Easter 2021 He Gave Up His Spirit
People often ask why Good Friday is so Good if the result of
a week in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of the Passover, teaching and making
symbolic gestures, was to end up on a Roman Cross as an example to others not
to do as he had done? Visitors from all over the ancient world had come to
watch, study, and simply gawk one suspects, at the customs such a festival of
Freedom evokes. The Roman hand of law and order and bread and circuses was felt
far and wide, and if the God of Israel had succeeded more than once in
ransoming his people what’s to say it won’t happen again? Perhaps, they are
thinking, we will all be free again.
But of course, it didn’t. Rome burned Jerusalem, The Temple
and much of the rest of Israel to the ground in 70 CE after a real attempted
revolt in the year 69 CE. The goodness of this day is not readily apparent to
all people, but sisters and brothers, it is very good indeed. Because The Last
Supper, Good Friday and Easter are all one continuous event, not the three
discreet, isolated moments our Kalendar and liturgies make it out to be. Against
the oppression of Rome, Jesus charts a different way, a new way, a non-violent
way to secure peace, shalom, and justice for all people everywhere. And that is
very very good!
Good Friday and Easter ask, “Were you there when they
crucified my Lord?” The answer, of course, is Yes. Every time we witness an
injustice like that which occurred that Friday outside the walls of Jerusalem and
we don’t speak out, we are there. As Elie Wiesel and Archbishop Tutu have said
over and over again, neutrality, not speaking out, is to side with the oppressor
every time. That is how they persist year after year, century after century.
John tells us, “Jesus knew everything that would happen to
him.” Seems likely Jesus knew it would not end well. Yet, I suspect even he was
surprised on Sunday morning, after the other two disciples had run off to hide
behind locked doors with all the rest, to all-of-a-sudden see Mary Magdalene
standing, looking at the now empty tomb, descending into grief at having lost
the only person who understood her, but still holding her ground, still waiting
to see him one last time – the only person who made her feel whole, forgiven,
and loved. Not as in being “in love,” mind you, but loved as one of God’s
Beloved. Two angels dressed in white in the tomb ask her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
They have taken my Lord away and I don’t
know where to find him. She turns around and sees Jesus, but does not recognize
him. Then comes my favorite line, as if from an Agatha Christie mystery,
“Supposing he was the gardener,” she asks, “Where have you put him, show me and
I will take him away!” Try to imagine this once broken and now grieving woman carrying
him off all by herself, wrapped up as he is with 100 pounds of aloes! I imagine Jesus smiling as he realizes,
perhaps for the first time, that his appearance was not only surprising, but
must have changed. He says only one word. “Mary!”
Only one person could say her name like that. She feels
whole again. She cries out, “Rabbouni,” which means teacher; teacher, and more
than teacher: visionary, one who walks the walk, one who walks in the Way. The
text is vague, but it appears as if she lunges at him and grabs onto his feet
as if never to let him go again, because he says, “Do not hold onto me as I
still have to ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and yours! Tell the
boys I am risen, I am ascending, I am going home!” It appears she might have
held back his ascension, but instead she becomes the first evangelist, the first
sent by God to announce the Good News!
Listen, she says. Not only is he not in the tomb, he is no
longer dead – dead as we last saw him high on the cross as he breathed his
last. Or, as John puts it, “Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” His
last most precious gift to the whole world: his ruach, his spirit, his
breath. He breathes his last and at once his breath joins with all breath
blowing throughout the world, so that when we breathe in, it is a portion of
his Spirit that inspires us. We all become the Magdalene. Like her we are changed.
We are made whole. He is risen. And so are we!
It is just so like Jesus. They did not take his life on the
cross. He would not let them. He gave it up so that we all could live with his
Spirit in us. How could any thing be more-good than that? How could any day be
more-good than that day that he willingly gave up his spirit for us? Every
single one of us all around the world! There had never been another day like
that ever. There has never been a day like that ever again. Except perhaps that
day Dame Julian saw everything, all things, in some-thing the size of a
hazelnut. Or, when Martin King went to Memphis to sacrifice his time, his
energy and ultimately his life as part of his Poor People’s Campaign on behalf
of some 1,300 African-American Sanitation Workers. Or, when Gandhi led the Salt
March. When Archbishop Tutu stood firm against Apartheid. When Bonhoeffer
returned to confront Naziism in the name of Christ. When John Lewis walked
across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Every time Mother Theresa touched an
untouchable and breathed on them the breath of God. Jesus gave up his Spirit,
and people like all of them and more have accepted his Spirit as their own.
Make no mistake about it, there are those who have used
Jesus’s name, who did not take his Spirit upon themselves, and therefore have
done great tragic and evil things in his name. Make no mistake about it, when
the church became the organizing principle for the Empire of Constantine and
beyond, much harm has been done and continues to be done in the name of Jesus. But
that he gave up his Spirit and there have been those who have breathed that
Spirit not only into their own lives, but into the lives of others, eclipses
all of that! That is what makes Good Friday not just good, but very good for
all who open themselves to receiving the Spirit he gives up on the cross. That
cross that was meant to warn people not to do the things that he had done, but now
inspires people not only to do the things that he does, but, as he promises,
greater things than these they have done, they still do, and will do forever
until the end of time itself.
Maundy Thursday, ending in his arrest, was dark and dreary, but
the one who is the life and light of the World continued to shine, and still
does! The Spirit-Breath of God blows mightily across the land and around the
world for any and all who will receive it and become one more person walking in
the Way of the Cross – the Cross of Jesus. It is no longer, nor ever will be
again, a Roman Cross. He not only redeemed the cross that day on Golgotha, but
he offers redemption, forgiveness and love for all who are simply willing to
risk breathing in that Spirit he gave up that day for one and for all, now and
forever.
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed!
Alleluia! And so are we! And so are we!
Amen. So be it! It is truth!
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