LEFT CENTER RIGHT

Left, Center, Right, Jamestown, NC

It’s good to be back at the gym a few days each week after the prolonged COVID lockdown.  I not only use that time to get some much-needed physical exercise, but I also use the time to unplug from all electronic devices and meditate on life.  Today I had just finished a lesson plan with a handout for our adult class at church this Sunday.  We’re studying the timely Amy-Jill Levine book on the Witness at the Cross and my session involves the “other two” that were crucified to the left and right of Jesus.  Earlier, James and John had been chided for asking to be seated to the left and right of Jesus when his anticipated kingdom arrives.

After giving this some thought, it occurred to me that our lives are replete with images of left and right, including all symmetric objects like our very own bodies!  Our politics involve left progressives and right conservatives.  And then there are the centrists that attempt to walk the middle line and work diligently to find that middle ground of compromise that can help everyone move ahead without a stalemate.  I wondered if there was something to be learned about Jesus not crucified alone, but with human beings also crucified to his left and right that Holy Friday. 

It's been noted that the gospels infer that Barabbas may have been a freedom fighter or revolutionary against the oppressive Roman occupiers.  He was scheduled to be crucified on this day along with the other two, but the crowd chose Jesus.  It’s been said that "One person's freedom fighter is someone else's terrorist".  It just may be that these two men whom church legend names Gestas and Dismas were captured with Barabbas while they were fighting against the oppressing Roman army and tried as enemies of Rome.

Having the two condemned men on either side of Jesus enabled a final dialog among the three of them while they were still capable of speaking.  Gestas mocks Jesus asking him to save them if he is the Son of God, while Dismas asks Jesus to accept him into his kingdom.  Jesus replies that he will be with him in paradise that day.  Soon all three men on the left, center and right had succumbed to respiratory and heart failure.

As I was driving home, I entered a major intersection with four lanes.  The Way included a left turn lane, two center lanes and a right turn lane.  I had the choice of wandering off left and right or continuing on in either of the two center lanes.  So, I decided to continue my life’s journey along the center path to paradise. 

BLACK FRIDAY GOOD EASTER

CRUCIFIXION

BLACK FRIDAY 2022

The use of the term “Good Friday” seems to date way back in time when good represented an obsolete sense of pious or holy, such as “good tidings” for Christmas. I prefer to use the alternative name for that day which occurred over two thousand years ago as Black Friday. The sun stopped shining and darkness came over the whole land for three hours in the middle of the day as all nature mourned the impending death of its Creator. For the first time in all creation, the Father was temporarily separated from relationship with the Son. The temple curtain was torn apart in that hour. The curtain symbolically separated the court of the people and the Most Holy Place where only the high priest could enter once a year to atone for the sins of the people. Now, Jesus’ death removed the barrier between human beings and God so that His sacrifice could pave the way for the atonement of all sins and the promise of eternal life through the grace of God.

But just a cursory sense of how a Roman crucifixion on a wooden cross was executed should give anyone pause to consider how that horrific act could be considered as good.   During scourging, a person was stripped naked, tied to a post, and then flogged across the back, buttocks and legs by Roman soldiers.  This excessive whipping would weaken the victim, causing deep wounding, severe pain and bleeding.  Some didn’t even survive the flogging.
Once Jesus was nailed to the cross,” In order to breathe out, Jesus had to push down on the nails in His feet to raise His body, and allow His rib cage to move downwards and inwards to expire air from His lungs...  His movements up and down the Cross to breathe caused excruciating pain in His wrist, His feet, and His dislocated elbows and shoulders...  Jesus was in Heart Failure and Respiratory Failure.”  --Dr. C. Truman Davis

Given the pain and suffering entailed, it's no wonder that crucifixion spawned the word “excruciating” meaning "out of the cross."

Some folks justify the term Good Friday because it was good for humanity that the Son of God sacrificed his life in our place.  It was good for the Son of God to do God’s will which was to motivate humanity to follow him.  If humanity had carefully listened to his message of loving God and our neighbors, the cross may not have entered into history.  But there were men of power who considered him as a threat to their control of the masses and interfered to kill him.  They succeeded, but as Dietrich Bonhoeffer has written, “The resurrection tells us that the worst thing is never the last thing.”

I’m good with Good Easter Sunday.

THE FIRST BENEFICIARIES OF BLACK FRIDAY

Black Friday, Internet Domain

As we start the season of Lent and move toward holy week, Good Friday looms ahead prior to Easter Sunday. I prefer to use the alternative name for that day which occurred over two thousand years ago as Black Friday. The sun stopped shining and darkness came over the whole land for three hours in the middle of that day as all nature mourned the impending death of its Creator. For the first time in all creation, the Father was temporarily separated from relationship with the Son. The temple curtain was torn apart in that hour. The curtain symbolically separated the court of the people and the Most Holy Place where only the high priest could enter once a year to atone for the sins of the people. Now, Jesus’ death removed the barrier between human beings and God so that His sacrifice could pave the way for the atonement of all sins and the promise of eternal life through the grace of God.

Just before Jesus was condemned to death on a Roman cross, however, a man named Barabbas had also been condemned to death. It was a Passover custom for the Roman ruler to pardon one prisoner. Barabbas had been convicted as a revolutionary insurgent and murderer. Interestingly, he was guilty of the same false charge against Jesus. Finding no fault with Jesus, Pilate offered the riotous crowd either Jesus or Barabbas to be set free; assuming they would chose the obvious guilty man. But Barabbas was spared certain death on that day and given new life while Jesus was sent to the cross in his place.

