“I’ll keep the promises I made to the Lord in the presence of all God’s people, in the courtyards of the Lord’s house, which is in the center of Jerusalem.” (Psalm 116:18)
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning… I am poured out like water, and all of my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a postherd, and my tonque sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.” (Psalm 22:1-2, 14-15)
The Friday they call good.
How many times have I heard this phrase uttered over the years, usually contained within a sermon parsing out why it is good. It’s even written right into my calender.
I have been pondering this Easter season as I’ve been spending time in the Psalms, whether “good” is in fact the right word. One of the reasons its often called good is because the “death” is seen as the necessary work. Jesus’ death is singled defined as the good “gift.” And yet, as writers like David Moffit (Rethinking The Atonement) have been underscoring as of late, this doesn’t actually make sense of what the sacrificial system actually was and how it is applied to Jesus. In the sacrificial system of Judea, and indeed ancient Israel, death was never seen as a necessary sacrifice, the sacrifice was actually described as the necessary response to death. Meaning, the sacririce is not the death, but the blood. Death, as many have helpfully articulated, always took place outside of the temple, not within it. It is never ritualized, and it is always presented as the problem the good gift (the blood) was meant to address. The blood actually did the work of “purifying” and transforming the temple space, meaning ridding it of the polution of death, which is seen as the mark of Sin/sin (the enslaving powers and ones particicpation in the enslaving powers). Further yet, the blood, which was understood to be where the life of the creature resides, is deemed to go up to reside with God. This is the gift.
From this vantage point, yes, there is something very good to be found in the Friday on which we remember the death of Christ. But that “good” is not the death. The good is the transformation that comes through the blood, crying out with the spilt blood that covers history, crying out for what is wrong in this world to be made right.
The good is in fact the act of the blood reconstituting death as life.
I’ve also heard it said, usually from those whom are explicitly or implicitly challenging the whole “God killed Jesus” motif that logically flows from certain theological assumptions, that the death is good because it was “necessary” to bring about the resurrection. At the very least I think this moves in a better or more truthful direction- the death is not the point in this case, it is simply a necessary byproduct of God entering into this world. But it still, I think, misses a central point- Jesus didn’t come to die, Jesus came to establish the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. To usher in the new creation reality. Death is not necessary, it is what the blood is acting in response to- Death is what happened in response to the arrival of the King.
Why does this matter? Because if we lose the ability to name Death, we lose the ability to name Life. If we lose the ability to name the bad, we lose the ability to name the good. The central tenant of the Christian narrative is that God opposes Death (or its proper name, Sin and Death, or the Powers, or Empire). The central claim of the Easter story is that God defeated Sin and Death in Jesus. Not in the “death”, but in the blood, which reconstitutes death as life. This is the necessary transformation. The necessary work.
So what about the Psalms cited above? I’ve been sitting with these two Psalms, finding in them a challenging contrast of expressed sentiments. In Psalm 116 the author intently proclaims that they will “complete” what they promised to do. As Elizabeth Caldwell points out in her book Pause: Spending Lent With the Psalms, we aren’t told what this promise is, we can only speculate. All we know is that it is made within and in front of a community, that the place it is made (the temple) holds significance for its worth and meaning, and that this author is stengthened and determined to act in the face of contrary circumstances.
Psalm 22 gives us a window into the backdrop of many of these Psalms, a backdrop that sees a coming exile, a word that was made synonymous with complete abandonment by God, or death, as an all encompassing and defining truth of their reality. The words are striking, all the way to its final image- being layed in the dust of death.
So how do we reconcile these two things? What is invigorating the Psalmist to press forward in the face of this lament? Why continue? Why push to complete what you promised to do when it appears God has abandoned you and this world to death? Two crucial notes here that have been percualting for me. First, there is no question about what is being opposed (Death, or exile). This is the problem. Second, N.T. Wright, along with many others, have long been finding in the language of the cross the language of Passover. This is the dominant picture those stories are evoking, far more dominant than the other facet- the Day of Atonment. Why does this matter? Because the Passover Lamb, the one that does the saving work by way of purifying the space, is not the one bringing Death. To read the story of the Exodus, and indeed to step into its long history of tradition and midrash, is to pick out the subtle notes of a different Power at work, one which is called the Destroyer and is set at odds with God’s (Yahweh) saving work. I recognize that the nature of Exodus 12 has long been debated given that it states “God” Himself will “passover” and strike the firstborn, but there is little doubt in Exodus 12 that the text depicts God restraining and preventing and allowing a seperate Power from bringing destruction. Even less doubt that Passover is connected with the saving work of God whom liberates His people FROM Death. One take I found helpful was suggesting that “strike” is a word that can denote “marking”, meaning God marked whom the Destroyer could or could not have access to.
In any case, the central point here is that death is NOT the work of God, Death is that which God opposes. In the narrative movement of the Passover,. God is giving or handing over a people to a making of their own destructive, something that that is expressly imagined by paralleling the Egyptian killing of the firstnorn as something that comes back on them (in fact, this is how the whole of the Plagues narrative is designed and imagined). Pharoah is described in the language of the serpent, and the serpent is expressely defined in the language of Sin and Death. God’s work, then, both acts and imagines a different kind of kingdom way, one that contrasts with Death and which opposes it (as the story goes, God will crush the head of the Serpent, or Death itself). And this is crucial to me, because I can’t imagine the promise of of the Psalmist in 116 mattering unless they held this conviction- God opposes that which is deemed wrong. I can’t imagine the lament of Psalm 22 making any sense unless they held this same conviction- God has proclaimed Himself to oppose that which is deemed wrong, not participating in it. This is why the lament asks “why!”
When Jesus utters these same words- God, why have you forsaken me- they are caught up into the whole of this hopeful narrative of God’s own covenental assurances- this contrast between Life and Death. Thus, on the Friday we call good, this goodness stands with both Psalms held in full view. We lament over what is (Death), we rejoice over what is becomming (Death reconsituted as Life). In this movement, this Passover story, the blood of Jesus is now covering the whole of creation. Thus we come to this story the same way one approached the Day of Atonment- with the Exodus front of mind. Just as a new people has been formed in this act, a new creation space has now been formed in Jesus. This is what brings us once again to the lasting image of Sinai, where we find the invitation to participate in this covenant. To be freed to lament with the Psalmist, “My God, My God, why have you foresaken me,” and to be freed through the Gospel of this new Exodus to say, even then, “I’ll keep the promises I’ve made.” I will remain faithful, because, as the fuller breath of Psalm 116 utters, I believe God does listen and that God is near and that God has liberated this world from the Death that holds it enslaved. This is the good news.
The Stories of my Life 