(Easter Sermon at Shantz Mennonite Church, preached March 31, 2024) While Christmas may be the most popular holiday within the Christian tradition, the celebrations of Good Friday and Easter are seen as the essence of Christianity. However, many Christians, like myself, have struggled with how to develop a theology that integrates the suffering of Good Friday with the resurrection of Easter. In this blog, I plan to share my story of how I have come to see the suffering of Christ as the essence of the Resurrection experience, but not in the way that most evangelical or Catholic churches believe. Some churches stress how Jesus had to suffer for the sins of humanity, and if we personalize this by believing that Jesus died for our sins due to some form of moral requirement from God, we will experience God resurrecting us from the guilt and shame of our sins. In this view, Jesus' crucifixion is seen as the essence of Easter. However, some theologians have noted that when you believe this framework of Good Friday/Easter, that Jesus had to pay the spiritual debt caused by human sinfulness, the historical event of Easter is no longer needed. All the conditions necessary for the salvation or healing of humanity are found in the historical crucifixion of Jesus. In contrast, other churches highlight what happened on Easter morning, the tomb being found empty, and women and men followers seeing the resurrected Christ. This resurrection event is seen as the key to Easter. For these churches, the suffering of Jesus shown through his crucifixion is a reality that should never have happened, and thus the suffering of Jesus for our sins is not needed for the resurrection event to have happened. But is this true? I have found both personally and in my ministry that there is something about the suffering of Jesus on the cross that speaks to people. What follows is my attempt to capture that mystery and how the suffering experience of Jesus's crucifixion is essential to people encountering the resurrection/salvation experience in their lives. Throughout my lifetime, I have celebrated Good Friday and Easter in different ways. As a child raised in the United Church, I have no memory of attending a Good Friday service. The focus was Easter Sunday with the emphasis on the resurrection of Jesus. I suspect efforts were made to include aspects of the crucifixion of Jesus in the Easter service or in the Palm Sunday Service, the Sunday before. But the focus was on how God raised Jesus from the dead, and God’s resurrection power, and that there was life after death. When I entered Grade 13, my parents allowed me to start attending a small Mennonite church that had a MYF youth group full of many of my friends. Here I discovered that Mennonite Christians celebrate Good Friday, and often this service involved the reliving of Jesus’ last 24 hours on earth: the last supper in which Jesus celebrated the Passover Feast with his disciples, Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane asking God to take away his cup of suffering, the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, the arrest of Jesus, the denial of Jesus by Peter, the trial of Jesus, the nailing of Jesus to the cross, Jesus final words on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”, and then his final breath. In reliving this tragic day during the Good Friday service, I really experienced the suffering of Jesus and saw the weakness and sinfulness of people and how evil can cloud the minds and hearts of humans, even to the point of killing an innocent man like Jesus. When I experienced the celebration of Good Friday for first time, I was captivated. This service touched all the senses of my body and soul…the washing of my feet (footwashing is practiced in many Mennonite churches), the drinking and eating of communion, and the sorrow of my heart. I still remember celebrating Good Friday services when I heard the hammering of the nails symbolizing the hammering of nails into Jesus hands. All that was missing was the moaning of Jesus dying on the cross…and the crying of the crowds who watched at a distance…but I could easily imagine these. The Good Friday service was far more than a lesson on theology about why Jesus had to die on the cross. Good Friday is a day when we recognize all the pain and suffering that happened on Good Friday. Personally, I have struggled in calling the day Jesus was crucified as Good Friday. For me, there is nothing about Good Friday that is good. It is day full of suffering and pain. Yes, I am aware of the Crucifixion theology that is common in many Christian churches, and it appears in some of our favourite hymns that we sing on Good Friday and Easter. Even my favourite Easter song, “When peace like a river” has this crucifixion theology. This theology stresses that Jesus suffered on our behalf, that Jesus had to die to pay the spiritual penalty of human sin on the cross so that humans could be free from the power of sin in our lives. This is seen as the goodness behind the day of Good Friday. But I struggle with this crucifixion theology for it does not fit with how I have experienced the healing that comes out of the Good Friday-Easter story, both within my life and my counselling practice. I have struggled with any Crucifixion theology that has tried to dismiss the evil and wrongness of what happened on this day by claiming that it was part of God’s will, a common theological belief in both the Evangelical and Catholic churches, although they possess different understandings of how Jesus' suffering is part of God's will. It makes little sense to me. When my two brothers died from HIV-AIDs in the 1990s, I could not, and