The names of many Jewish men of the day were derived from their father’s name. Interestingly, Bar means “son of” and Abba means “father”. Barabbas could be the son of any father--you or me. Jesus was crucified with two condemned men also dying on either side of him. One hurled insults but the other recognized His divinity and pleaded for him to "remember me when you come into your kingdom". And Jesus answered him; "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise". Only this one man was able to see beyond the seeming devastation of the cross to the triumph of the eternal Kingdom of God. As he breathed his last on the cross, Jesus softly spoke, “Father (Abba), into your hands I commit my spirit”.

We are all sons and daughters of our eternal Abba and after the events of Black Friday, we are all now the beneficiaries of His priceless grace. Grace means there is nothing we can do to make Him love us more and nothing we can do to make Him love us less. We only have to look to the cross to understand the full measure of His love. The condemned Barabbas was given a pardon for a second chance at mortal life, but the unknown dying man on Calvary received a last minute reprieve for eternal life!

EASTER QUESTIONS

A New Beginning, Wrightsville Beach, NC

The recent focus on the events of this Easter season always gives us pause to ponder philosophical questions. Probably the key question that is asked would be “What would have happened if Jesus had not risen from the tomb and defeated death”? C. S. Lewis has noted if that had happened, Christianity would have drifted into the sands of time and never been heard of again. That event was pivotal in the course of God’s grace being dispensed to humankind.

And then there was the impetuous disciple Peter. When Jesus was betrayed by Judas with that infamous “kiss of death”, Peter’s knee jerk reaction was to draw his sword and cut off the ear of a servant of the high priest. Jesus immediately asked them, “Am I leading a rebellion that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me”? Jesus was leading a revolution, not a rebellion! Later, just before sunrise as Jesus was being tried, Peter fulfilled Jesus’ prediction and denied that he ever knew him, not once but three times. When he realized what he had done, he left weeping bitterly. What if a distraught Peter had hung himself after denying Jesus three times? He would not have been the person that Jesus appointed as the rock that He would build his church upon. This kingdom of God would ultimately be founded on the principles of weakness, poverty, suffering, loving and serving others, and remembering Jesus when breaking bread.

And then there was Judas the turncoat. Judas was the man this little band of brothers relied on to manage the finances and carry the money bag. He understood what sustained the inverted kingdoms of this world—power, money, swords and clubs. He was looking for a warrior king to vanquish the oppressing Roman rule of his people. Jesus was a big disappointment to Judas and so he betrayed him. Then, when he realized what the thirty pieces of silver had accomplished, he went out in anguish and hung himself. The term “kiss of death” now means an intimacy with something that subsequently causes your destruction. BUT, what if Judas had only waited three days? The resurrection showed all of the remaining disciples that Jesus was indeed the Son of God and they all went on to live inspired lives. Perhaps a forgiven Judas would have been the rock and redirected the rest of his life to the new revolution. A converted Paul that had originally persecuted Christians went on to write a significant part of the New Testament.

We absolutely know that God can bring good out of any bad situation that develops as mortal men continue to exercise their free will. And He will use the most unlikely human candidates to accomplish His will to demonstrate that His acceptance is available to anyone. History would then have recorded Judas as one of the most revered disciples instead of the most repulsive after the events of Easter. Both Peter and Judas illustrate the axiom that “It is better to be a follower who fails, than one who fails to follow”. What about us?

THE FIRST BENEFICIARY OF BLACK FRIDAY

Black Friday, Internet Domain

As we move along in the holy week, Good Friday looms ahead prior to Easter Sunday. I prefer to use an alternative name for that day over two thousand years ago as Black Friday. The sun stopped shining and darkness came over the whole land for three hours in the middle of that day as all nature mourned the impending death of its Creator. For the first time in all creation, the Father was temporarily seperated from relationship with the Son. The temple curtain was torn apart in that hour. The curtain symbolically separated the court of the people and the Most Holy Place where only the high priest could enter once a year to atone for the sins of the people. Now, Jesus’ death removed the barrier between human beings and God so that His sacrifice could pave the way for the atonement of all sins and the promise of eternal life through the grace of God.

Just before Jesus was condemned to death on a cross, however, a man named Barabbas had also been condemned to death. It was a Passover custom for the Roman ruler to pardon one prisoner. Barabbas had been convicted as a revolutionary insurgent and murderer. Interestingly, he was guilty of the same false charge against Jesus. Finding no fault with Jesus, Pilate offered the riotous crowd either Jesus or Barabbas to be set free; assuming they would chose the obvious guilty man. But Barabbas was spared certain death on that day and given new life while Jesus was sent to the cross in his place.

The names of many Jewish men of the day were derived from their father’s name. Interestingly, bar means “son of” and abba means “father”. Barabbas could be the son of any father--you or me. Jesus was crucified with two condemned men also dying on either side of him. One hurled insults but the other recoginzed His divinity and pleaded, "remember me when you come into your kingdom". And Jesus answered him; "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise". Only this man was able to see beyond the seeming devastation of the cross to the triumph of the eternal Kingdom of God. As he breathed his last on the cross, Jesus softly spoke, “Father (Abba), into your hands I commit my spirit”. We are all sons and daughters of our eternal Abba, and after the events of Black Friday, we are all now the beneficiaries of His priceless grace. Grace means there is nothing we can do to make Him love us more and nothing we can do to make Him love us less. We only have to look to the cross to understand the full measure of His love. Barabas was given another chance at mortal life, but the unknown dying man on Calvary received a last minute chance at eternal life!