Good Friday

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title.”
My 8th grade English teacher, Ms. Howard, would be proud that I remember that so well all these years later. This passage of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been going through my head over and over the last few days. At last week’s adult forum,
we talked about the readings of the Easter Vigil, and how as we read through them tomorrow night, we are speaking our name, the story of us that stretches back to the beginning of the world. It is a long name, and it is a beautiful name, and it is a mysterious name.
And it is a scandalous name.
It is a name that carries creation and deliverance, redemption and joy, And it is a name that carries pain, and suffering, and shame, and death. Like Juliet and her Romeo, there are times when I almost want to refuse my name, set it aside, and look for a new one, so horrific and offensive is that name.
Today is one of those days.
Because today is the day when I have to face the hardest truths of my faith. The truth that God died.
The truth that God died.
The Christian confession that we proclaim tonight is that God became human, and then died on a cross, humbled to the point of death, and was laid in a tomb.
Dead.
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried.
Descended to the dead.
This confession, perhaps more than any other, has separated Christians from the followers of other faiths
throughout the centuries. It is such an offense, such a scandal, that entire peoples see us as blasphemers for suggesting it.
How can God die?
God is all-powerful;
God is all-knowing;
God is life itself!
How can God die?
It is a scandal to suggest it.

Today is the day when I have to face the hardest truths of my faith.
The truth that God died and that I would have done nothing to stop it, if I had been there.
Who in this story understands?
Who in this story comes to Jesus’ aid?
In John’s passion story that we just heard, it is Jesus who protects his disciples, from the beginning to the end.
When the police come to the garden to arrest him, Jesus steps forward, shielding his disciples, and says, “if you are looking for me, let these men go.” Peter makes a feeble attempt to fight, but Jesus protects Peter again, tells him to put away his sword and walk away. Swords will not help here, as Jesus knows; they will only make matters worse. Jesus protects Peter from himself.
And then Peter denies Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times. Pilate makes a feeble attempt to free Jesus, but when the crowds turn the accusation on him, he agrees to their demands. Jesus is left without aid, misunderstood by everyone, abandoned by everyone, betrayed by one friend, denied by another, to carry the cross by himself to Golgotha.
And would I have done any differently as a disciple?
Do I do any differently as a disciple?

Today is the day when I have to face the hardest truths of my faith.
The truth that God dies again and again, the people of God continue to die, the Body of Christ continues to suffer,
and I continue to be culpable. Around the world, and here in my own back yard, people are crying out for freedom,
for change, around the world, and here in our neighborhood, fellow children of God are suffering at the hands of the world’s power structures, the world’s economic structures, the world’s social structures.
The Jesuit martyr Ignacio Ellacuría, speaking of suffering of the people of El Salvador, said,
“This crucified people is the historical continuation of the Lord’s servant, whom the sin of the world continues to deprive
of any human decency, and from whom the powerful of this world continue to rob everything, taking everything away,
even life, especially life.”
The people of God continue to suffer.
I am not trying to perpetuate their suffering, but war and pollution and poverty persist. I march for peace, I recycle, I buy fair trade and organic products. Yet sinner that I am, I continue to be a party to the suffering of the Body of Christ,
even as I am a part of it.
Today is the day when I have to face the hardest truths of my faith.
Today I recognize that the cross is as far as we go.
As far as we can go.
The cross is where we arrive as human beings. The cross is the endpoint to which the human condition brings us. Anything more or better, anything creative, anything redemptive, anything hopeful, anything that we find beyond the cross
comes from elsewhere, comes from outside ourselves.
As much as I would like to bring an end to suffering, It is not my action that brings it, It is God working through, or in spite of, my actions. It is God working through the cross. God working in spite of death.

So why do we claim the cross?
Why do we hang a cross in the front of the church, display it outside the church, trace it on our foreheads, hang it around our necks, tattoo it on our bodies, use it in our artwork and architecture, make its sign in our prayers, reverence it on Good Friday?
What would possess us to cling to the symbol of our greatest shame, the tree on which we hung our God, the source of our scandal and offense?
Because it is not only the source of our shame.
It is also our name.
It is God’s story, and it is therefore our story.

God’s story, the story that we will hear tomorrow night through the scriptures of the Old Testament, is a story about scandal.
Our name, the name that we will hear tomorrow night, is a name about offense.
Isaiah tells of this offense in chapter 52 that we heard read tonight.
“13 See, my servant shall prosper;
he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.
14 Just as there were many who were astonished at him …
so he shall startle many nations;
kings shall shut their mouths because of him;
for that which had not been told them they shall see,
and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.”
God’s story astonishes, startles, shuts the mouths of kings. God’s name opens eyes to see, opens ears to hear. Throughout the Scriptures, when people encounter God, they fall to their knees. In the garden, Jesus spoke God’s name as his own, and the soldiers fell to their knees. “Who are you looking for,” Jesus asks. “Jesus of Nazareth,” they reply. “I am,” says Jesus, and all of the story of God, the name of God, is contained in those words, and the soldiers fall to their knees. We have been buried with Christ by baptism into death. The very moment when God called our names, when we were washed clean and claimed, Christ’s death became our name.
God’s story, the story that offends and astonishes, that startles and knocks people to their knees,
became our name.
My name is a scandal.
Your name is a scandal.
And as much as I may want to refuse my name when I am confronted with the awful truth of it, it is my name.
I have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.
The tough truth is that God died.
The scandal is that God chose to die.
God, all-powerful, all-knowing, life itself!, chose to die.
The scandal is that God chose to die for me, Me who would deny God, who would turn away from God, who would crucify God again and again, who would look for as many outs as I could find.
For me, who would just as soon figure out a way to save myself, God knew that I could not, and for me, God chose to die.
This is the ultimate offense, the ultimate scandal.
That is what is in a name.
My name.
And yours.
And ours.
Thanks be to God.