DEFYING THE POWER OF DEATH

DEFYING THE POWER OF DEATH

Reflections on Good Friday

by Frank J. Hernando

18 April 2014

Seoul, Korea

Scripture Text: John 18:1 - 19:42

1. Two days ago a passenger-cruise ship in route from Incheon Port to Jeju Island capsized in the sea near Jindo, South Jeolla Province where 273 passengers remained missing and 25 died in the accident. We express our deep sorrow and sympathy to the bereaved families and healing for those who sustained injuries and traumatized of the accident. Our prayers that God’s love and grace comfort and sustain the grieving families. 

2. There is an observable shift in people’s focus during commemoration of the Holy Week especially in the Philippines and more so among Protestant and Catholic Christians in South Korea. While it is theologically founded that the peak of the Holy Week events is Easter Day, the passion, crucifixion and death of Jesus that took place prior to resurrection should not be sidelined. On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, South Koreans are still on their daily grind at work because these are not holidays unlike in the Philippines where these are observed as holidays. Religious services in churches get attention today to reflect on the sufferings of Jesus Christ, who is believed by Christians as the Son of God, who died as a martyr and scapegoat sacrifice for the sins or disobedience of humanity against the holy will of God. 

3. The arrest and prosecution of Jesus before the Jewish religious leaders, Annas and then to Caiaphas and then to Pilate, the Roman official who although adamant to pass judgement on Jesus, eventually with pressure from the Jewish leaders and the mob made a verdict to have Jesus crucified for he was found guilty of plotting to overthrow the Jewish and Roman political leaders. The Johannine narrative of the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus are full of emotion, perhaps blood pressures were rising in Annas, Caiaphas and Pilate, resisting to get a heart stroke, but persistent and wilful to put to death someone who threatened their political power and religious clout among the people. 

4. The disciples like Judas who betrayed his teacher and leader must have nourished his frustration and the looming manic depression, while Peter struggling with his dissociative tactics and his inability to put his love and empathy of Jesus in the right footing. The other disciples were grappling with fear and intimidation from the police and being implicated in the Jesus’ movement to overthrow the government and the Jewish religious institution. The women disciples and family members were angry and anticipating the worst thing that can happen after the verdict was made and mourn for the passing away of the adorable man who came into their lives and shared with them the vision and hopes of new life and the dawning of the kingdom of God. Most of all the powers of death was overwhelming that put everyone in panic and disorientation. 

5. Jesus faced the brute face and force of the power of death with defiance and assertiveness. He answered the questions from Annas, Caiaphas with confidence and consistency referring to his teachings as true and verifiable and hide nothing from public. Perhaps the verbatim account of the trial was compressed by editors and we could not exactly get the details of the trials, but it is possible that the exchange of questions and answers between them have revealed that Jesus showed evidences that the Roman Empire and the Jewish religious institution failed in providing a better life for the people and only those at the helm of power have benefitted from the labors of shepherds, vineyard workers, and other agricultural workers or producers. In front of Annas Jesus responded about his teachings saying,  ‘I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Further in the interrogation he said,,  ‘If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me? 

6. For sure the Jews did not have the authority to pass judgement on someone on the Passover Feast, for indeed the very spirit of the occasion has been freedom from slavery and freedom to life. But the Jewish leaders were part of the coercive and destructive power that oppressed ordinary people that Jesus condemned and worked out to change. Herein, Jesus defied the powers of death and oppression, echoing the same Mosaic demand from release from bondage of institutional and imperial control and set the people free. 

7.  Defying the power of death and oppression has been here in our contemporary world, we have witnessed and participated in mass movements to free people from oppressive policies and many have suffered the consequences of violent and coercive use of police power by the state and the persecution of the religious leaders who have been blinded or corrupted by their power. Jesus was a victim of imperial and institutional violence but he was able to take them because of the higher values of martyrdom and allowing God to take over the reign of darkness and corruption in the world. Let me share what S. Mark Heim  explained about redemptive value of violence in the life of Jesus in his article Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross, he said: 

There is a theory about the redemptive value of violence, the saving power of Jesus’ death, already present in the Gospel story. It is believed and propagated by the persecutors. Atonement is precisely the good they have in mind. According to the Gospel writers, it is this drive for sacrificial atonement that kills Jesus. Here is a caution for Christian theology. We must beware that in our reception and interpretation of the Gospel we do not end up entering the passion story on the side of Jesus’ murderers. And the cross cannot be understood without the vindication of the resurrection. Two paragraphs are especially pertinent: If the death of Jesus were a successful sacrifice in the normal mode, it would have succeeded in doing what such sacrifice does: uniting the community, creating calm and (at least for a time) dispelling conflict. 

As the New Testament makes evident, in these terms the cross is a failed sacrifice, despite the near unanimity with which Jesus is executed. Rather than the entire community assenting to the violence and seamlessly closing ranks over the grave of the scapegoat, on whose behalf no one speaks, the crucified one himself appears, vindicated by divine power. A new counter community gathers around the risen Christ, taking the victim’s part, identifying with him, maintaining his innocence. Society is divided, not united by this death. Yet it is not divided by retribution on the part of the victim’s “kin,” by the desire to avenge a martyr, that would ordinarily signal a failed sacrifice. Instead, this new community explicitly rejects both the sacrificial violence that killed Christ and the contagion of revenge that the sacrificial system existed to contain.

8. The crucifixion of Jesus is the rejection of the sacrificial system that the modern day empires and states have propagated wherein ordinary workers, farmers, and the middle class have to endure long hours of work and get meager wages on which they hardly survive. The church and all its institutions and communities must change their orientation from emphasizing sacrifices on believers must rather return to Jesus Christ’s final sacrifice and never allow the powers-that-be to make people as sacrifices to their god of destruction and oppression. The glorification of Jesus Christ on the cross is very reason for Christians to defy the powers of death and oppression on which imperial powers and their cohort states thrive with. Amen.

-------------------------