Why the Friday is good

FR MARTIN SIRJU

GOLGOTHA was a stinking place. There were numerous crosses in the area with rotting bodies on them. The Romans did it on purpose, to intimidate the crowd into good behaviour and to make sure they never think of rebelling. It was a marvellously successful strategy.

Jesus, condemned as a criminal, was crucified outside of Jerusalem, outside the city gates, to emphasise his rejection by the authorities. Some scholars who dispute the resurrection claim his body was eaten by wild dogs and never put in a tomb. Dogs in Jesus’s time were not domesticated and roamed all over. They usually feasted on dead bodies that fell off the crosses.

How then can such a death be good? We would not see its goodness if we focus on Good Friday alone. We have to see it from the perspective of the entire life of Jesus. His was a life of self-shedding. This is unlike what we are encouraged to do today – become the best that you can be, “the best version of yourself” – often for the sake of self-enlightenment and self-progress: “I want to be in a good space.”

There is nothing wrong with that; we must develop ourselves to the fullest capacity. But if it stops at the self it is a navel-gazing spirituality. The Jesus way is to develop oneself less for one’s sake but more for the sake of others. This is symbolised in Holy Communion – Jesus gives himself away to all who come forward to receive, as he did over 2000 years ago.

His death, make no mistake about it, was significantly political. When the Jews ask for him to be crucified since he claimed to be the “Son of God,” Pilate couldn’t care less. He could not as a senior public official put a man to death on religious grounds. But when they howled that he claimed to be king and they have no king except Ceasar that rattled Pilate’s cage.

While Jesus was not a political reformer as some scholars have made him out to be, his vision did envisage reform of the political order; he dreamt of a different kind of kingdom, a different kind of world where God would reign.

This is where the code governing political conduct is very important regarding the upcoming election. St Paul writes: “God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people's sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19).

What happened at Golgotha was the peak of a reconciling way of life and such reconciliation cost a most decent man his life. Good political conduct – refraining from divisive, hostile, racist comments – is electioneering in a responsible manner. Use picong by all means but do not use it to cross boundaries that encourage racial hostilities on social media, with its abundance of nasty comments. In the fever of campaigning there must still be a high ground – reconciliation before division.

We are seeing the very opposite of world reconciliation in the Donald Trump administration. One man is on a reckless path to make his country great at the expense of the stability of the world order. The Christ tried to close the gap between rich and poor he is bent of exacerbating it. The poorest countries, including us in the Caribbean, will be impacted most.

The world trade arena is forcing people to think not in terms of a global village, but each nation for itself or each block of territories for themselves – splintering not reconciling – which still will not shield the world from a looming global economic catastrophe.

I was recently invited as part of the IRO to the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Caribbean Court of Justice. It was an impressive event. Twenty years on and still TT has not decided to use that court as its final court of appeal. Our failure to do so exhibits a lack of self-confidence.

One of the consequences of our battered social history, especially those of slavery and indentureship, is a battered identity – both individually and nationally. There is this ingrained distrust of one another – “we are not ready,” “too much politics in the selection of judges,” “too costly.” This is battered national and regional identity speaking.

Some of the best minds in jurisprudence in the Caribbean sit on that bench. Instead of it being an opportunity for regional integration (reconciliation) it becomes an opportunity for needless argumentation and perhaps envy too.

Finally, the “goodness” of the Friday is to be seen in hindsight of the resurrection. The whole range of ministry of reconciliation was not obliterated on the cross. It was kept in the tomb, in the dark for three days, but later goodness prevailed, hope leapt forth, of which the poet sings: “As Sunday smiled and walked with me I pondered the timeless, cursed tree. Such weight of sin upon mere wood; Only this king could make Friday good.”

Fr Martin Sirju is the administrator of the RC Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception