Good Friday, April 3, 2015

Silence

Today is a day full of words: hard words, emotional words, mean words, empty words. All our words pile up to describe or excuse or control. Through all this we confront the one we call “the Word.” Pilate is confused and amazed. In his awe or his despair he asks, “What is truth?”

The characters in this drama are all searching for truth and meaning. They ask continually of Jesus, “Who are you?” When they don’t get an answer, they pass him on to the next authority to try and get some answers. They never find the answer that satisfies them, so they decide to kill him.

As we watch (and as we follow along) we want to find a sense of justice, or at least a little common sense. What do these crazy people have to do with us? Don’t they know to whom they are speaking?

This is more than frustration at some sort of badly written plot twist. We recognize ourselves in the hate and the fear of the crowd. We see our own actions in the compromises of the leaders. We remember how we run from our responsibilities. We see our own betrayal.

Jesus answers with silence. It would almost be better for us if Jesus were to speak up and tell us the truth. Tell us what we’ve done wrong! Tell us all our sins! His silence is worse. Have you nothing to say? He lets us condemn ourselves with our own words.

Jesus is silent. There is no defense. There is no explanation. The story suggests something about the scriptures being fulfilled. Even if we could understand what that means, it seems a weak justification for the suffering and loss we witness and applaud.

Through suffering and false charges, through pain and death, Jesus is silent. We marvel. We wonder. What is the point? To forgive our sins? To make us sorry? To make us give up and walk away?

Jesus is silent. God is silent. In this emptiness, in this broken and open place, we do not have the slightest idea what God is doing. We have no control. We have no direction. We are lost.

Before we get to Easter, we pass through this empty space. This is loss. This is death. We spend our lives in an illusion of our invincibility and in our rightness. Today we strip all of that away. Our life is not in our hands. Our actions lead to death. We stand by the tomb, sealed in silence. We must wait for God who alone gives us life.