Good Friday of the Lord's Passion

Lectionary: 40

He was spurned and avoided by people, man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom people hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses,

crushed for our sins; upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.

The Just World Hypothesis assures us that virtue will be rewarded and vice will be punished. We're also told that if good people work hard and make reasonable plans for the future, things will work out well for them.  

Given that premise it's reasonable to suppose that people who suffer setbacks, injury, and death deserve what they get. They're not good people; they're probably shiftless and lazy. When Brianna Taylor, an African-American woman, was shot and killed by police in Louisville last year, some people were quick to point out that she'd once associated with a drug dealing criminal. Guilty by association, they reasoned, her killing was justified. It might be rough justice, but she had made bad choices. 

We fabricate that false logic not simply because we suspect minorities of criminal behavior. The judgement reassures us and our loved ones that nothing so terrible will happen to us. Our world, we want to believe, is still safe and predictable. There is no need to hide under the bed. 

I met one woman who is so sure that the corona virus vaccine is infected with mind-controlling droids. I wondered how she can go to work. And yet she is a cheerful, dependable woman. Apparently, she is assured that those evil things only happen to evil people, and she is not among them.
Another similar theory -- I have often fallen into it -- is that some people are accustomed to infirmity. "They're poor;" I said, "and used to poverty. They expect poor health, filth, thievery, violence, and mistreatment. They're better equipped for bad things than I am. If those happened to me, I'd fall apart! 

Like the rest of us, the Pharisees wanted to believe the Just World Hypothesis; but it fit neither their Jewish tradition nor our Christian beliefs. When Jesus heard Peter mouthing that malarkey, he rebuked him, 

“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” 

Human beings, the good and the bad, have their pleasures and their sorrows, their triumphs, disappointments, satisfactions and failures. They are not doled out on the basis of merit. People make of them whatever they want. They sometimes think wealth and good health are blessings, while poverty and poor health are God's curses. But good people may be wealthy or poor; and poor people may be virtuous or wicked. And certainly, everyone dies, regardless of their merits. 

The crucifixion of Jesus, at the center of Christian life, represents an entirely unworldly way of thinking. It doesn't so much contradict the Just World Hypothesis as it simply dismisses it as a human, silly notion of the way things should be. Who are we to say how things should be in God's world?

Many young people are scandalized by this disappointment. They suppose the Church misled them when it urged them to do good and avoid evil. They apparently dismissed our fascination with the suffering of Jesus, thinking they would never suffer disappointment. Some will never get over their resentment and suspicion. They will remain within the human city of definitions and expectations, angry, resentful, and rebellious. 

On Good Friday we go outside the city with its definitions and expectations to learn what the Lord will teach us. We will find a blessing in the least expected place, but we'll not recognize it until another revelation is given.