Brian McLaren invites us to an imaginative experience of the painful reality of scapegoating that occurred on Good Friday:
Let’s imagine ourselves with the disciples just before three o’clock on this Friday afternoon. A few of us have come together to talk about what has happened over the last twenty-four hours….
Why was there no other way? Why did this good man—the best we have ever known, the best we have ever imagined—have to face torture and execution as if he were some evil monster?
As the hours drag on from noon to nearly three o’clock, we imagine many reasons….
Jesus has told us again and again that God is different from our assumptions. We’ve assumed that God was righteous and pure in a way that makes God hate the unrighteous and impure. But Jesus has told us that God is pure love, so overflowing in goodness that God pours out compassion on the pure and impure alike. He not only has told us of God’s unbounded compassion—he has embodied it every day as we have walked this road with him. In the way he has sat at table with everyone, in the way he has never been afraid to be called a “friend of sinners,” in the way he has touched untouchables and refused to condemn even the most notorious of sinners, he has embodied for us a very different vision of what God is like….
If Jesus is showing us something so radical about God, what is he telling us about ourselves—about human beings and our social and religious institutions? What does it mean when our political leaders and our religious leaders come together to mock and torture and kill God’s messenger?… Is this the only way religions and governments maintain order—by threatening us with pain, shame, and death if we don’t comply? And is this how they unify us—by turning us into a mob that comes together in its shared hatred of the latest failure, loser, rebel, criminal, outcast … or prophet?… What kind of world have we made? What kind of people have we become?…
In the middle of the afternoon … even from this distance, we can hear Jesus, “Father, forgive them!” he shouts. “For they don’t know what they are doing.”
Forgive them? Forgive us?
Our thoughts bring us again to the garden last night, when Jesus asked if there could be any other way. And now it seems clear. There could be no other way to show us what God is truly like. God is not revealed in killing and conquest … in violence and hate. God is revealed in this crucified man—giving of himself to the very last breath, giving and forgiving.
And there could be no other way to show us what we are truly like. We do not know what we are doing, indeed.
If God is like this, and if we are like this … everything must change.
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Sarah Young Jesus Calling
Stop trying to work things out before their times have come. Accept the limitations of living one day at a time. When something comes to your attention, ask Me whether or not it is part of today’s agenda. If it isn’t, release it into My care and go on about today’s duties. When you follow this practice, there will be a beautiful simplicity about your life: a time for everything, and everything in its time.
A life lived close to Me is not complicated or cluttered. When your focus is on My Presence, many things that once troubled you lose their power over you. Though the world around you is messy and confusing, remember that I have overcome the world and in Me you may have Peace.
RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NLT)
A Time for Everything
3 For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
John 16:33 (NLT)
33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
Today’s Prayer:
Dear Jesus,
Help us to trust in Your timing and embrace the simplicity of living one day at a time. Grant us the wisdom to discern what truly matters today and release the rest of our worries and concerns into Your care.
As we draw near to You, may our lives find clarity and peace amidst the world’s chaos. Let us focus on Your presence, knowing that You have overcome the world and given us peace that surpasses all human understanding.
Guide us, Lord, to align our hearts with Your perfect timing and to find contentment in Your plan for each moment. Your way is better than any way we could imagine for ourselves.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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