God's Answer to the World's Final Solutions

Here it is Wednesday of Holy week, and Good Friday is only two days away.

Holy Week is all about this world we’ve created with our own choosing. It is about a crowd that follows Jesus into town crying hosanna and waving palm branches, only to be yelling “Crucify him!” at the end of the week. Holy week reminds us that we live in a world in need of redemption, in need of saving. We are reminded that this is a world of crucifiers.

The crucifiers are those forces in our world that make you think that there is someone out there who is going to take away your job, or take away your freedom, or take away your land or your possessions or your family, or take away your way of life, or take away your religion and so you better get them first before they get you. The crucifiers rule by fear. The crucifiers rule the imagination by painting a picture of a world of scarcity wherein the goal of life is to be “on top” with others under your thumb, or to have more land or goods than your neighbor, or to have more freedom than someone else.

But the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is God’s editorial statement regarding this world of crucifiers – this Good Friday world. While the Roman governor and the military and the religious leaders all congratulated themselves on the cleverness of their “Final Solution” to the Jesus problem, God showed the world what he thinks about “final solutions” of any kind and rolled the stone away. While the politicians, soldiers and religious functionaries were all protecting their turf and keeping the masses under their thumbs, Jesus turned all that upside down when he strode across the garden and said, “Mary.”

That’s right. When Jesus comes up to Mary and speaks her name, he is saying that what matters the most to God isn’t powerful armies, it isn’t wealth and power, it isn’t correct religious doctrine, it isn’t scrupulous ritual, what matters to God is what happens between us, between you and me, between us and our neighbors, between us and our children, between me and my spouse. What matters is when we speak one another’s names in love and compassion and caring. What matters to God is when our hearts are expanded and enlarged to take in a hurting and painful world, and to love it as deeply and fully as God loves it. That’s what matters to God.

In this vein, I came across a powerful reflection on another blog by a blooger by the name of Crystal St. Marie Lewis. In her reflections about the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, she makes the following observations:

I had never asked myself what the death of Jesus would have meant to the blind man who regained his sight after the Healer’s touch. I had never asked myself what it meant to the woman who had been restored to her place in society after being rendered unclean for twelve years by her unstoppable flow of blood. I had never asked myself what the crucifixion meant to the leper who, undoubtedly desperate for human contact, received that and more during a chance encounter with Jesus. I had not asked how little Talitha’s family, or Lazarus’ family, or the Centurion may have felt to hear that Jesus had died on the cross that day....When I thought more carefully about it, I realized that each lash of the whip, each nail, and every insult hurled at Jesus while He hung on the cross was a simultaneous assault on a generation of people who had finally started to feel loved… and free… and hopeful. I finally realized that the claim of resurrection by early Christians was arguably not as much a cosmic one as it was the subversion of a system that had been stacked against “the least of these.” Finally, I realized what it meant for them to say: “Jesus is not dead.”Those who claimed that Jesus “had risen” were telling the powerful that despite their attempts to bury hope and equality… despite their efforts to kill the voice of the one who had touched them when no one else would… despite their efforts to entomb the Good News that was being preached to the poor and the radical message of liberty for the captives, the hope of the people would continue to live.For us, resurrection means that hope is still brewing, even in the most corrupt systems. Resurrection means that love is still powerful in ways that can often only be explained by invoking the transcendent. Resurrection means that nothing can stop the will of a downtrodden people who feel driven by a force greater than themselves– Not the death of one person. Not the death of a religious ideology. Not even the death of a generation.

Before Jesus was born, his mother sang this song about what God was going to do :

‘My soul magnifies the Lord, 

and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me,and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear himfrom generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm;he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things,and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel,in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors,to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.

When Jesus began his ministry, he carried forward his mother's song by choosing these words from Isaiah to inaugurate his ministry:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,   because he has anointed me     to bring good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives   and recovery of sight to the blind,     to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

Jesus was good news to all the people that the crucifiers of his time looked down upon, cast aside, used, abused and considered to be expendable commodities. When he dared defy their program, they conceived a "final solution" to their problem: kill the messenger of Good News. There was just one problem they didn't anticipate. None of the world's Final Solutions are final with God. God - and all the people set free by God -  will always have the last word.