April 19: Good Friday
♫ Music:
Friday, April 19
GOOD FRIDAY
Christ, the Suffering Servant
Scripture: Isaiah 53
Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
Poetry:
From “Holy Week: Illuminations”
by Lisa Russ Spaar
Friday
Imagine that direst, most shameful day--
hour most craven, thirst most unquenchable,
backbone breaking and arching in soulshock,
spirit quaking as body fights its pinions
in utter shatter and forsaking, and consider,
as we must, our part in it. Love, all resolve
mobbed by fear into betrayals we vowed
never to voice, never to feel; then know this:
though house split in two, though shades rent,
and sleepers wake to judge, though sky quake closed
and human eyes fail to see the truth: how each touch
from your hand only opened me more to paradise;
though armature of fear, or tear, or tombflank part us,
in dead of night and pitchest deeps, given for
our bond is the song I live to make,
and forgiven is the promised burden we must take.
GOOD FRIDAY
Who has believed what he heard from us?
Which of the disciples would have imagined these moments? Who among the crowds who ate the miraculous bread on the mountain would have imagined then that this prodigy, this hero would be led away like this, by foreigners to be exposed to the most extreme humiliation, torture, and death the Romans could devise?
The prophet had promised Mary Jesus would be the salvation of all peoples, “a light for revelation to the gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:31-32). Then gave a cryptic and ominous utterance, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also…” (2:34-35).
Just a week before, Jesus had stood boldly in the Temple and overturned the tables and drove out the merchants. How did this happen? Where were his disciples? Where were his followers?
What did Mary feel when Pilate brought Jesus out and presented him to for the world to see? What did she do when she saw him, crowned, yes, but with thorns, blood running down his face? There he stood, with the might of Rome, wearing a robe of royal purple that clung to the open wounds from his scourging. Did her soul break as Jesus stood in a pool of his own blood and Pilate announced to the crowds, to the cosmos,
Ecce homo!
“Behold, the man.” There is no moment that demonstrates the Incarnation more than these final moments as Jesus is tortured and killed. We see just how true the Incarnation is as we behold him standing at Pilate’s right hand, as we smell the blood and sweat and stench of humanity’s death wrapping itself around him like a python choking its prey. Here we see the absurdity of life, we feel it, we know it. Here we look at the hope of humanity and we see him crushed.
As Jesus, with gurgling breath, cries out, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” we remember the emptiness of our own lives. When he finally whimpers, “It is finished,” Hope dies. And we die with him.
Now we can finally see the telos of sin. This is what God meant when he said to Adam and Eve, “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” To partake of sin is to participate in this rupture of reality, this torture procedure, this murder, this death. Never has the consequence of sin been clearer. When we forget, the broken and bleeding Man on the cross reminds us.
It’s so easy to forget in our atonement theories and theological reflections on Good Friday that a real man, a living and breathing human being was beaten to just this side of death, that he was put on display for people to mock and spit on, and that finally he was crucified by the power of the State. And why? Because we sin. Because each of us stands in the Garden of Eden and choose to become like God. Because each one of us eats the forbidden fruit.
And still we remember his words, “Three days…”
Prayer:
Father, as we look at your Son, bleeding and dying on the Cross, help us to remember this is not merely the manifestation of existential absurdity. Help us remember this is the manifestation of the depths of your love. We were lost in our own sin and death, and you reached into the void by your Son, and in his death, our death was transformed into redemption.
Amen
Joshua Bocanegra
Pastoral of Community Life Create Church KC
Kansas City, Missouri
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Ecce Homo, c. 1665
Mateo Cerezo
Oil on canvas
98 cm x 75 cm
Museum of Fine Arts
Budapest, Hungary
Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) is unique among paintings of Jesus as it shows more of his deep psychological pain rather than physical suffering. The painting is said to have been influenced by Titian and van Dyck, but shows the unique refined skill of Cerezo. Christ's diagonal posture, as he leans slightly forward and sideways is the mirror image of The Penitent Mary Magdalene by Cerezo, 1661 (Rijksmuseum). Similar in scale, style, coloring and use of light, both were done in the final period of his life. According to writer Eva Nyerges, one of his critics summed up Cerezo's painting during this period as being "…rich and sensitive, with effortless brushwork and vibrant, warm colours."
