A Fourth Church Sermon by John A. Cairns

April 13, 2001 | Good Friday

The Importance of Survival

John A. Cairns
Dean, Academy for Faith and Life,
Fourth Presbyterian Church

Isaiah 53:5–12
John 19:5–20

We get very used to talk about death at this time of the year. Actually I could scratch that final phrase. We get used to talk about death, period. At all times of the year—literally daily—we are confronted, if not bombarded, with the reality and the horror of death. Pick any day you like and open the newspaper. Someone young and bright and promising is shot three doors from home on the way to the grocery store for a dozen eggs or some ice cream. Turn on the news and three people have been killed by a speeding driver who may or may not have stopped, may or may not have had a valid license, may or may not have had a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit. We hear a lot about death.

The African continent is in the grip of an AIDS epidemic. Thousands die daily and the peak may still be twenty years away. In this country, most of those affected are “living with AIDS,” but some aren’t. Some die. Every hour of every day someone’s son or daughter dies from AIDS; someone’s mother or father dies from heart disease; someone’s sister or brother dies from cancer.

Military training exercises provide the occasion for mishaps and casualties. What do we call them when it is no longer a training exercise? When people are intentionally shooting at each other, trying to wipe out each other? How many rounds were fired yesterday in places we can’t make the time to read about, causing the deaths of people we can’t take the time to think about? We hear a lot about death. So much, we often do not listen.

Even in church, we often do not listen, because here too the talk is frequently about death. Especially in the Lenten season, when we have Jesus himself talking continually about death—death in general, and his own death in particular. And as Jesus talks about death, he broadens the discussion so that we are not simply talking about the cessation of your heartbeat and an obituary and a death certificate. We are talking about the casualties of our anger and hatred; the wars at the office, the rage on the road, the icy silence at home; the unrepressed prejudice that fires daggers of scorn at folks who embrace another lifestyle or who simply cross our paths at the wrong moment. We are not just hearing about death; we are immersed in it. It is all around us and within us.

And then there is today. There is Good Friday. This day that is the climax of the Lenten season; the end of more than six weeks of concentrated reflection and spiritual preparation—all of which has brought us to this time of death, to yet one more occasion to talk about, to be confronted by, a topic that for us has reached a saturation point. We do hear a lot about death. Can anything useful be accomplished by bringing it up again? Perhaps not.

But I believe that even though we may be numb to talk of death from having heard so much of it; even though we may ignore or even trivialize the reality of death because it has become so commonplace, we need Good Friday to say that biblically and theologically speaking, death is an abomination. As Emory University professor David Blumenthal puts it, in the biblical record—in Judeo-Christian theology—“death is not a goal or a redemptive moment.” We do not come together in worship on this Good Friday to celebrate Christ’s death or even to make our peace with it.

Again and again the biblical narrative sets out for us a series of choices. And throughout this Lenten season those choices have been offered in terms of darkness or light, humility or notoriety, servant or leader, doubt or faith, death or life. From the days of the ancient Israelites, leaders have always challenged their people to “choose life.”

Now I know I can find myself on a slippery slope by using a term that has recently been co-opted by television, but in this struggle of death, we are called to be survivors. What the Bible puts forward as “choice” is all about survival. Interestingly, this survival is not focused on winning a competition or on maintaining our breathing and brain waves. It is a kind of survival that is built on relationships. When we are urged to “choose life,” we are simultaneously being reminded of the place where life is found—in relationship with God: choose to be in relationship with God. From the time of God’s covenant with Abraham until this very day, the survival struggle has been with our faithfulness, with loyalty, with commitment, with staying in relationship. My survival, your survival is a matter of determination, of knowing where you’re heading, of making a conscious choice. Relationship is what matters.

