfully the Bible’s description contains mainly those details that would have been familiar to a 1st Century audience. The Roman torture machine was quite coldly efficient. Yet every single wilfully ignorant lash of the whip and strike of the nails would echo in history as the self-condemnation of their own humanity. Every time they assaulted Jesus they wounded themselves.
Every nail strike a self-damnation. Every drop of blood shed testimony against those who drew it.
No wonder Jesus said from the cross “Forgive them Father, they DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.” They were killing the Christmas Child.
Can God die?
Here is their dilemma. As they nail Jesus to the cross they will guard Him until He dies, but God cannot die.
If Jesus can die, then surely He is not God. But If Jesus does not die, then clearly He is some powerful and fearsome ruler to be submitted to and obeyed.
But behind this sits a greater dilemma. If God can die, then He is clearly not a God worth following and whoever dies on this cross is not God. But if God cannot die, then whoever He is cannot relate to my Primary Fear and Deepest Truth, He cannot know my existential agony and meaninglessness, and is therefore not worthy of my worship.
So it is that the nameless Roman soldier who wielded the mallet that drive the crude nails through Jesus’ body was killing the Christmas promise and putting an end to the hope of eternity. He was committing bloody murder on the Eternal Son and heaping eternal damnation on his own kind – humanity. He was proving once and for all that Jesus was neither God nor anything like ‘The King of the Jews’, and would list on his CV that he was an effective and obedient soldier.
A Gordian knot
I don’t want to solve this knotty problem for you. But neither do I want you to avoid it.
IF you make much of Christmas then how does that baby fit into this Easter story? If the death of Jesus was an unfortunate but judicial event, then what is Christmas all about? Same guy, just a bit older. If God cannot die then how is Jesus God? Doesn’t this Good Friday invalidate His Claim? But if Jesus didn’t die, then can He really have compassion on those He claims He came to save? How can he give peace to those who pass through death, if He avoided it?
Sometimes the events of our lives speak to a meaning – a significance – way beyond their mundane reality. They are cosmic, they are eternal, they are resonant of a heavenly chord.
The soldier who nailed Jesus to the cross was part of a cosmic drama he didn’t know, but his commanding officer noticed something. “Surely this man was a Son of God.”
The story of Good Friday asks many questions and provides few answers. The events of Good Friday make little sense in and of themselves. The significance of Good Friday is lost to history, until the you filter them through the events of Sunday morning.
Are you trying to live your life with a dead Jesus and a half finished story? Are you content to be the soldier with a hammer and no questions? Can Christmas stay dead?
Spiritually Homeless 