Good Friday 2025

Romans 3:21-26 (NRSV Updated Edition)

But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed and is attested by the Law and the Prophets, the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to demonstrate at the present time his own righteousness, so that he is righteous and he justifies the one who has the faith of Jesus.

~

"[W]hat I'd like to look at this year is I suppose that which is most difficult to understand about what we're celebrating today on Good Friday. And it becomes difficult because we see the violence the hatred around us and we may believe in God, we may even believe in God being all-powerful, but can we really believe that God could possibly like us, be fond of us? What on earth is it to believe, in the midst of all this horror, that it is people, just like us, who are doing the things that are being done? That we are just like they with all their murderous lust, with all  our cowardly venality, or vice versa? How much we are part of the same human race? And what on earth could it possibly mean that God could actually love us?

"We find it easy to love those who are on our side, but it's a militant kind of love. It's a shame-hiding kind of love. But loving those who are on the other side, seeing them as somehow like us, is tremendously difficult. And how could God possibly love us? It's not the existence of God but the love of God that is a really difficult thing to believe. And I think that it's in the light of that that we celebrate the Passion each year.

"I'd like to point out something which I picked up more this year when reading John's passion. I had the privilege of  being asked to read it for the Sisters of Zion a week or so ago. And while preparing that I noticed, much more than I ever had, something rather extraordinary about that reading of the Passion, which is there's something very open and  straightforward about what Jesus is doing. And he's walking through a muddle, a minefield of muddles, of easily whipped up hatefulness on the part of religious authorities, of easily played political bargaining on the part of civil authorities, but with neither side really knowing what they were doing. Them thinking they were doing one thing but in fact, ending up doing another. That was a battle of interpretations amongst them. The religious authorities needed the Roman authorities to do something for them because it would upset their religious celebration if they were to do it religiously. And the Romans, the civil authority, could see that there was something fishy going on, but ultimately, as all civil authorities, were frightened of the mob and so gave way to something which it knew was extra-legal, and then use it as a way to try and make the Jewish authorities look silly by putting an inscription on the cross.

"This constant information game, this attempt to try and explain oneself away while one was doing something, thinking almost achieved something, but, in fact, doing something quite else. And throughout the middle of this muddle of meaning, a muddle of fake meaning, Jesus slowly, deliberately, almost monosyllabically walking through it. And at every step of the way changing the meaning from within: the meaning of what it is to be a king, the meaning of what it is to be the scapegoat, the meaning of what it is to be a victim, the meaning of power, the meaning of knowledge - each one of these Jesus is slowly, deliberately changing on his way to death. He's indicating that there is now another source of meaning which is going to show up all those things for what they really are.

"And, of course, the ultimate source of meaning, which is going to change is that given by death, which is the source of so much meaning for us. It's what enables our stories to have good ends or bad ends. It's what enables us to make ourselves good or bad by contrast with people. It dominates our lives in ways which Jesus is saying, "I have come to undo the domination that this fact and this understanding of fact has in your lives. I have come to make possible radically new meaning in your midst." And the radically new meaning is shown by my loving you. Loving you who are involved in all this. Not loving other people, so I'm paying some sort of price to you who I really hate, but loving you in the midst of whom I am walking to my death. And that it's as that new meaning starts to come alive that I will be glorified.

"Jesus's talk of being glorified in John's Gospel is always related to his being lifted up on the cross. That is the moment of God's glory when God shows us what God is really like. God really likes us. He likes us who are traitors, who  are cowards, who are murderers, who are liars, who are constantly seeking our own  advantage in the midst of whatever situation goes on. For some reason, which seems impossible for us to imagine, he has huge tenderness for this ghastly human horror show into which we fall so easily. And he walks through, deliberately, an absolutely archetypical structuring of that violence, that horror show, blind collusion between religious and state authorities to try to make themselves good at the expense of each other - just the  sort of political shenanigans we all know, [...] desperate attempts to get shards of meaning here and there.

"And in the midst, slowly, carefully, deliberately walking through it - serves to say, 'I love you, I'm making available to you what you are inclined to do, not so as to judge you, but so that you can see that I actually love you, that I'm not the sort of god you think I am, not the sort of god that your projections have come up with. I actually love you, have an intense, passionate, visceral fondness for you, long to see what this human adventure can become. Which is why I can walk through this same passion [...] in every instance of your wars and your hatred. Because the meaning of it all is love.

"And here I'd like to bring St Paul, a text that's not normally read at the Passion time, [...] St Paul in Romans 3: “But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed and is attested by the law and the prophets. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” What does that mean? He says: “Apart from the law.” The law gave us some idea of what God's holiness might look like. But now what God really looks like has been shown to us 3D. Jesus has shown that he comes into the midst of our violence, our place of hatred, our place of shame, occupies it himself out of love for us; that there is no over-against in God, there is only a *for*.

"That *for us* is the righteousness of God. It's God's alignment with creation and everything that is, that he's inviting us to take part in. It is that goodness, that tenderness, that inability to be knocked off course by our violence, our  hatred, our fear - that's what's made available in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

"What does having faith mean? It means: “Oh my god, we are loved so much not in spite of what we do, but even in the midst of what we do.” And as we begin to become aware of that love, so we're able to let go of all our fake meanings and fake forms of being. That's what living by faith means. We're able to be nudged into imagining the other as ourselves when that seems impossible.

"And Paul continues, “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Right, left, Russians, Ukrainians, good, bad - they are now justified by his grace as a gift. That's what we're celebrating today: the One who walked in our midst to death as a free gift to show us what love looks like.

"“They are now justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood effective through faith.” In other words, the whole purpose of the passion is Jesus walking through this, so that God can make something visible. God has put him forward as a sacrifice to us, if you like, him acting out that.

"And then Paul's conclusion from this: “He did this to show his righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had  passed over the sins previously committed.” In other words, Jesus coming amongst us, walking through one of our death plots, was deliberate. He wanted to make available to us what sort of god God is. How utterly unlike anything that we can imagine, how full of tenderness and compassion. In his divine forbearing he passed over the sins previously committed. He was not up to get us, didn't come among us as a stern judge longing to rub our noses in the sort of weak, violent, fallible, confused humans that we are.

"And then Paul ends: “It was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.” The whole purpose of this exercise, of God walking through this space of meaning change for us, was to prove to us that he is good, tender, loving, not at all the image we had for him; that he does actually love us and is fond of us even in our shitstorm; he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. He says: yes I know you're like this, I know this is what you're involved in, I know this sort of who you are. I actually love you as such people. You don't need to carry on this sacrificial living anymore which screws you up, giving you fake goodness, fake knowledge, fake access to belonging with each other. You don't need to do that any longer as you come to see who I am, what my love for you is like. As you understand that love, so you will be able to be realigned with the order of creation.

"For me, that is the great gift and task of these days - allowing ourselves to be convinced of the love for us that is shown in Good Friday; and giving us the mental space to imagine what it is like and what it is going to be like - living together, working things out together in fondness and not in enmity hereafter."

- James Alison, from video "Meditation for Good Friday (2022)" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZGRBb7O_AI)

[For further discussion and reflection on the lectionary texts for Good Friday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/festivals/goodfriday/]