A pastor friend of mine passed on the story of an incident that had touched him deeply. Brian had gone to visit a woman in the intensive care unit of the local hospital. As he entered her room, she was sleeping, so he just sat and waited. Within a few minutes, her eyes opened, and when she realized he was seated at her side, there was evidence of a slight smile on her face. She was frail and too weak to move much or speak, but her finger slid back and forth along the bed sheet. As Brian watched, he realized she was trying to communicate something, and following her finger, he saw her trace out the letters H-O-M-E. His first thought was that she wanted his help to get her out of the hospital, but then the finger stopped its movements and the woman’s eyes closed again, and the smile on her face seemed to increase—and he knew what she was saying. She was “home”—even at the very doorstep of what you and I might identify as death, she was choosing life. She was celebrating a relationship. She was—and would always be—home.

It is in that same context that we recall the words from Psalm 22, which Jesus quotes while hanging on the cross: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1). A cry of horror at the realization of the absence of God—the loss of relationship. We may be inclined to say, “Surely that was just a momentary impulse, a fleeting thought soon left behind.” But in the Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark), the words stand alone. They are followed only by the cry of death. Why, we wonder, would the Son of God ever say such a thing? How could Jesus be abandoned?

Friends, this is about the agony of choice, the difficult struggle of trying to stay in relationship with God. Too often we see the challenge to “choose life” as a fairly simple, easy to accomplish decision—a “no brainer.” Our language tends to be filled with clichéd religious correctness rather than the heightened intensity of a true struggle and difficult decision. Our very politeness with God may be an attempt to disguise the fragility of our relationship with God. We are therefore quick to downplay Jesus’ words as the indiscrete utterance of a weak moment. We want Jesus to be strong so we do not have to be.

Choose life. It is not a piece of innocent advice seeking a quick affirmative nod. It is the invitation to an ongoing wrestling match that cannot be concluded with polite talk. It is the forging of a relationship that will never be accomplished in a setting where you and I tiptoe around and always address God with polite deference. Survival requires a relationship strong enough not to be broken—or even threatened—by “impolite utterances,” by sharp anger or intense fear or utter panic . . . by Christ on the cross crying out in search of what at that moment felt like an absent relationship

On this Good Friday, we are witnesses to Jesus’ desperate struggle to choose life and continually claim his relationship with the God from whom he had come. It is not a pretty sight, and at one point doubt and brokenness and death seem to win out. And you and I hear that—see that—happening, and wonder what hope—what possibility—there is for us, for our life, our relationship, to survive. Today we look and we see what death looks like . . . and what it does. In fact, what it can do is to make us stronger. Standing as we do at the foot of the cross today, staring death in the face, can make a difference.

Barbara Brown Taylor says,

Those whom Christ’s crucifixion touches become more who they are: more cruel, more loyal, more puzzled, more rapt. [Remember] Just off to the side of the tragedy on the hill is the tragedy in the courtyard of the high priest, where Peter sits in for every believer who must decide who to be. His “I am not” is the shadow side of Jesus’ “I am.” One is; one is not. One will; one will not. There is a way of life and there is a way of death . . . and we are asked to choose. (From “The Language of Lent,” Journal for Preachers, Lent, 1994)

This is no easy round, this journey through Lent, this stop at Good Friday. There are many who would sarcastically wonder why there would be anyone still in church at the end of these forty days, especially since we save the good news until the end. I look forward to that Easter word, to Christ’s ultimate victory over death and the grave, but I know that is not the whole story. Today bullets will take the lives of intended and unintended victims; diseases that could be prevented will cost hundreds their futures; angry relatives will physically and psychologically harm their own kin; people with pathological dependencies will destroy themselves and others; and bad things will continue to happen to good people. Today we will hear a lot about death. It’s enough to make the Messiah cry out loud. It is enough to threaten a relationship. Yet there is healing possible for this broken world and for its broken people. Out of the Good Friday agony there is help and hope possible for you and for me. It is to be found in that seemingly threatened relationship—that relationship with God—forged in the crucible of difficult choices and indelicate conversation; a relationship tenacious enough to survive when surrounded by doubt and death—even the death of the Christ on the cross. A relationship that endures because even on this horrible Friday, God will not forsake anyone . . . not Jesus on the cross . . . not you.

Amen.