still don’t believe that their suffering and death was part of God’s will and plan for their lives. I hold the same belief around Jesus’ death. Jesus’ tragic death should never have happened. It was caused by the dynamics of Evil and sin at work within human beings. It had nothing to do with God’s will. But as we all know, Good Friday is not the final act of the Good Friday/Easter story. It is the first act of the story, a story of much pain and suffering, but the story is not complete. Furthermore, it seems that the suffering experience of Good Friday does prepare the way for the resurrection power of Easter to come. To help you understand what I mean, let me tell you my crucifixion story, the time when I found myself uttering similar words to what Jesus uttered on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” It was back in Aug, 1992 when I watched my brother Jamie (picture of him below) die from HIV/AIDS in Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario. I was in the midst of my training to be a Mennonite pastor, just completing my third year before heading to seminary at AMBS in Elkhart Indiana to finish my final year of training. My family had known that both of my brothers, Kevin and Jamie, were HIV positive in 1985 when they were finally able to test for the presence of the HIV virus. My brothers had both got the HIV virus through the blood products they took for their blood condition, hemophilia. While Kevin was still asymptomatic, Jamie had been fighting different issues related to HIV/AIDS for at least 3 years by 1992. I had prayed often for God to heal Jamie from his disease and to cure him. A month before he died, I remember preaching a sermon at First Mennonite Church in Kitchener as part of my pastoral internship where I shared my struggle with my Christian faith, and how I was angry at God at his lack of involvement in helping my brother stay well or get better. I remember my Father asking me to lead a final prayer time with my family and my brother Jamie, barely conscious, was able to participate as part of this prayer. We prayed for healing but we also prayed for strength and comfort if healing didn't happen. A couple days later when Jamie breathed his last breath, I went totally numb. My faith was in shambles. I had no sense of God’s presence. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” My Dad chose to have 4 visitations, much to my chagrin. I had no desire to be around people in this state of forsakenness, but I endured it. Throughout those visitations, my heart felt numb and dead, no sense of life. The day of the funeral came at Lucknow United Church. The church was packed with over 200 people. The service began with my family walking into the front of the sanctuary from the side door. As I walked in, I could see the many faces of the people in the pews…and they were all filled with tears. Up to now, I saw God as a distance observer, just watching me in pain. But as I saw all those people weeping over the loss of my brother, a deep realization washed over me. I suddenly realized that God was crying with me, that God was in as much pain as I was as was evident in all the people crying that day. As that realization soak in, it is like my heart split open, and I began to sob deeply: tears of pain but also tears of joy bubbled up inside of me,. God had not abandoned me after all…and I was so grateful. God was faithful after all, not in the sense of healing my brother, but in the sense of God's spirit being with me and my family and this faith community as we suffered in grief and pain together. The funeral service, that I had dreaded going to, became for me, after that profound realization, an Easter service. Everything shared took on a very different light. Rather than being a day of just pain and sadness, it became also a day of much celebration of who Jamie was. But for me to encounter that Easter experience, I had to discover God in the midst of my suffering. I had go through the suffering of Good Friday to discover the new life that God provides on the other side of the cross. Normally, during Easter Sunday worship, we hear one of the 4 resurrection stories found in the 4 gospels, but I want to begin our Easter reflections from a different place. I want to start with Apostle Paul's reflections on the resurrection. Many church attenders don’t realize that the authentic letters of Apostle Paul were all written before any of the gospels were written…at least a decade before the earliest Gospel of Mark which most scholars speculate was written in the late 60’s CE. In the image below, we see Apostle Paul's written words from his first letter to the Jesus believers of Corinth. What I want you to notice in this reading of Apostle Paul is that there is no mention of the name Jesus, the name associated with the human man Jesus. The focus is on Christ, the resurrected Christ…the Spirt of Christ that lived within the human Jesus. This Christ died for our sins, was buried, and arose on the Third day, then he appeared to Peter, called Cephas in this text, then the 12 disciples, then to more than 500 brothers and sisters at once, then he appeared to James, brother to the human Jesus, then to all the apostles, and then finally to Paul. Apostle Paul writes that he is the least important of the apostles. He writes, “I don’t deserve to be called an apostle, because I harassed God’s church. I am what I am by God’s grace.” For Apostle Paul, the experience of the risen Christ has no sense of the human Jesus. There is no mention anywhere in Paul’s writings of anything about Jesus’ earthly life, his virgin birth, his healings, his teachings, his miracles, etc. It seems that