Metanoia
It is Good Friday, so called because without the death of Jesus there would be no Resurrection, no Easter, no forgiveness.
But of course, it wasn’t originally a Good Friday. Not for Mary Magdalen and Jesus’ mother Mary, huddled at the foot of the Cross. Not for the followers of Jesus, not for the Apostles.
For them, the crucifixion was a catastrophe. They lost their leader, the man they hoped was the Messiah foretold by the prophets. The man who gave them dignity and love, asking nothing in return except that they love others. This man, whom they loved, was humiliated, brutalized, and killed.
The followers of Jesus fled into a hiding place. They stared in silence, almost afraid to breathe, at blank walls behind locked doors. What do they do now? Will the priests of the Sanhedrin and the soldiers of the Romans come for them? The entire colonial system in the Roman province of Judea viewed them as enemies, as followers of a rabble-rouser, a revolutionary, a man whom the state — religious, political, and military — crucified. What of the movement for justice that Jesus led? Was that, too, dead? How could any of them, even Peter — especially Peter — take Jesus’ place?
He warned them this day would come, but they did not believe him because they hoped it wasn’t true. Now, leaderless and fearful, they don’t know what to do. No one was recounting happy stories about the Jesus of memory; no one was looking forward to the Resurrection because it had not yet occurred. He told them about that too, but they did not believe him. Not really, because who could imagine it?
And now we are huddled behind our closed doors, walled off from our families and friends, hiding from the invisible terror of a virus. We are fearful and uncertain. We read of deaths, so many deaths, and know that we are experiencing a catastrophe. The poor, the elderly, the sick, Black people, Aboriginal people, all are suffering disproportionately. Some Aboriginal people may succumb to starvation before the virus has a chance to kill them.
Millions of people are unemployed, with no income or health insurance. Many people will be evicted from their homes and apartments by landlords seizing on the opportunity to find new tenants and raise rents. Major retail chains like Walmart, the places where people with limited incomes shop, have been caught price gouging on essential goods.
Politicians rush to save corporations but not people. Politicians are quietly pursuing unpopular agendas while people are distracted and not paying attention. Politicians are enriching themselves while other people suffer.
Capitalists and the rich are bargain hunting for failing companies and underpriced stocks while parents struggle to put food on the table for their children. Lives are being forever burdened with debt.
Some of us are even mourning the loss of our leader. Not to death, but to politics. He, too, warned us. “It’s not about me, but us,” he said again and again. But we didn’t believe him because we hoped it wasn’t true. Now what we feared is upon us and we are sad and a little afraid.
Jesus was the victim of the corrupt political, religious, and economic classes of his time, all of which were backed by the soldiers of Rome. Similarly, many people today are sacrificed on the high altar of capitalism by systemic racism and inequality, and capitalists are defended by politicians and a militarized police force. Many of us live in corporate sacrifice zones, abandoned by capitalists more concerned with marginal costs than flourishing people. Politicians and business leaders are asking people to die of a COVID-19 infection so they can reopen their businesses.
Jesus hung on the Cross for three hours, suffocating, bleeding. He cried out hoarsely in anguish and pain, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That very same question may be on our lips as we watch in horror as the coronavirus kills thousands. No one answered Jesus, except jeering Roman soldiers. No one answers us, except a preening, self-appointed “chosen one” who pollutes the afternoon news from behind his lectern.
Finally, unable to breathe any longer, Jesus quietly says, “It is finished.” Jesus, who entered the world as the least of us, but who healed the sick, fed the poor, and comforted the afflicted, was dead. Surely his disciples wondered, on that terrible Friday, “Did he die in vain?”
Did he die in vain? Put aside your knowledge of the Resurrection. Did he die in vain? He greeted us by saying, “Follow me.” Follow? Where? It quickly becomes clear that “where” doesn’t matter, “how” does. Follow his Way of helping the poor and hungry, of healing those who are sick, of befriending prisoners and outcasts. “Follow me. Follow my Way.” Did he die in vain? His last command, just before he was betrayed and abandoned, was “Love each other as I have loved you.” Did he die in vain?
Can we say, “It is finished” to the systems of oppression — religious, political, and economic — that have blighted the lives of so many for so long? The same systems of oppression are responsible for much of the suffering and many of the deaths we might unthinkingly attribute to the coronavirus, when in fact politicians and capitalists chasing dollars deliberately allowed warnings to go unheeded and hospitals to be short of supplies and staff. Can we say “It is finished” to capitalism and fossil fuels and inequality and war and really mean it?
We have three days to decide how we will be resurrected, because even if sins are forgiven, we are not absolved of Jesus’ two commands, one issued at the beginning of his public ministry and one at the end, to “Follow me” and “Love one another as I have loved you.” Three days to experience metanoia and mean it.
