The Good Death

The scriptures referred to are mentioned in the text.

After you've read a number of biographies, you start to hate finishing them. It's not exactly like reading a good work of fiction which you wish would never end. It's that you know it will end with the death of the subject of the biography. It's heartbreaking to read of the long drawn-out declines and final illnesses of such brilliant persons as Isaac Asimov and C.S. Lewis. It's even more dismaying to read of the self-destructive ends of young talented people like John Belushi. And you really dread to read of the assassinations of such reformers as Gandhi or Lincoln or Martin Luther King. So you usually finish even the best biographies a bit depressed. And many biographers know that and make the last chapter of their subject's life the briefest. After all, it's the person's accomplishments during his or her life that are important.

It therefore goes against the grain to structure a life story around the death of the hero. Yet each of the gospels devotes at least half of its length to the foreshadowing and then the unfolding of Jesus' trial and death. The week before his death at Passover gets a lot of attention as well. But why this reversal of the usual story of someone's life? Why concentrate on Jesus' terrible and shameful death by a method reserved for traitors, criminals and slaves?

Crucifixion was not exclusive to the Romans. The Celts, Indians, Persians, Greeks and other ancient peoples practiced forms of it. There is even evidence that the Jews used it before the time of Herod the Great. It was one of the worst ways to die. Yet by itself it did not harm any of the major organs, nor did it cause excessive bleeding. (The nails plugged the wounds.) Attached to a tree or some upright, his or her arms nailed or tied to a cross beam, the victim was left to die of a combination of exposure, shock, hunger, exhaustion and suffocation. In addition, the victim was stripped naked and the execution was done by the side of a major road, both to humiliate the victim and to warn anyone who contemplated committing the same offense. Often the bodies were not buried but left to the indignities of birds, beasts and decay. Small wonder Paul says that the proclamation of Christ crucified “is to Jews a stumbling block and to Greeks an absurdity.” (1 Corinthians 1:23)

Again, why would the church concentrate on the ignoble end of its founder? That actually begs the question, though: was it in fact his end? Without the events of Easter, I doubt whether Jesus' movement would have survived his death, at least not any longer than those of other would-be messiahs, of whom there are more than most people would suspect. But we will be looking at the significance of the resurrection next week. Right now we're going to concentrate on the meaning of Jesus' death.

When a great person dies at the hands of his enemies, the usual response is outrage. Abraham Lincoln was not all that popular as president. But his shooting on Good Friday, just days after winning the Civil War, combined with his being the first American president ever assassinated, made him the equivalent of a secular saint. It made the search for John Wilkes Booth one of the most extensive manhunts in history. Despite orders to capture Booth alive, an over-zealous soldier shot him as he fled a burning barn. Everyone who had any connection with Booth, including his landlady, was tried as a conspirator and half of them were hung. Dr. Samuel Mudd, who happened to set Booth's broken leg, was imprisoned right here at Ft. Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.

I remember feeling similarly outraged as a child watching the crucifixion scene in the old Hollywood movie The Greatest Story Ever Told. I wanted the first century equivalent of the cavalry to arrive and rescue Jesus. I wanted an army of angels to come down and magically dissolve the nails and fly him to the ground. I wanted God to strike down the soldiers and mockers in a manner similar to the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark (although that film hadn't been made yet.) If I had been writing the story of Jesus, I certainly wouldn't have made his death the centerpiece of the tale.

But from the beginning of Christianity, the death of Jesus was central. It is mentioned 4 times in the 5 short chapters of the earliest piece of Christian writing we have, Paul's first letter to the church in Thessalonika. (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 2:15; 4:14; 5:10) What's more is that we are given the reason for his death: “For God has not destined us for punishment but for gaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us...” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10)

Now how is that possible? Jesus didn't die in battle, saving his fellow soldiers. He was condemned for sedition, for proclaiming himself the Messiah, the long awaited king of the Jews, an affront to the Roman emperor. He was handed over to the Roman authorities by the religious leaders after they had found him guilty of blasphemy. We know from John's gospel that at the root of this action was the fear on the part of the Jewish leaders that Jesus would lead a popular uprising. They knew the Romans would put that down with extreme prejudice, possibly using it as an excuse to destroy the nation of Judea. (John 11:48-50) But these are the official, legal, religious and political reasons that Jesus died. In what sense can it said that he died for us?