Paul knew nothing about the earthly Jesus. Instead, Paul’s relationship with the Risen Christ began on the road to the Damascus when a bright light blinded him, and the voice of the Risen Christ spoke to him from this light. It is here that Apostle Paul encountered the Risen Christ for the first time, and as he developed a relationship with this Christ, he soon discovered that this spirit of Christ actually lived within him. In one of his earliest letters, his letter to the Galatians, Apostle Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in my body, I live by faith, indeed, by the faithfulness of God’s Son, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2: 20). For Apostle Paul, the Risen Christ was no longer a spirit out there in the world, like a ghostly spirit separated from him. Rather, the Risen Christ had become an indwelling Spirit of Christ that lived within him. This is why Apostle Paul talks about being "in Christ" or "in Christ Jesus" so much in his writings...over 60 times in his letters. He is not talking about his belief in Christ, like many Christians do today. Rather his Christian faith arose from him noticing the spirit of Christ arising in different ways within him, within his mind, heart, body, and soul. In many other places in his writings, Apostle Paul describes the different expressions of the indwelling Christ within him as the workings of God’s Holy Spirit. Those words of Apostle Paul where he describes "being crucified with Christ" capture for me how we experience Easter through the sufferings of Good Friday. I have revisited many times my resurrection experience around my brother’s Jamie’s funeral. In doing so, I realized that this was my crucifixion experience…when I was crucified with Christ…when I discover the spirit of Christ suffering with me in my anger, pain, and grief of losing my brother Jamie. When I realized this, that Christ or God was in as much pain as I was, the walls of numbness between Christ and me came tumbling down, and I found the spirit of Christ living within my body and soul and life after all. I also found a profound compassion and grace flowing toward my emotional, mental and spiritual pain, and profound relief and gratitude arising within me. One could see those walls of numbness as curtains that separated me and thus made it impossible for me to experience the gracious presence of Christ in my life. Those curtains needed to be split in two. At the centre of the Jewish Temple in Jesus' time, there was a room called the Holy of Holies where the Ark of Covenant resided. It was believed then by the Jewish people that God's spirit resided with this sacred place. This room was totally curtained off and only the high priest could enter this holy space on the Day of Atonement, once each year. All four gospels highlight the fact that when Jesus died, this curtain in the Temple was torn into two, a sign that the presence of God was no longer meant to be hidden away from humanity behind this curtain. God was no longer meant to be seen as separate and indifferent to human suffering, if that was ever true. Rather, this torn curtain symbolized the truth that God experiences all the sufferings that we, humans go through....and in response, we sense Christ or God's Holy Spirit responding to our pain. When we realize that Christ is suffering within us in our pain, our anger, guilt, despair, anxiety, grief, or doubt, this curtain of numbness within our soul or inner sanctuary is ripped in two, and we discover that Christ is both experiencing deeply our pain, but also responding to it through the spirit of compassion, grace, insight/truth, etc. As this healing response emerges, we sense some form of resurrection happening to us, within us, and beyond. My Easter experience has caused me to realize that the Spirit of Christ lives within every person, within each of you…even within a person like Paul who was persecuting Christians for he saw them practicing a false and dangerous faith. But when he experienced blindness and suffering, and found Christ in the midst of his crucifixion experience, Easter happened for Paul, and he never looked back. He became a new creation, a new human. This realization that the Spirit of Christ lives within the soul of each human being is profound. The gospel of John describes this connection between Christ and human beings in this way. God is seen the vinegrower, Christ is the vine and each human is a branch on this vine. The gospel writer has Christ Jesus teach, "If you abide in me and I abide in you, you will produce much fruit. Without me, you can do nothing." (John 15: 5). This image of Christ being the vine and we, humans, the branches, suggests that Christ experiences everything we experience. If we are in pain, Christ the vine will feel this pain, and thus will respond to this pain with the hope of healing this branch. During a Lenten worship service this year, our Children's Time leader shared a demonstration that vividly illustrated for me what happens to us when we become aware that Christ lives within us. He had two jars that were full of water and appeared identical. In one jar, he placed an egg, and it floated to the bottom: the water could not support the egg. But when he placed the egg in the second jar of water, the egg floated. (The children didn't know this but there was salt in the water of the jar where the egg floated. ) When I saw those two jars, I realized that the Children's Time leader shared the perfect picture of what happens when the numbing pain walls within our soul come down and we discover the spirit of Christ abiding within us. For me, the jar with salty water represents the soul of each person. For many people, they are totally the oblivious to the movement of Christ’s spirit within them and thus it remains dormant. Or people are totally resistant to any idea of God being active in the world, let alone God’s spirit living within them. The have an internal curtain or wall ...like I had when my soul was numb due to my anger at God for not healing my brother. As a result, these people experience life like that egg that floats to the bottom of the jar. We experience little to no spiritual support in this world or in our lives from God. We are not open to God’s Spirit moving within us. We believe the Indwelling Christ does not exist within us. As a result, we have to create all of our support...from our striving and efforting or if we are able to reach out, from the support of others in our lives who show care for us. However, when people discovered that Christ’s spirit lives within them, then suddenly they notice the dynamics of God’s spirit working within them and beyond them in the world around them. So how do we discover or notice this Christ Spirit at work within our lives? My brother Jamie died in August. I still remember the phone call I got from my parents in January five months later when Valerie and I were at seminary. They were phoning down asking me to give them permission to adopt a young boy. I knew that they were trying to replace my brother Jamie through this adopted boy, to somehow relieve the pain they were feeling inside. I also knew that I had to say no for it would not be fair to any boy they adopted to live with the emotional burden that my parents would be placing on them. But then I got this inspiration, and it came out of nowhere. I said to my Mother…”Mom, you always wanted a daughter. Why don’t you become a Big Sister within the Big Sister program to a young girl who does not have a mother….and Dad, why don’t you become a Big Brother within the Big Brother program to a boy who has lost their father.” My parents took my advice to heart. My Mother became a Big Sister to a young girl and my Father became a Big Brother to a young boy. It was a very healing relationship for both of them at that time, a helpful place to direct their attention and energy…although it became also challenging at times, especially years later. But God had further surprises to my family. The little boy that was matched with my Dad lost his father to the reality of HIV/AIDS. My Dad was the perfect Big Brother for him. This truth that Christ lives within all of us, that we are all connected to the vine of Christ, now flows into my counselling ministry. When I see people suffering in their lives, I know that Christ is suffering with them for we humans are connected to the vine of Christ. If any of one of us are suffering, Christ is feeling this suffering too. For me, this is a given, undisputable for I believe that if I can feel the pain of my client in the counselling room, then Christ must also be able to sense this same pain. This suffering may be anger at life, others, even God. This suffering maybe depression or despair, maybe anxiety or fear, maybe abandonment by God or others, maybe guilt or profound shame. Whatever we are experiencing, Christ is experiencing with us. This is our experience of the Cross, of Good Friday. The challenge in my work is how to help people realize that Christ is suffering with them. If they can’t realize this truth, then they will experience life like that egg that floated to the bottom of the jar. They will often feel totally unsupported, alone, abandoned, angry, resentful, etc. They will frequently become stuck in the suffering of Good Friday. However, if I can help my clients realize that God is suffering with them, that Christ understands and feels their crucifixion experience, that is when the curtain in their heart rips open...and a new conversation opens up exploring how God or Christ is with them in their suffering. These conversations are often quite rich. Sometimes, my clients can't make this leap of faith and so I focus on helping my client realized that they are not alone, that I deeply feel and appreciate what they are suffering with. I do this with the hope that by me standing in for Christ, in the future I can eventually help them realize that the Spirit of Christ lives within them as well as me. When that occurs, the client's experience of God being within them in their crucifixion opens up the doorway to their resurrection. Clients are often quite surprised when I suggest to them that God is just as angry as they are at what has happened to them or their loved one. If they are feeling in despair or abandoned by God, I suggest that Christ understands what that might feel like for Jesus went through a similar abandonment experience. If they are feeling guilty, ashamed, anxious or grief, I suggest that Christ is able to appreciate these intense feelings too for Jesus felt it with Peter when Peter denied him or Jesus sensed it with Judas when Judas betrayed him, or Jesus was deeply moved by Mary Magdalene on Easter morning when she was so bereaved. There is no feeling that God/Christ has not experienced first hand and does not understand. Once clients realize that God/Christ feels their suffering deeply, that is, they sense Christ entering and responding to their human cross experience, this opens the door for clients to live into their Easter healing experience. When we see the Good Friday/Easter event in this way, it becomes quite evident how the suffering of Good Friday opens the door to the new life found in the resurrection of Easter. Thanks be to God.
Gord Alton MDiv RP CASC Supervisor-Educator
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