A Good Bad Thing

David Orendorff · Luke 23:1-25 · April 1, 2007

Molly Ivan tells the story of two little boys whose mother was tired of their noisy ways in the house and sent them out to the hen house to check the chickens for chicken snakes. The boys checked the bottom roost and it was clear. As they checked the upper roost, just about face high, they found themselves nose to nose with a chicken snake. In sudden panic, they nearly destroyed the chicken house door in their flight to escape. Crashing into the house, they told their mother of the snake.

“Now, boys,” she said, “You know a chicken snake won’t hurt you.”
“Yes, M’am,” a son replied, “but some things will scare you so bad that you hurt yourself.”

The fear of chicken snakes is the fear of death, and the fear of death leads us to hurt ourselves and others in mindless flight. One of my children loves scary movies, but she doesn’t like the scary parts. When the music is creepy, and the screen is dark and the evil threatens to strike, she hides her eyes. It is just a movie, and we know a movie can’t hurt us, but even imagining death scares the bejeebers out of us.

All of us have things that scare us: things we don’t want to see, monsters under our beds, and spiders in the closet. There are diseases that we hide from. We pretend the job is okay, the relationship healthy. We procrastinate on wills and planning our funerals. We close our eyes, pull the covers over our heads and pretend death isn’t in the room. But the last week of Lent pulls the covers down, forces open our eyes to look at what scares us most.

On Thursday, at the Last Supper drama and communion, we will see Jesus’ final dinner with friends who soon betray him. On Friday, at the Tenebrae service, we read of Jesus’ path to death and, extinguishing one candle at a time, we descend into death’s total darkness. On Saturday we know the disciples hide in dark fear, waiting and despairing of our own imminent deaths, wondering from whence hope will come. It is the rhythm of those awaiting death in the hospital. It is the rhythm of those fearing that war, poverty, hunger, loneliness and failure have been victorious.

When Jesus is humiliated, tortured, and crucified for no good reason, I don’t want to look. If this beloved child of God can suffer undeserved, unfair and fatal treatment, then so can I. If this most beloved child of God can be led like a lamb to the butcher, then so can I. I don’t want to see clearly that there is no escape from death. I want to skip the passion of Jesus and get right on with Easter resurrection with its smiley faces and happy endings. But this week will not let me hide my eyes.

I don’t imagine Jesus wanted to see his agonizing death any more than I want to see mine. But Jesus didn’t hide his eyes; he went as the gospel song says, “Without a mumblin’ word.” He went to death not because he wanted to, nor because God wanted him to. Jesus went open-eyed to death because he knew God went with him. He went because he loves us. Having emptied himself of divinity for our sakes, he came to share life, including death, with us. He went so that when death comes for us, we might go without fear.

In Jesus, God has written a new ending to an old children’s poem:

Solomon Grundy,
Born on Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday:
This is the end
of Solomon Grundy.

Unlike Solomon Grundy, Jesus’ story does not end with burial but with Sunday’s resurrection. Jesus is raised to life again. And what we feared so as to hurt ourselves and others, why we closed our eyes, becomes remade in the love of God to be life forever, love eternal, and we call it resurrection. The very bad thing, the death of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, becomes a very good thing, the beginning of forever.

In meditating on Jesus’ last night in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he walks into the valley of the shadow of death, I like to imagine that he thought of the 23rd Psalm. When we are tempted to close our eyes and hide, it is good to remember that “The Lord is my shepherd” and to remind ourselves that even when violence is coming for us, God is with us and will care for us; and should we die, we need fear no evil. The good shepherd has a staff to guide us on the right path. The good shepherd has a rod to fight off snakes, wolves and rustlers. God prepares for us a banquet in the presence of our enemies. God anoints us. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

The creators of the cross intended it to be a sign of cruel and hopeless death. They wanted, and still do want, it to scare us into being their slaves. God remakes the cross into the universal symbol of eternal of life. People wear the emblem of suffering to proclaim the triumph of God over death. We are called by faith to see the tragedies of our lives not as ruin, but as the beginning of victory. When others mourn how sad was our demise, we celebrate the victory God has won in us.

We cooperate with such grace by opening our eyes to the scary thing, looking it straight in the face and, in spite of our fear, trusting in God through worship, study and service. We believe with our minds that God, who is all compassion, is in charge of the outcome of our lives. We trust with our hearts that God will carry us on when we have lost our hope and our way. In the moment of our impending death, we expect God’s salvation. When life approaches being the worst of the scary movies, when we are tempted to hide our eyes in fear of death, we remember the faith and love of Jesus and that God takes bad things and makes good of them so that they become a good bad thing.

Amen and Shalom.