“For this, I was born,” Jesus tells us. For this? Today’s Gospel rocks us with its injustice, its inhumanity, its great wrong.

For what is the crucifixion, if not the highest wrong? A friend, with a belly full of bread, betraying his leader–and that leader, knowing it, stepping forward to receive that betrayal (turn the other cheek?? demands my 12-year-old every time we discuss middle school behavior. Why should I let him hit me again?? That doesn’t make any sense!) I’m with you. And I’m with the ear-slicing disciples. Gethsemane: He who can save himself, choosing not to. What is that?

It is a king who does not behave as a king. A follower who fails to follow. A tyrannical Roman ruler tuned inexplicably to human reason and justice. 

The Good Friday story is senseless. The crucifixion is the world turned upside down, sickeningly at odds with the most blatant truth. It is the person whose life is addicted to substance abuse. It is the child, raised in love and abundance of every kind, now living an adult life far away, angered and estranged–for what reason? It is the marriage that once meant everything, the very compass of a couple’s life, now struggling to stay on the map. It is tragic death. It is tortured life. It is daily life, so well intended yet filled with need, loss, brokenness, confusion, corruption, and sin.

It is also, as the Gospel tells us, the power of life itself, humbling itself on the hard wood of the cross, for us. For our sake. Who needs sense, when we have sacrifice?

This is not to say we have an unreasonable faith–by no means! But it is to say that life’s ultimate gain–life in Christ–is not made by reason. Nor by merit. If the crucifixion story is filled with examples of the One who had the power choosing not to use it, then our walk to the cross must be the story of we who do not have the power turning to the One who does! For we cannot save ourselves. We cannot really even improve ourselves, contrary to the cry of our self-help era. Sure, we can manage our time more efficiently, learn the intricacies and daily delights of parenting, learn to fix a washing machine, lose weight, stick to resolutions of every kind more religiously, but we cannot save ourselves.

The message of the cross is stop trying! What we must crucify this Friday, here at this cross and in this Christ-called community, is the urge to go our own way. “All we like sheep have gone astray,” Isaiah prophesies, “we have all turned to our own way.” But Jesus is the way, and in him the works of the law are dead. The Law, the Jewish Torah, all those 607 precepts and principles and policies by which an individual might be “right-wized” or made righteous–in the sight of God, that died on Golgotha! So, then, the Crucifixion is about dying to the Law as having any real power in our lives to bring us into communion with Christ.

Take a minute to note how many times in today’s Gospel the people follow the rules. In the process of crucifying their one Lord, notice how they take special pains to follow all the rules! They refuse to enter Pilate’s headquarters “so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover.” They request that the bodies not hang over the Sabbath, “especially because the Sabbath was a day of great solemnity.” Even on being handed by Pilate the perfect out–a custom–that is, rule, which stipulates that one captive may be released at Passover, the people choose to keep that rule with a bandit, Barabas. To Jesus they apply the full letter of the Law. “We have a law,” they respond to Pilate,” and according to that law he ought to die because he claimed to be the Son of God.” The law? Which law is that? The one which God overturned when he revealed himself in the flesh?

Here we are, committing the greatest wrong, and yet we’re following all the rules! The question I always have upon hearing this story, is why did they follow the little rules at the expense of the big one? “For God so loved the world that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (3:16) Why can’t there be a John 3:17a: “and the world so loved their God, that they heeded His Word and believed on the one who was sent…” ? And yet, that is not to be. Believe in me. Believe in me, cries our Lord from the Cross. “For this, I was born, to testify to the truth.” Listening to the truth of Christ rather than meticulously following our own set of rules seems to me to be the number one message of the Cross.

“For this, I was born,” Jesus tells us, only inches and moments away from that hard wood and the nails. The Eastern Orthodox churches have an image, a very powerful image that is especially applicable on Good Friday. It is the baby Jesus, wrapped in swaddling, lying beneath the shadow of the Cross of Golgotha. For theologically speaking, the wood of the manger and the wood of the Cross are one and the same. “For this, I was born…”

The Crucifixion comes to us as, yes, the greatest wrong the world has ever known. A tragedy of human iniquity. It is also, we learn today, the highest fulfillment of God’s will. John’s Gospel is filled with reminders to the reader just how many events took place and words were spoken such that the scriptures might be filled. Christ’s long walk to the cross this week hits every prophetical nail on the head (forgive the pun). Five times in today’s reading alone John makes a point of saying that the scriptures are being fulfilled. Which scriptures? Scriptures like Isaiah’s prophecy in today’s Old Testament reading: “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.” Through him, the will of the Lord will prosper.”

From this day forward, all that we look at and live through is imbued with the shadow of the Cross. Christ came into the world, not that he would take away sin and pain, but that he would stand with us in that pain. Emmanuel: the manager and the cross are one. Look again: the very incarnation is pierced by the crucifixion. Look again at the pain and anguish that you know, have known, in your life….the incompleteness, the great gaps, the losses, the broken dreams, the regrets, the disappointments and failures. All those dry bones. Look and see: in the shadow of the Cross, which is the brightest light you and I will ever know, those dry bones will walk again. Yea, they will dance. We must leave off trying to find our own way. Our own glue. Our own flesh. Leave off trying to follow all the little rules, and take confidence that Christ has stood once and for all time in that place of greatest senseless sin, making it HIS. Making God ours. Go to the Cross, and there you will find sense.

And a peace which passes all understanding.

Let us pray, in Paul’s words: “Therefore, my friends, since we have the confidence to enter this sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us a curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with true hearts in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean of evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.” AMEN.