photo from
Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani | Greenbelt 2004
taken by Steve Collins
I do not want him taken off that cross. I spend most of my spiritual energy keeping Jesus on that cross, victorious, filled with hope. When I get the chance to preach, a buddy of mine always says to me "...get to the hope faster...". This is odd feedback for me - I am an optimist and filled with enthusiasms galore.
For me, there is no more true statement of faith than "the Gospel is bad news before it is good news". The son of God was killed by those he lived with, those who awaited his glorious reign. The authorities looked for a way out, for a loophole that would allow them to let this prophet go free. But we villagers would have none of it. So we killed him. And now he is dead.
The women came to take him off the cross - he is wrapped in the spices, the embalming method of the day - and even in death he has no home. He is stashed away in a borrowed tomb, yet another cosmic echo in a story that started in a manger.
I want that son of God to stay on the cross, not taken down and laid in a tomb. There are not enough spices or incense or pretty music to distract me from this - the son of man is dead.
When I went to Greenbelt two summers ago, I was profoundly moved by the worship that so many communities curated. The most unsettling by far though was the Holy Saturday gathering that iKon curated. I wish I had kept my spent match (see photo above) to remind me of the gain and loss. When my brother called to tell me my Dad had died, I could have used that match. It would remind me that when God took skin and walked among us in the form of Jesus, death held no dominion, that life and death take place on the cross, in the tomb and in my sphere of family & friends.
Come down from the cross, Jesus, come into the arms of a mother, wrapping you in things to cover the stench. We carry you into the tomb, not as a resting place, but as your final destination. My season of mourning reminds me that what Roseanne Cash sang is true:
"Every drop of rain that falls, falls for those who mourn / God is in the roses and the thorns."
Wibbling Thoughts
Mourning
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we went back to the upper room
we had no where else to go.
we didn't know this city, were all much more at home in the country
with fields and fishing boats
not crowds of milling people.
i woke as the sun dawned
and for a fleeting second i thought i had dreamed yesterday
that He was dead
but then i realised it was the truth
He had died, He was dead
and all the hope in the world died with him
today is a day of mourning
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