No matter how many times we hear this story, something in it grips us. We know how it ends, we know it is a tragedy, but something in us wants to hear it anyway, the familiar details of how Pilate was too cowardly to follow his better instincts, and all the sad details of this death that was so avoidable.
The reason why this story draws us in like few other stories isn’t always clear to us, but then, suddenly, unexpectedly, after years of hearing it, we find out why. We see someone we love, suffering for days or weeks from a painful final illness, or someone dying too young when we’re not ready to see them go. We see an earthquake bringing death as suddenly and randomly as death can happen to any one of us. And at that unexpected moment, we suddenly realize that we are seeing this story, today’s story. That on that hospital bed we are seeing Good Friday. It’s as if we can hold the picture of Jesus on the cross next to the scene we’re seeing and our eyes are opened, and we realize, that’s it: This image in the front of our church is here because it is not just a portrait of Jesus. Sooner or later we see that it is our portrait, too.
We don’t ultimately know why God has us in a world where we face so much sadness and loss. But what makes us Christians so different is that we believe that we do not have a God who is indifferent to it, some kind of anonymous cosmic force who got all this universe started but has no face, or no heart. That’s not good enough for us. If we’re going to believe in God, we could only believe in one who is love, a God who sees our suffering and understands it, and suffers with us and is with us.
Today, God sends us a self-portrait of himself. God is not a spirit out there somewhere, God felt and lived the life that we do, every part of it. even the death and the loss.
We find out today that our lives are not worthless, because we are chosen to be heroes as Jesus was. We find out that when we suffer we are united with all our brothers and sisters and with Jesus in a way that we feel in our hearts even when we can’t explain why it should be that way. Does it mean that our pain isn’t real? No. But it unites us with a God who loves us. Words can’t explain it, which is why really we are left with this picture up here, of a young man suffering. The picture shows us a mystery that is still hard to put words around, God with us, not explaining, just with us.
Most people here are probably too young to remember a preacher and minister named William Sloane Coffin. He was at the height of his fame back in the 1960s, and frankly he was a great trouble-maker and rabble-rouser, two titles he would have been happy to hear applied to himself here in the 21st century. But he also experienced great trouble in his own life, not only his own illnesses, but most of all the sudden death of his beloved 24-year-old son. Throughout it all, he said that the only possible image that he could hold in his mind was this picture of the man on the cross, this man who came to liberate us and embrace us and heal us, but also to die for us. Reverend Coffin said that the man in the picture told him everything he needed to know about God. He used to say this: I don’t know much at all about what is waiting for me when I die. But I do know who.