Conversation Point

Good Friday in Jerusalem

Do you remember waking up one day in June 1968 to the news that Robert Kennedy had been shot and was near death? Having just finished a triumphant speech to support his run for the United States presidency, Kennedy embodied the hope the country craved after years of escalating military involvement in Vietnam, the assassination in April of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the shadow of his brother's violent death only a few years before that. The news from California didn't reach the Midwest until that morning because the last speech of Robert Kennedy ran late into the evening on the West Coast, and we had all assumed that the worst was over and the best was yet to be. The cheering crowds anticipating Kennedy's speech were the last television image most of us remember from that night. While his brother, John, had led the country through the Cuban Missile Crisis and set the vision for the moon landing that would come the next year, Bobby represented a far greater hope: equality and justice for all. Lyndon Johnson had signed the Civil Rights Act into law and the presidency Bobby Kennedy envisioned included making this law a part of the fabric of American life.

Robert Kennedy died later that day. His passing was one more blow to the country that felt like the death of hope itself.

The grief of that June morning is as close as I can come to grasping what Good Friday in Jerusalem felt like to Jesus' disciples and followers. Having welcomed Jesus back to Jerusalem with joy and excitement only days earlier, the city now faced a very different rendering of Jesus as a public figure. While the most holy of Jewish holidays was celebrated around the Seder table the night before, Jesus had been arrested and would be executed that afternoon. How did the City of Jerusalem hear the news? Word of mouth would carry the news quickly, particularly among travelers who may have sensed the tension between the Romans and the Temple priests over Jesus' influence among the crowds. Matching history's lessons to the powerful impact of Jesus' message meant it wasn't a complete surprise that this latest preacher's life would end violently at the hands of Rome.

But as families awoke that day, having just remembered in the Passover how their ancestors had been brought out of Egypt, many of them could not have helped but hoped that Jesus might be the Messiah, and that hope of a new Jewish redemption may be near. Gathered with family and friends, celebrating the Passover in a place and time of such great hope for the future was an incredible gift. But soon the news of what had happened the night before would travel from house to house, family to family and heart to heart. In this time of chaos and confusion people also had to be asking themselves and each other what had gone so wrong so quickly.

The morning presented the stark reality of how Jesus had spent his Passover. The people of Jerusalem poured into the streets as they heard the news about Jesus and were confronted by Jesus himself, clearly having been beaten and tortured, dragging a heavy timber across his shoulders as his Roman captors taunted him with verbal abuse, sarcastically calling him "The King of the Jews." His disciples were no where around. The crowds filing the streets weren't waving palm branches and shouting hosannahs anymore. They were joining in with the Romans, yelling and screaming at Jesus, spitting on him and kicking him when he collapsed under the weight of the timber. The crowds knew he was carrying the beam onto which he would be nailed as soon as he reached the crucifixion site outside of the city. Whoever did care didn't speak up too loudly.

Walking this day out, step by step, cannot have been anything less than a horror show in slow motion. We frequently complain about the world moving too fast today, wishing it would slow down to a more manageable speed. Perhaps some days this speed could be a blessing, the days we want to forget and not ever relive in the gruesome detail that still takes us apart from the inside out. How did these people who had known and loved Jesus, having hoped against hope in his message, decide how much they could bear that day? Would they run away at seeing Jesus struggle on the street? Would they follow, staying at a distance in case the Romans were looking for more people to execute? Would they turn back to the safety of their homes and families until Sabbath worship that evening? Could they draw on their courage to go to the cross on the hill and let Jesus see them there so he knew he was still loved? What would Sabbath be like that night? How could they worship God, wondering if their Messiah had just been murdered before their eyes?

How does anyone keep living when they believe that hope has died, and the future has died with it?

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 6:31 PM