Someone
commented last week that at Bible Book Club we always end up talking about
politics! Well, the more we read the Bible, the less we will be surprised at
that. Politics is the art or science of government, the state, policy. It is to
do with how people live together in society. And the Bible has a lot to say about
that. God is the creator of the world, and God’s demands of righteousness,
justice and love are constantly coming up against the world as it is. Righteousness,
justice and love can seem to be in short supply; suffering and death are found
instead.
There
is nothing in the Bible to suggest that religion is somehow a private interior
hobby, to be kept separate from life out there in the world. The Lord’s
triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a donkey was both a religious and a
political act. So, too, was his death.
In
Holy Week we read two accounts of the death or “passion” of Jesus. The first, on
Palm Sunday, this year is from Mark’s Gospel. The second, on Good Friday, is
always John’s account. So we hear two different perspectives on the same
events.
How
do they differ? John tends to bring out the depth and theological meaning of
events. John is, so to speak, the view “from above”. We’ll look more at him on
Friday. Mark’s is more the account of an observer in the crowd, a view of
events “on the level”. But it is still the view of an intelligent observer, who
really sees what is going on.
In
this drama there are the “parties” of the day: not Labour or Conservative, but the
chief priests, the Romans, the Herodians, and radical fringe groups like the
Zealots. All have their own idea of government and policy, and they are often
in conflict. But in the middle is Jesus. He unites these divided parties
against himself, because they all see him as a rival. He has his own claim of
government, an alternative to them all, the silent victim who stands for a
completely different understanding of how the world could be.
And
Pontius Pilate, the Governor, is of course a career politician. The crowd is
getting restive, but he thinks he can win them over. “Do you want me to release
for you the King of the Jews?”, he asks, “for he realised that it was out of
jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over”. He sees exactly what is
going on, the politics, the rivalry at work between the different sides. He
thinks he can play one party against another, the priests against the crowd.
But the priests have got there before him.
The
crowd have turned against Jesus, and Pilate realises that he is on a loser.
Being the kind of politician who puts results above principle, he sees that he
has to turn against Jesus, too. Never mind the innocence of the victim; a riot
is brewing, better give them the victim they demand.
And
so the story plays out to its bitter end, the lynch mob, roused up by one
party, sanctioned by the other, gets its way. The innocent man goes to his
death “to satisfy the crowd”.
In
many ways the death of Jesus is a scene that has been played out over and again
throughout history, with many crowds and many victims. The violence of this
scene is typically human; God seems distant, almost absent.
Almost,
but not quite. God is mentioned three times in Mark’s passion story. At the
trial the High Priest asked Jesus, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed
One?” A question dripping with irony – the High Priest alludes to God by a
euphemism, “the Blessed One”, to avoid the irreverence of mentioning God by
name, whilst all the while planning a murder in the name of God.
Then,
just before the moment of his death, Jesus cries out in the words of Psalm 22,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. A prayer which underlines the
absence of God from the lynch mob that put Jesus to death.
At
the beginning of the process of killing Jesus, then, God is mentioned by way of
blasphemy. And, at the end, by way of absence. It should be clear, then, that
the human stuff that takes place in between is not from God.
This
is made even clearer by the final mention of God in Mark’s passion story: the
centurion who when he saw how Jesus died said, “Truly, this was God’s Son!” One
of those engaged in the business of killing suddenly sees that everything has
been all wrong. Everyone had supposed that God was in the forces of violence
aligned against the victim. Had not the priests said that he was a blasphemer? But
when it is all over, the centurion suddenly sees, instead, that the victim was
God.
God
has been here in this story all along, but not where we thought. God is there
in the one who stands for righteousness, justice and love – even though all the
powers-that-be turn against him. God is there in the one who in his suffering
and death asks why God has forsaken him. In the middle of the storm of
violence. In human politics gone bad. In the darkness of absence and death. God
is there, even where God does not seem to be, where we would never think of
looking.
The
story is not over, of course. But for the time being absence and death are what
we are left with. Even so, the centurion speaks with the voice of faith, surely
a sudden gift, unlooked for, given to the guilty. “Truly this was God’s Son.”
The disaster is complete, the loss irrevocable – in human terms. But faith somehow
is still there in the darkness. Faith given to the centurion. Faith that burns
in the hearts of the women, who go to see where Jesus is buried. And, in the
darkness, faith waits.
Faith
is not a fantasy escape from reality. It does not separate us from engagement
with the world in its mess and its trouble.
The Bible allows us, indeed requires us, to be absolutely realistic about
darkness, absence and loss. The psalms are the prayer book of Israel, and now
of the Church, and around a third of the psalms are prayers in dereliction and
loss, voices of complaint raised to a seemingly unresponsive God. Like Psalm
22, the only prayer that Jesus utters in Mark’s passion story.
False
gods, idols, of course need our attention and reassurance all the time. The
true God, by contrast, allows us to complain, to lament God’s absence. We are
even given the words in which to pray. Because the true God is where we would
never put an idol: in the darkness, in the absence, suffering the loss which we
ourselves lament. The true God places himself in the midst of the world as it is,
with all that goes wrong. That is where faith is given to us, too. And, in the
darkness, faith waits.
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