They cried out, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate asked them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but the emperor." Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.
John 19:15-18 (NRSV)
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
Psalm 22:1 (NRSV)
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.
Isaiah 53:5, 8 (NRSV)
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you."
Mark 16:1-7 (NRSV)
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.
Isaiah 25:6-7 (NRSV)
The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:22-24 (NRSV)
Conservative Christians view the crucifixion as a sacrifice made on our behalf to cleanse us from the evil in our hearts. Progressive Christians read it as the ultimate act of resistance to the powers that be, the empires of violence and exclusion.
Neither view is entirely incorrect, but held in isolation, both fall short. For both fail to grasp the actual event: the salvific and redemptive love that takes on evil to reveal it as finite.
Yes, there is darkness in our hearts. And yet, this darkness is not who we truly are. When it crumbles in waves of love, we realize that the core of our being is always fed by the Divine Source. Our sin is but scum on the Living Waters.
In the same way, our institutions are fraught with ills, and yet, they nourish and protect us even as they perpetrate injustice. Which is exactly what we do to ourselves. Their brokenness is but ours.
The real victory of Christ is this: in taking on evil and suffering, darkness and injustice, he exposes them as limited in power, inferior to truth and love. No matter how great the pain, healing is always possible. No matter how deep the dark, it can barely conceal the spacious light of day.
To uncover this reality, however, we must take on ourselves that which obscures it. In facing our personal and public darknesses, over and over again, we discover the light that is hidden within them.
In dying to what is, we find a joy more lasting and more nourishing than the fleeting pains and pleasures of the world.
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