Justice Done on Somebody Else

The news from Kenya spiked another deep sorrow in me this Good Friday.  I say "another" because I find myself overwhelmed by the way religions have been co-opted by those who bring violent harm during the course of my adult years and ministry.

When my son was in his first year, my wife took a photo of the two of us as I lying on the floor holding him aloft in my arms.  It was one of those parental pure joy moments.  But what we didn't consider is that the television news was on behind the scene of the tow of us.  Onscreen was a photo of Sadaam Hussein during the runup of a middle eastern war.  It was a kind of foreshadowing of the transition from conflict of ideologies in the Cold War that framed my youth to the conflict of religions and worldviews that predominates today.

There is a middle verse in a hymn by Ebeneezer Elliot from a time just prior to the founding of my congregation in the mid-nineteenth century.  That hymn was written into Godspell some years ago.  Here is that verse:

"Shall crime bring crime for ever,
Strength aiding still the strong?
Is it thy will, O Father,
That man shall toil for wrong?
'No,' say thy mountains; 'No,' thy skies;
Man's clouded sun shall brightly rise,
And songs be heard instead of sighs;
God save the people!"

If only we could be saved from ourselves and our killing impulses.  Friends introduced me to the rolling lyrics of Canadian, Bruce Cockburn some years ago.  His song, "Justice," seems to capture the instinct of our age - "Everybody wants to see justice done on somebody else."  

He wrote the song during the ideological battles surrounding the Central American conflicts.  However, in this broadcast he sings from Canada along with the world grieving following the tragedy of 9/11.  

On Good Friday, I find myself reflecting on so many dimensions of the cross.  In many ways I find the cross to be a mirror of humanity and a mirror of my own soul.  I have to confront the truth and reality that I too have placed "one who knew no sin" upon the cross.  I always want to see justice done ... on somebody else.

In humility, we see a path toward salvation.  It begins when we stop the "pointing of the finger" as Isaiah framed it. Good Friday is a mirror.  Perhaps that is why so many painters would paint their faces in the crowd of those looking upon the cross (or sometimes even into the face of Christ).  The cross is a convicting mirror.  

Will it change us?

Paul Gaugin - "The Yellow Christ"

A Convicting Mirror from Auden for Holy Week

“Just as we were all, potentially, in Adam when he fell, so we were all, potentially, in Jerusalem on that first Good Friday before there was an Easter, a Pentecost, a Christian, or a Church. It seems to me worth while asking ourselves who we should have been and what we should have been doing. None of us, I’m certain, will imagine himself as one of the Disciples, cowering in an agony of spiritual despair and physical terror. Very few of us are big wheels enough to see ourselves as Pilate, or good churchmen enough to see ourselves as a member of the Sanhedrin. In my most optimistic mood I see myself as a Hellenized Jew from Alexandria visiting an intellectual friend. We are walking along, engaged in philosophical argument. Our path takes us past the base of Golgotha. Looking up, we see an all-too-familiar sight — three crosses surrounded by a jeering crowd. Frowning with prim distaste, I say, “It’s disgusting the way the mob enjoy such things. Why can’t the authorities execute criminals humanely and in private by giving them hemlock to drink, as they did with Socrates?” Then, averting my eyes from the disagreeable spectacle, I resume our fascinating discussion about the nature of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.” W. H. Auden, in A Certain World: A Commonplace Book