Barneyisfat

I'm overwhelmed and overcome. I'm overwhelmed by the homework that has cropped up on me after a relaxing week of break. I'm overcome by the emotion of Good Friday.

We say it so casually. "Jesus died for your sins." We sound like we're selling a sweater.

In reality, it's too much to bear. The whole story. Scene by scene, play by play, moment by moment; the very Son of God chose the most painful, humiliating death invented. All of our sin. The sin of the child molesters, the prostitutes, the gossipers, the whores, the liars, the heretics, the gays, the gay-bashers, the racists. All of our sin. The very Son of God chose the most painful, humiliating death invented. Moment by moment, play by play, scene by scene. The whole story; it's really too much to bear.

We're so flipant about it. "Are you crucified with Christ?" There's no way in hell I'm going up on that cross (not my will, but thy will be done) I won't be mocked and humiliated (forgive them father, for they know not what they do) I didn't do anything wrong (he was pierced for our transgressions) at least I'm not a [insert name of most despised sinner-group] (whatever you do for the least of these you do for me) I live a pretty good life - I go to a Bible college, don't drink, only smoke occasionally, and lead at my church (it is by grace that we have been saved, through faith - and not of ourselves that no man may boast.) "Are you crucified with Christ?"

I'm directing a Good Friday Passion Play. I cried when I wrote the script because I realized how casually I throw around the whole "death and resurrection of Christ" thing. When the girls were reading through it they read it with no emotion. So true to life it hurt. How do we convey the greatest sacrifice the world has ever seen to a people who won't sacrifice their pew to a visitor on a Sunday morning? How do we give new life to the death that turned the sky dark? How do we show the grief of the sins of the world to a people who find it socially unnacceptable to cry in public?

And we keep on doing what we do best. We continue to gossip, but we only gossip in Christian circles. We continue to judge people based on race, class, sexual orientation, and disability, but we insulate ourselves from that by staying in close knit packs.

The sin of the world on his shoulders - for this? For me? For TFC? It's not biblical, but I believe that love held him to that cross. The Love of a Messiah. I don't think we could screw that up - as hard as we might try.