“Now it was the day of Preparation and the next day was to be a special sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.”-John 19:31
It’s Friday. You are wracked with grief and disillusionment as you hide out in the upper room of your friend’s house. Your mind still foggy with fatigue from the all night prayer and passover meal that included much wine last night. Your clothes smell faintly of fire smoke from when you huddled around a fire in the courtyard trying to catch a glance from a distance, as your friend was beat and ridiculed with the sheer brutality of the Roman soldiers. Your feet have again become soiled as you recall the moment of shock and awe when the Rabbi stooped to wash your feet before the evening meal. You can hear the bustle of the women downstairs as they busily make food for today and tomorrow, preparing everything for the Sabbath. It is Preparation Day.
But Preparation for what? What is this faith? All the hope has been lost as the One who was supposed to make the wrong things right was ultimately defeated by Pilate and the Pharisees as they called for his body to be shredded with the cat of 9 tails and then hung naked on a cross. You hardly recognized your friend once he was up on that splintered beam, his face a swollen mess of purple and crimson.
And now everyone around you is moving on.
Even worse, you’ve just learned that the synagogue leaders have asked that your friend’s legs be broken so that the deaths and removal of the mangled bodies might be more expedient. Perhaps it’s an act of mercy so that the three men up there might not be able to push themselves up on their crosses anymore, and so they won’t be able to fill their lungs with the dusty, devastatingly broken air of this world and might finally slip into eternity.
Even still, it angers you that the Pharisees would add insult to injury by breaking bones in order to set the stage for their perfect religious holiday.
That’s always how it is with these guys. Straining out a gnat but swallowing a camel. You remember when the Rabbi harshly chastised them for placing such mammoth expectations of perfection on everyone, yet letting their own hearts remain dark and wicked and full of self.
Or that one time that their faces turned red with rage when the Rabbi dared to heal a man’s hand on the Sabbath. He was always breaking their rules.
Break the rules and we will break you.
That’s how it is goes when you push against the tide of the Religious folks. There is no room for dissent. Even though the Rabbi was brave and wouldn’t kowtow to their rules, they had so much collaborative power with the Roman officials that they were able to have him executed. Silenced.
Be silent or we will silence you.
Is all hope lost? We thought he was the one who was going to set us free from this evil empire. And now he’s dead. You lay back down on your rough bed and hope that when you wake up it will have all been a bad dream.
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As I read John 19:31 this morning, it stood out to me as it never has before. How many times have I read this scripture? Suddenly it was crystal clear right there in the text:
Religious systems that are concerned with the perfect worship experience & the protection of power will necessarily have to remove the messiness of the pain and brokenness of people, in order to carry on with Fancy Religion.
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The pharisees had a “Special Sabbath” on the calendar, so they couldn’t possibly have those unsightly men hanging on crosses, soiling their experience of their worship.
They were sinners anyway. Law breakers. Who even cares if they suffer? Didn’t they get what was coming to them? Remove their bodies so we can have our church service. We don’t have time to care about “those people” because obviously they got what was coming to them.
I wonder a couple of things:
- How did the Pharisees have the level of collaboration with the Roman government that would give them the authority to request that Pilate would have his soldiers take the bodies down so that they could have their more aesthetically pleasing religious holiday? I can’t help but wonder if that same addiction to power has also corrupted the American Church. The fact that Evangelicals are regarded as a voting bloc able to pull the strings of state and federal authorities should give us pause when we read this story.
- How did the religious leaders develop hearts so calloused that they could look at three men on crosses and have no empathy, only concern that someone deal with that mess?
- Was Micah 6:8 one of the scriptures they had memorized?
As I wonder these things, I see some warnings for myself and my fellow Christians.
- Does my expression of my faith require that peoples’ sin and pain be removed in order to create a more comfortable worship experience?
- Does my desire to pursue righteousness come at the cost of dehumanizing other people?
This can show up in subtle ways for all of us.
It’s happened when I’ve looked the other way in order to avoid making eye contact at church with someone whose life was imploding and I didn’t have the bandwidth to smile and potentially whack that hornets nest.
It’s happened when I’ve tried to force a family member to follow my script for what would fix him in the fastest possible way, completely disrespecting his process and the way the Lord was working things out in the way He knows is best.
On a large and alarming scale, it’s happening right now in the SBC as accounts of sexual abuse, abject racism and sexism are being revealed and the Powers that Be are carrying on with their annual convention and continuing to try to distract with culture war arguments, victim blaming, and politicking.
It’s happening all over in ways that don’t make the news and people are being hurt, Jesus is being disregarded, and the question comes to mind: “How long O Lord?”
We must all guard against this because Lord knows, I love some power, position, and Fancy Religion.
What will I compromise in order to retain power?
Whose pain will I ignore or try to conceal in order to carry on with my Fancy Religion?
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
And to walk humbly with your God.
God help us all to do this.
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