Broken Promises

It’s Good Friday. Do you say, “Happy Good Friday”? I’m guessing, no.

I’m going to get to my “Broken” Lent thought in a minute, but first I wanted to do a little stream of consciousness reflection on Good Friday. More specifically, Jesus arrest, torture, and death (I know that includes more than Good Friday).

Here’s what I’ve been thinking this week… When we hear the story of Jesus arrest, torture, and death…well, let’s focus on the arrest. We portray Judas and the soldiers and the priests as bad guys. Judas is a villain for ‘selling’ Jesus to the priests. The soldiers are bad guys for arresting Jesus. The priests are bad guys for swearing out a warrant for Jesus’ arrest…or whatever the 1^st Century Near East equivalent would be. But then we ‘celebrate’ Jesus death. I know we don’t necessarily celebrate his death, but we celebrate the resurrection (this Sunday!). And there can be no resurrection without death. We castigate these characters, for lack of a better term (and that’s how we tend to treat them), for their roles in the story, but where would we be without them? I remember hearing this story when I was younger and hoping Jesus would win. Of course, then for Jesus to win would mean that he escaped the arrest. We hear the story and we’re mad at these guys for their roles and we’re sad that Jesus is arrested. Later on in the New Testament, many of them are referred to as evil. I’m not saying we should celebrate the underhanded methods or the gratuitous torture, but again I ask…where would we be without it? Just to throw it out there… I love the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. In the second act after Jesus’ arrest Judas sings a wonderfully moving lament before he hangs himself. His part of the song ends with the line “You have murdered me!” He repeats the line over and over until he dies. The ‘you’ to whom he refers is God. After his death, a ‘heavenly’ chorus sings, “Well done, Judas. Good ole Judas.” It brings up an interesting point of view. Each of these (Judas, the soldiers, the priests, etc.) was just a pawn used by God to carry out his plan. I’m not sure it’s a valid argument (or invalid for that matter). I just thought it was an interesting one.

OK, back to my original thought. If you are unsure of the theme or haven’t read my other Lenten thoughts, you should go back and do that. FYI – This one is not as pre-thought as the others have been. We’ll see how it goes.

Last week’s passage was the story of Jesus’ arrest, trial, torture, and death from Matthew’s Gospel. You can read it here: Matthew 26:14-27:66. It’s a long one, but worth the read. Especially today.

I want to focus on a particular verse, part of a verse actually. “Then all the disciples deserted him and fled” (Matt. 26:56).

After his arrest in the garden, as Jesus is led away (or maybe even before then), his disciples run away. These men who have promised to follow Jesus, who gave up their livelihoods, left their families (at least one was married), who risked so much for so long…ran away to hide.

When the going got tough, the tough…fled.

Even Peter, who just 23 verses earlier said “I will never desert you” and two verses later promised, in essence to die with Jesus, ran away into the night. All of these who men promised, either implicitly or explicitly (as Peter did) to follow Jesus regardless of the cost…didn’t.

I don’t want to belabor the point, so I’ll finish this up quickly. They ran and they hid. They promised to follow, but when the chips were down they couldn’t follow through. We’ve done it. You’ve done it. I’ve done it. Oh God, have I done it. (I mean that as a prayer.)

We have the choice a hundred times a day. Follow Jesus or don’t follow Jesus. Maybe you choose to follow 99 times out of a hundred. So did the disciples. When we become a Christian, or ‘get saved’ or ‘we’re born again’ or ‘invite Jesus into our hearts’ or whatever you want to call it…we make a promise. We promise to follow Jesus. Not just in that moment, but always. We make, to use a churchy word, a covenant. Luckily we make that covenant with a gracious, merciful God.

After Jesus’ resurrection he went to his disciples. He went to the same guys who ran out on him when he needed them most. He forgave them. He restored them. He told them to get off their butts, quit feeling sorry for themselves (and him), and follow him! Our gracious, merciful God tells us the same thing.

“Get up off your butt. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. Follow me.”

So, what does it mean to, “Follow me”? Well, to paraphrase Alton Brown: that’s another blog post.

Happy Good Friday!