Good Friday

And so it is Good Friday. It's about two in the afternoon in these parts. By Mark's account, Jesus has been on the cross for about five hours, since 9 AM. The entire earth was plunged into darkness about two hours ago. In about an hour, Jesus' life will end with a loud cry. Crucified on the third hour; the world goes dark on the sixth hour; Jesus dies on the ninth hour.

To a Jewish audience of that era, those times are significant and symbolic. If the account had said that these events occurred on, say, the first hour, the fourth hour and the seventh hour, the significance would not have been as great. But these events are noted as having occurred on the third, the sixth and the ninth hours, and this would have been flashing lights and clanging bells to a Jewish readership. Those were the Jewish hours of prayer. It's not coincidence that the writers of the Gospels - Jews all - would have emphasized those hours.

It's two hours since the earth has gone black. I can't imagine how terrifying that would have been. Sure, everyone knew about solar eclipses, but no solar eclipse lasts for two hours. We can imagine the fear in Jerusalem, while on the near outskirts of town, on a hill called Golgotha, three convicted criminals hang on crosses. The end is near.

Crucifixion is one of the cruelest, most painful forms of execution that the human mind has conceived. The nails through the palms thing wouldn't work; the nails would work their way through a part of your hand where there aro no bones to support the weight of a human body. The nails may be hammered through the palms, but rope would also be used to tie the wrists. There would be a foot support there, but this was not for comfort. It was to prolong the agony. Crucifixion puts the body into such a contorted position that the only way the victim could exhale would be to push down on his or her feet. Thus, the foot support just to be sure you could continue to exhale.

Crucifixion was not a Jewish form of execution. It was Roman, although it seems the Persians thought of it first. The Romans rarely, if ever, inflicted crucifixion on Roman citizens. Paul, being a Roman citizen, was executed by beheading. Peter, not a citizen, was crucified. Crucified upside down, as legend has it.

Three crosses on a hill. The guy in the middle - Yeshua, or Jesus to English speakers - had gone through considerable suffering before he was crucified. He was scourged, and not everyone survived scourging. He was mocked, and a crown of thorns was placed on his head. Ever get your thumb pricked by one thorn? Then he was made to carry his own cross,  Not light, and at one point the Romans compel a passer-by, Simon, a Cyrenean, to carry Jesus' cross.

Then, finally, Golgotha. The crucifixion. And the miracle.

Jesus dies six hours after crucifixion. Healthy adult males usually didn't expire that soon. Death for the crucified could linger for days. It surely seemed that Jesus himself decided when His work was finished. That just didn't happen at crucifixions.

By Mark's account Jesus died with a loud cry. That didn't happen at crucifixions, either. Suffocation was the usual eventual cause of death, but it was in a race with thirst. Expiration would have occurred silently, or with a very slight gasp. No loud cries.

The Roman guard would have seen hundreds of crucifixions. The Romans were not chintzy with their wood when they thought crucifixions were called for. And the Roman guard would have known that this deciding on your own when you're done, this dying with a loud cry, this darkness covering the earth as though God Himself didn't want to see this - there was a lot about THIS crucifixion that just wasn't normal.

Then the veil of the temple was torn in two, top to bottom. THAT just didn't happen either. Yes, this was very unusual.

Hemingway wrote a story centered around a character who was a member of the Roman cohort. It was set years later, and a theme was that this hardened guard who had participated in a lot of executionas never got over this one. Never got past asking, "Who was this? What did we do?"

Have we answered, even yet?

So, Jesus dies on the ninth hour of Good Friday. Despite all the odd stuff, he is dead. Obviously, dead. Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate knew that death by crucifixion wasn't usually that quick, so he wondered, but he ascertained that Jesus was dead. And he granted Joseph the body. The body was buried, and those who buried it noted the place where they buried it.

Jesus was dead. Gone. This person who comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable was no longer a thorn in the side of Roman or Pharisee or Sadduccee or Scribe.

Dead. Gone. Finis.

Arrest and Trial

It's the start of Good Friday. And I'm up way past my bedtime. Thinking - contemplating. . .

I think that, if you would understand Christianity, you must come to terms with Jesus' betrayal, arrest, trial and crucifixion. There is no doubt that something earth-shaking happened on that cross. We may have no way, in any human terms, to know precisely what it was that happened, but something did happen, and that something was of such a nature that no human words are adequate to describe it. That inadequacy of human language is the reason that any talk of God is and must be metaphoric.

But, something happened, and nothing - nothing - ever has been or ever will be the same since.

