Homily for Good Friday – 2015
“In the place where he had been crucified there was a garden,”
picture that! “And in the garden there was a new tomb, in which no
one had been buried.” Imagine that! How convenient. So they laid
Jesus there, in a new tomb in a garden. This was something more
than just “convenient”. The human race was about to begin again.
When the Bible refers to a garden, what do you think of? The
first garden at the beginning of the world, right? The Garden of
Eden. So what does this have to do with the garden in which Jesus
was buried? Jesus is the new Adam. Think about the meaning of the
stories for a moment. What happened in the first garden?
God planted a garden with thousands of trees for the first
human beings to eat from. And among the original blessing of those
thousands of trees, God placed one from which He forbade them to
eat. Now why would God do such a thing? Let’s not get caught up in
the historical facticity of the story; let’s look at the theology, the
spirituality. The first point is that God is good, and God wants
human beings to be happy, living in blessed communion with God
and with one another. (Notice how this original blessedness is
pictured in the stained-glass window.) God gives us what we need
to live, but places a sort of “No Trespassing” sign around one thing.
Who knows for how long human beings lived in this blessed
communion with God and with one another.
Then along comes the first lie. The serpent, the most cunning
of all the animals, approaches and says, “Did God really tell you not
eat from any of the trees in the garden?” The serpent is preparing
for the first lie in the very way he asks the question. The woman
responds, “We may eat of the fruit of any of the trees in the garden;
it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that
God said, ‘You shall not eat it nor even touch it, lest you die.’” The
trap of suspicion has been laid before her, and he lures her towards
it with a lie. “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the
moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like
gods who know what is good and what is bad” (Gen 3:1-5).
There it is, the set-up. The human beings begin to be
suspicious of God’s intentions. They begin to see God as their
competitor. “God just wants to remain God and to keep us down on
this human level. He wants to control us, to restrict our freedom,
our joy and our life. But we don’t have to play by His rules. We can
make up our own rules. We can become gods, too, if we just eat of
this fruit.” And so they do. (Notice the stained-glass depiction.)
They see God as their competitor, which sounds rather
ridiculous at first. But let us think about it a little deeper. Do we
ever think of God as trying to restrict our freedom? Do we think that
God just wants us to obey a bunch of rules so that He can maintain
His dominance over us? Do we think that if we obey God’s will, we
will have less joy in our lives? If so, then we see God as our
competitor, and it’s no wonder that we are tempted to avoid God
and to go our own way.
That’s what happened to our first ancestors after their
disobedience: they tried to avoid God. “I heard you in the garden,”
he said; “but I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself” (Gen.
3:10). This is the first mention of fear, fear of God as a competitor.
So humanity drifted away for centuries, afraid of this competitive
God, hiding down paths of independence. God offered them
covenant after covenant to assure them that He is a God of love, not
competition. But they continued to misunderstand, and fell away
from these covenants of love.
So God decided to reveal Himself in the most radical way; a
way that would convince us that He is not our competitor. He came
as a second Adam in Jesus of Nazareth. He was not afraid to be born
into our naked and vulnerable flesh. He came to show us the path of
peace, to show us how to pray for our persecutors, how to forgive
one another, how to love as God loves. He came to call us into union
with Him, to share with us His divine life. He did not disguise
himself in anything but our naked humanity, exposed upon the
cross. From there he gave us to his mother, the New Eve, and he
gave her to us. Then with his final breath he handed over the spirit
of love.
“My people, I am not in competition with you. I want us to live
love now and forever. I want you to share the fullness of my life and
joy now and forever. What more can I do to reveal my love for you?
I thirst for your love. Please do not be afraid of me. I have
conquered sin and death to lead you back into the garden. All is
forgiven. Peace be with you. Let us begin anew.”