32

Conquered.

The one who came to give life, buckets of it, was now hanging dead on a criminal’s execution stake.

“When the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, ‘Surely this man was a son of God!’”

It’s likely this centurion, a trained killer and leader of a hundred of Rome’s finest, had been in charge of everything that happened to Jesus after Pilate sentenced him. He’d overseen Jesus being whipped to shreds. He’d observed him beaten and mocked. He’d seen the insults hurled at him from his own people. Like he had countless times before with so many other accused, the centurion had overseen this Jesus being tacked up on a tree so the public could see his body and his reputation die.

But what he hadn’t seen is what caught his attention. Unlike so many criminals executed before, he never saw this Jesus become ugly or disparaging.

Not one time did he blame.

He didn’t spit back, swing, argue or threaten.

He wept and groaned, but without venom.

And honest to God the man even prayed for the forgiveness of those involved in his crucifixion.

The centurion had never been prayed for by one he was killing. It was as though this man from Nazareth had kept himself untouched from the very hate that was murdering him. It was a strength rooted in a very different soil than he himself, a conquering Roman, had been planted in.

“Son of God” was a title applied to Caesar. We can find the phrase on coins and columns from Roman antiquity. Like so many despots before and after, Caesar’s power came largely from his being perceived as the savior of mankind, the absolute principal of the civilized world. Caesar was the Empire- the king of the kingdom of peace. Anyone who disagreed was subject to slaughter in the name of this peace. Rome was a machine fueled by military might and was destined to overcome the world. The centurion upheld this glorious purpose on oath.

And yet here was one bleeding out on a cross, mocked with a sarcastic sign about his kingship hanging over his head, representing something more powerful than “power.” And it was one of the most remarkable things the centurion had ever seen. We can’t know what happened next for the centurion. Perhaps that doesn’t matter. Perhaps seeing one trained under the ideology of Pax Romana, a peace at gunpoint, shift slightly is enough story for us to benefit from.

But this still leaves me why the day Christ was crucified be named Good Friday. The short answer some of us may give is because it was good for us that the Christ died for our sins. But perhaps we should consider that it might have been a bad Friday if King Jesus had simply made sure that true justice was served, that the murderers and the liars and the cowards and the betrayers were dealt with in full accord with the law. That the filthy were thrown away and the clean were embraced and allowed to sit on Heaven’s furniture. Jesus could have displayed his great and magic power against that of the Empire. He could have wiped them out if he truly was the god-man. Not even Empire, in its sprawl across half the globe could have survived a pinch of God’s might. Them and all the liars and the dirty, dirty cheats of the world, eliminated. And I suppose it would have been justified. Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a bad Friday if Christ would have done what was warranted.

And perhaps that’s just it. That’s the paradox. What makes Good Friday good is that what was justified went undone. Instead, innocence and beauty willingly absorbed evil ugliness. Compassion trumped the vicious brutality required of a person to nail Jesus to a tree. It wasn’t fair or right. It could and should have been avoided. But it happened. It happened and it was swallowed up in Love, cancelling the sin and brutality out rather than escalate it. What was arguably “fair” was exchanged for “Good.”

With a bit of reflection we realize many of us have seen this in our own time. Men and women of incredible Love, confidence and self-control, not reacting to the evil of their circumstances, but somehow absorbing it. Refusing to let the craziness spiral on for even a moment more, because they realize good can only come when one chooses not so much to win, but to forgive. They circumvent Newton’s Third Law and don’t push back with the same force, the same level of consciousness. They respond under a different Law and the energy of harm is absorbed.

Christ is the King of such people. Deep down, you and I are such people.

“You have heard people say, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, Don’t get into tug-o-wars with those who are evil. Instead, if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the left also…”

The King absorbed evil on Good Friday like even the dimmest candle chews up all the darkness in a room. Because of this, the world would be gradually, over decades and centuries, grabbed by the collar and shaken into various stages of wakefulness. And here we are, generations later, staring at a cross bewildered and inspired.

Wait a minute.

Is this how the world is saved?

By overcoming evil with Love rather than with more evil?

By forgiving and considering rather than justifying any means required to win?

By absorbing a wrong rather than retaliating against it?

Is this what a Son of God looks like?

“In Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Christ to reconcile to himself everything, whether things on earth or things in heaven, making peace for everything by the blood of his cross.”

I’d argue it’s a Good Friday because what Christ did on the cross wasn’t magic. It’s Good Friday because what happened on it shows us the beauty of being conquered by the audacity of Love. Not just for a person here or there, but for all that exists, things above and below. All of it can be set right by the Christ, as well as by Christ’s people as they follow suit in taking up their own cross and demanding others pay no more.

If this sounds hard, it is. It’s also easy to misunderstand, and as a result of this misunderstanding faith looks to many like letting abusive people abuse you. It’s her cross to bear. This is a tragic suspension of self-love, which I hope by this point has been reconsidered as something to scale down but never eliminate. Yet even with a healthy understanding of ourselves and the harm leveled at us by others, this absorption and forgiveness bit is as hard as it gets. Can there be anything as difficult as mimicking Christ’s Love for those he, to the degree he was also fully human, was justified in hating?

But it’s even harder to go on living like the centurion was taught to live by his god. Far harder to look at life as acquiring wins and the avoiding ego-damning losses. It’s far more miserable to maintain citizenship in the Empire of the Tick. It’s just plain harder to live apart from our essential nature, which is Compassion and Love. Somehow, choosing the harder way, is where peace seems to be.

Christ died. And Christ lives again. “Follow me,” said this Christ.

The rewards are anything but immediate. But from the very first moments it has had an affect on even the most unlikely of shows us the beauty of being conquered by the audacity of Love. Not just for a person here or there, but for all that exists, things above and below. All of it can be set right by the Christ, as well as by Christ’s people as they follow suit in taking up their own cross and demanding others pay no more.

If this sounds hard, it is. It’s also easy to misunderstand, and as a result of this misunderstanding faith looks to many like letting abusive people abuse you. It’s her cross to bear. This is a tragic suspension of self-love, which I hope by this point has been reconsidered as something to scale down but never eliminate. Yet even with a healthy understanding of ourselves and the harm leveled at us by others, this absorption and forgiveness bit is as hard as it gets. Can there be anything as difficult as mimicking Christ’s Love for those he, to the degree he was also fully human, was justified in hating?

But it’s even harder to go on living like the centurion was taught to live by his god. Far harder to look at life as acquiring wins and the avoiding ego-damning losses. It’s far more miserable to maintain citizenship in the Empire of the Tick. It’s just plain harder to live apart from our essential nature, which is Compassion and Love. Somehow, choosing the harder way, is where peace seems to be.

Christ died. And Christ lives again. “Follow me,” said this Christ.

The rewards are anything but immediate. But from the very first moments it has had an affect on even the most unlikely of people. As we step out of Lent and into Easter Weekend may we, as the unlikely centurion may have, leave one kingdom for the Other. May we see clearly what we’ve been blind to. May we entertain that we are being offered a place in the salvation of not just certain people, but of everything. It is all Loved, because it all comes from Love. So do you. So do I.

May we have our notions about this God called Love, dying at our own ignorant, anxious hands, dismantled. May we find ourselves awakened and saying to each other, somewhat surprised and confused,

“Oh…Oh! This is the Son of God. This is Love.”

And then, let’s be as he is.