It's now about 1:00 A.M., and since the end of the Holy Thursday Mass I have been soaking myself, in thought and in reading, in St. Mark's account of Christ's Passion. I mean to not hurry through it. To come to terms with your Christian faith is to come to terms with what happened on that cross as best we can, so I'm slowly working my way through Mark chapters 14 and 15. A theme that is present in these chapters is betrayal. At one point Peter tells Jesus that he, Peter, will never betray Jesus, even if his loyalty costs him life. Jesus - can you almost hear Jesus' snorting under his breath? - replies that this very night, before the cock crows twice, Peter will deny three times that he even knows Jesus. By the end of chapter 14, that which had been unthinkable to Peter just hours before has come to pass. He denies three times that he knows Jesus. Immediately after the third denial, Peter hears the second cock-crow. Peter goes and weeps bitterly.

One type of prayer I engage in is that I read a passage slowly, meditatively, and try to place myself in the scene. Who am I? What am I doing? And, in this scene, that leads to a question. Even now, centuries and millenia later, could I really say that I'd do anything different from what Peter did? Would I also have denied Jesus because it was - well - comfy and convenient?

Probably. In fact, I do so now. So this is my confession and my apology, however weak, and my stated intention of repentance, however inadequate.

Lord, you said that those to be blessed of the Father would be those who gave you food when you were hungry and drink when you were thirsty. When I have seen those who were in need, and not recognized you in them, I am so so sorry. Please help me to do better.

Jesus, you said that those to be blessed of the Father would offer welcome to the stranger. I try, Father, in my efforts to obtain justice for immigrants, but my efforts are weak, and too often I think that this is something I should get a pat on the back for. Even when I try to help, my motives are largely selfish. Lord, please forgive me, and if we - WE - have any successes, let all the glory be to your holy name. Let me see You in the face of the undocumented worker.

And for the sick - the naked - the imprisoned - where I have failed to identify the need or to contribute to the solution - where I have failed to recognize You in the faces of need - God, forgive me. Kyrie eleison - Lord have mercy.

So, yes, I betray Jesus. I do so daily. And as I think, and as I reflect, it's only His love and grace that makes me want to do better.

How 'bout you?

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your thoughts.

Today on the banks of the Mississippi

The Mississippi. I'm told that some police officers use the spelling of Mississippi as an instant sobriety test. I'm also told that officers in Dubuque use their city's name for the same thing. "D-u-b-b-u-u-uh, where. . .?"

There are three memorial plaques attached to three rocks on the south side of LeClaire Park. The first plaque is in commemoration of the robbery otherwise known as the Blackhawk Purchase Treaty. The second is for Antoine LeClaire. LeClaire functioned as an interpreter for the aforementioned muggi. . .er, treaty. Just happened to be at the right place at the right time, I guess. As a result of the treaty LeClaire wound up with a fair-sized chunk of land on the Iowa side of the river. Yep. He came to do good, and he did right well.

Interesting thing about the naming of the Quad Cities. LeClaire lived in Davenport, not in the town now known as LeClaire. So what's now Davenport should really have been LeClaire. But, fear not. Colonel Davenport did live in the area, on Arsenal Island. So, Davenport should have been LeClaire, and Rock Island should have been Davenport. Moline would be an appropriate name - it come from the French  moulin, meaning "mills."

And what should the present-day LeClaire have really been? Nothing much. OK, maybe Cody. Buffalo Bill Cody was the most famous person to come from that town. THAT'S something to brag about.

Ethics. Seeing those two commemorations of the plundering of the Native Americans just a short distance from the Rhythm City Casino, where Quad City retirees go to leave their money, made me think about ethics. Kant wrote about ethics, and he was fond of the term "imperatives", or whatever the German word for imperatives was. (With Kant you can never ever forget that he wrote in German, and lots of the shades and nuances integral to his explanation of his thought just don't translate. Not that Kant was all that readable in German, for that matter.) He wrote about hypothetical imperatives - situational - "If you're hungry you should eat" - and categorical imperatives, the imperatives that you would wish to be universal law.

I'm not necessarily on board with him, for two reasons. One is that I'm coming to the conclusion that there are very few true categorical imperatives out there. "Thou shalt not kill" - but if I come home and find a guy with a knife to my 10-year-old granddaughter's throat, and if I have a .357 delete button nearby - DEEElete. No prob. Thus the categorical imperative shows itself to have elements of the hypothetical imperative after all. What happens when two categorical imperatives clash? Now isn't THAT the ethicists' question?

Besides, I'm not fond of the term "imperatives" (conceding that, in the German the term may have a different shade of meaning than what I'm addressing. Wir nicht sprechen Deutsch.) Are ethics all about imperatives? I think ethics are what guide you when you are not governed by imperatives. Ethics involve actions taken when there is free choice of actions to take.

Dang the things that pop into my head on a walk. On a sunny windy day. By that great sobriety test, the Mississippi.