About the Artist:
Mateo Cerezo (1637–1666) was a Spanish baroque painter. He worked primarily in Valladolid, Burgos, and Madrid. A fecund artist, despite his untimely death at twenty-nine, he left a considerable number of religious works destined for altarpieces of churches and convents and for private devotion. An openly sensitive artist, Cerezo observed and reused everything he saw around him in Madrid. While there is no documentation of him working for the court, his presence there is clearly evident in his knowledge of Van Dyck and Titian, whose influences are visible in his Venetian colors and technique. He is known to have been an accomplished and successful still-life painter and, according to Spanish painter Antonio Palomino, he painted them “with such superior excellence that no one could surpass them, or possibly even equal them.” His only known surviving signed and dated still lifes are in Mexico City’s Museo de Bellas Artes.
About the Music:
“Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a: 1. Largo” from the album ECM Selected Signs III - VIII
About the Composer:
Russian composer and pianist Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) is counted as one of the major musicians of the 20th century. He wrote music characterized by sharp contrasts, elements of the grotesque, and ambivalent tonality. Today’s piece originated as his String Quartet No. 8 and was written shortly after two traumatic events in the life of the composer: the first was presentation of debilitating muscular weakness eventually diagnosed as ALS and the second was his reluctant joining of the Communist Party. The first movement opens with a four-note motif – Shostakovich's musical signature. This slow, extremely sad theme can be heard in many of the composer’s works and is used in every movement of this quartet. After hearing the first performance, Shostakovich wept at hearing his own inner turmoil depicted so profoundly. Rudolf Barshai eventually transcribed the quartet for string orchestra, which is known as "Chamber Symphony in C minor, Op. 110a."
About the Performers:
Dennis Russell Davies, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, a German chamber orchestra based in Stuttgart, was founded by Karl Münchinger in 1945. Münchinger, who was principal conductor of the orchestra for over 40 years, was able to attract a small group of élite players in the early days to realize his vision of a completely new and exemplary way of interpreting works by Johann Sebastian Bach and the Viennese classicists. Dennis Russell Davies, who was principal conductor from 1995 to 2006, re-defined the orchestra’s artistic priorities to enhance the orchestra’s versatility. Under his directorship the orchestra was able to distinguish itself, with repertoire from the 20th and 21st centuries, including specially commissioned compositions, particularly from the composers Phillip Glass and Giya Kancheli. The high quality and outstanding reputation of this ensemble are manifest in their innumerable, international concert performances and participation in top music festivals around the world. For its exceptional achievements, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra was awarded the 2008 European Chamber Music Prize by the European Cultural Foundation.
About the Poet:
Lisa Russ Spaar (b. 1956) received a BA from the University of Virginia in 1978 and an MFA in 1982. She is the author of several poetry collections, including Orexia (2017), Vanitas, Rough (2012), and Glass Town (1999). The Boston Review notes, “Lisa Russ Spaar’s intensely lyrical language—baroque, incantatory, provocative—enables her to reinvigorate perennial subject matter: desire, pursuit, and absence; intoxication and ecstasy; the transience of earthly experience; the uncertainties of god and grave; the dialectic between fertility and mortality.” She is also the author of The Hide-and-Seek Muse: Annotations of Contemporary Poetry (2013), a collection of poetry history and criticism, and she was a 2014 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. She has edited multiple poetry anthologies, including Monticello in Mind: Fifty Contemporary Poets on Jefferson (2016). Spaar has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Library of Virginia Award for Poetry, and a Rona Jaffe Award, among other honors and awards. She is a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia.
About the Devotional Writer:
Joshua Bocanegra
Writer and Educator
Pastoral of Community Life Create Church KC
Kansas City, Missouri
Joshua Bocanegra lives in Kansas City with his wife, Katrina. They have served in inner-healing and pastoral ministry for over ten years and are committed to the health and maturity of Christians within their communities. Joshua is a writer and teacher for his church and for Estuaries, a program dedicated to the reintegration of deep spirituality and intellectual rigor.