Ancient peoples did not have detailed knowledge of how our blood keeps us alive. But they knew that it, along with breath, was essential to life. “The life of the flesh is in the blood,” says the Bible and it's still accurate. (Leviticus 17:1) Oxygen, nutrients, clotting factors, immune factors and more are circulated throughout the body via the blood. If you lose too much blood, you'll die. So blood was a potent symbol of life. And because it was so precious, the spilling of blood in the form of animal sacrifice was a nearly universal practice, from Japan all the way through Europe and to the Celts in Britain. Usually it was done to feed the pagan gods. In ancient Judaism, however, animals were sacrificed to atone for sin. According to a popular commentary on the Torah, the person offering the sacrifice realized that the rebellion against God inherent in his sin means he personally should be the sacrifice, but that God in his mercy is accepting the animal in his place. It's also appropriate because the person, when he was sinning, essentially forgot his human soul and became an animal.

During the exodus, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest took 2 goats. One was sacrificed as an offering for sin. Its blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat, the place between the cherubim on the ark of the covenant, which symbolized the presence of God in the tabernacle. The priest then laid his hands on the second goat, transferring the sins of the people onto it. It was then driven out of the camp into the wilderness, taking the people's sins with it. This was the sin-bearer or scapegoat. Thus the people were taught that the penalty for their sin was death and exile, but God mercifully accepted the goats in the place of his people.

The pre-eminent sacrificial animal was the lamb. On the first Passover, it served 2 purposes: nutrition and protection. It provided a meal for the Hebrews on the eve of their emancipation from slavery in Egypt and their journey towards the promised land. And its blood, smeared on the doorposts and lintels of a house, made sure the inhabitants were passed over by the tenth and last plague to strike Egypt: the death of the firstborn. This was the last straw that forced pharaoh to let God's people go. After that dark night, freedom dawned.

John the Baptist called Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) Paul called Jesus “our Passover.” (1 Corinthians 5:7) Both identify Jesus with the Passover lamb, who both nourishes life and saves life. In the Eucharist or Communion, Jesus feeds his people. By the spilling of his blood, he saves people from death and frees them from slavery to sin. Like the animal sacrifices in the temple, God mercifully accepts Jesus' death in our place. (1 Peter 3:18) And like the scapegoat, he bears our sins away into exile. I think this is what is signified when he says, “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” (Mark 15:34) Into what deserted place did the Son of God go that he could no longer sense the Father's presence and love? It is, in any meaningful sense, hell. God Incarnate entered the hell of betrayal and hatred and pain and official indifference and political expediency and legal sleight of hand and humiliation and abandonment and fear and despair and death in order that we might be delivered from all that.

How else could God confront the depths of evil? How otherwise could he get to the bottom of it but to hurl himself into its maw? What else could he do to atone for the sins of the whole world?

Jesus' death was not a pitiful coda to his life. It was the reason he was born. He entered hell so that we might enter heaven.

But that sounds barbaric. Who wants someone else to suffer for them? We do. Whenever the burdens of this world get too much for us to bear we want to take it out on others. When we have been hurt, we wish to hurt others. When we feel that we have been injured, we lash out at others. And sadly, we are seeing people do more than lash out with words only. Daily we hear of people looking for scapegoats and making others suffer and even die for the injuries they perceive were done to them.

As people feel their hopes are crushed, they go after others. Desperate people snap and seek to make someone else pay for the loss of their jobs, the loss of their dreams, the loss of their family life. They shoot up schools, offices, mosques, synagogues and churches. They want to inflict pain for pain, fear for fear, death of the soul for death of the soul. They seek to make someone, anyone, however innocent, pay in blood for the evil done to them.

But Jesus has already done that!

From the cross Jesus cried, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) Literally, in Greek, “It is paid!” It is over: the cycle of violence, the knee jerk reaction to loss and uncertainty, the cold fear in the pit of the stomach, the howling despair, the misdirected rage. It is over. Let it go. Let it die with me, Jesus is saying. It is finished.

The punishment, the reckoning, that is.

But God is not content merely to defeat evil. He once pronounced the world and everything in it good. He is determined that it will be good again. God's plan to set the world right has just begun.

And we'll talk about that next week.

This was originally preached on April 5, 2009. It has been slightly updated.