April 3, 2015
Nearly every Good Friday service, every year, I end up crying my entire way through the service. There’s a lot of people around me who can make it through the service without all the ugly tears - so don’t take this as an “uber-Christian-weird-emotional-thing” but for me every year Good Friday is essentially attending the memorial service of a really, really good friend who died a violent and brutal death out of love and compassion for others, and those “others” include me.
This isn’t just any friend. This is the kind of friend who you sit down with and have long conversations with over tea. Take one of those genuine people who just really wants to know someone for who they are, who strives to love each person for who they are, and that’s the kind of person who Christ is to me. In fact, this is a friend who not only wants to know me for all of who I am - in all my good and bad - and pushes me to be that “unmasked person” as much as I possibly can around them all the time (and loves me through all of that) but this is the kind of friend who wants to know me so much that he crawls into the hole of my suffering so that he can understand what I’m going through - so that he can be a better friend to me and love me in the way I need to be loved right in the midst of my pain.
… and it isn’t just me - it’s everyone in the world He loves that much.
Isaiah 53 says:
"Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (NKJV)
I honestly believe that when it says “He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” - that literally what that means is that when Christ was carrying the cross, he was LITERALLY bearing the weight of the griefs and sorrows of humanity - all our pain - across all of time.
To me this means that he experienced the horror of war, the constant struggle of poverty, the despair of hopelessness.
He experienced the pain of parents who have lost a child, the loneliness of an orphan, the ache of a missing spouse.
He experienced being oppressed, abused, misused, betrayed.
He knows what it is to be misunderstood - to be the outsider/outcast/weirdo.
He experienced the suffering of someone dying from cancer/parkinson’s/alzheimer's/dementia/etc., as well as the pain of their family and loved ones as they watch the person they love waste away.
He gets what it feels like to be without a voice - to be disabled, have cerebral palsy, down syndrome, autism, asperger’s, depression, anxiety attacks.
He was me - when I was a teenager with parents going through a divorce.
The awkward kid growing up and being a general misfit.
The broken heart from my first romance.
He IS me -
With my daily frustrations, grievances, sorrows, and pains.
And all the million hairline fractures and gaping fissures of heartaches and fears that still lay ahead of me in having kids, trying to be a good mom, do well at my job, grow old (or maybe not so old), and eventually die - and who knows what else along the way.
When it says that the Lord “hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” - I actually believe that when Christ was nailed on the cross that he experienced all the brokenness and pain of humanity - of all time - and bore every. single. bit of it.
This means that he was the rape victim - and the rapist.
He was the molested child - and the pedophile.
He was the trembling kid hiding under the bed in tears and bruises - and the alcoholic dad.
He was the beaten up “loser” - and the class bully.
He was the person experiencing racism - and the bigot.
He was the murder victim - and the murderer.
He was the children in Syria - and ISIS.
He was the LGBTQ teenager who felt driven to commit suicide - and the classmates who thought he/she deserved to die.
He was the person bearing the brunt of the little white lie that diverted the blame - and the person who told it.
He was the person cut by the insult, and the person who wanted to get back at the other by any means possible.
Everything - from the most heinous and atrociously evil act that has ever been done in this world - to the most innocuous and everyday things we do that we know are inherently wrong - all of those sins AND the full consequences of all those actions were laid on him to bear the “chastisement” and punishment so that justice would be done - and yet peace and reconciliation could be restored.
To me - the only way he could have borne all of that and not died in an instant - is because He IS fully God and fully Man. Because if He was just God - he couldn’t have borne it as one of us. And if he was just Man - he wouldn’t have been able to withstand that amount of agony and evil.
Which begs the question of Why??
Hebrews 2:17-18, 4:14-16, 5:7-10 says:
Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted...
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. (ESV)
For a long time I really struggled with what it meant when it says that Christ was “made perfect” through suffering… isn’t God supposed to ALREADY BE perfect? How could he be “made perfect,” ESPECIALLY through suffering?
Until it dawned on me… that because God IS perfect, Christ COULDN’T be the perfect mediator for us UNLESS he experienced suffering and sin.
“Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect,” because otherwise… how could he actually be the bridge between imperfect men and a perfect God?
Experiencing suffering - bearing our sorrows and griefs and the chastisement of our peace - is what made Him the perfect mediator for us… and because of that He can honestly say to God: “Dad, I’ve been there. I’ve been IN HER SHOES. You don’t know what it’s like, but I do. Perfectly. And I’m asking you to let me cover for her. We agreed that justice had to be done, and I’m willing to take both her sin and the pain it causes - let’s reconcile and bring her back in love.”
I don’t know who Christ may be to you… but I can understand why a lot of people may recoil at the name. He might be the excuse someone gave you to refuse serving you or a loved one because you/they are gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/queer - or the reason your parents gave you for throwing you out of the house when you told them you were LGBTQ - or told them you were pregnant - or that you weren’t going to go to church anymore because you were following another religion/weren’t following one at all. Perhaps He’s the reason the pastor/priest gave you or your mother or sister/friend for why you/they should go back to that abusive marriage. Maybe you associate Him with the Westboro Church - or people picketing outside of abortion clinics - or those people standing on corners holding signs with lists of all the people God hates.
Or maybe you don’t believe that there is a God at all - and all those people are crazy. Or if there is a God, maybe there’s a lot of them… Or maybe you grew up in the Christian church and you’ve had your fair share of being burned and also being embraced by people in the church.
Whatever the case may be, I hope that you know at least one or two or perhaps quite a few decent people who are Christian - and maybe it just seems like one of those odd parts of their personality that you don’t really get, but I hope it actually makes them kinder/more compassionate people.
But if there is a God out there - which I hope (and believe) that there is - then at least I wanted to share with you that the Christ that I worship and adore and want to follow - is the kind-of friend who is crawling into your hole of suffering to be there with you.
Who has come out of a place of privilege - complete and utter perfection even - to experience imperfection and suffering - to go through heartache and headache, tiredness, pain, frustration, even torture and death - to bear your sorrows and griefs, from the everyday to the extreme - to take upon himself the chastisement of peace and reconciliation - so that He could better know and understand you. So that He could be a voice alongside of you. So that He could love you - TRULY love you - and fully understand what that means. So that He could be the perfect propitiation - instill perfect justice - and yet achieve restored relationship with you - and not just any relationship... but the kind of relationship that is deep and abiding and soul-giving and soul-enriching. The kind of relationship that holds through pain and suffering and horror and fire and joy and reconciliation and new beginnings and all the cycles of life.
He’s the kind of friend at whose memorial service every year I have tears streaming down my face because I wish I could understand more of how much He loves me… I wish you could understand more of how much He loves you… I wish I could understand more of how much He loves you… because I think if we did - it would truly and honestly revolutionize our world.
