Issue 420
For twenty two editions of WORKTALKweekly, we have been looking at Jesus’ question ‘what do you want?’ as it echoes through the fourth gospel. We have walked with John and Mary and now stand with them at the place of execution where they are trying to hold each other up.
How do you make your living? Do you buy, sell or both? Do you teach or learn or both? Do you create or destroy or both? My list could go on.
I make my living by words. I read them, write them, speak them, sing them, arrange them, rhyme them, play with them and fight with them.
Now I have reached a moment in fourth gospel which almost defies words. I’m almost at a loss for words. Whatever you do will seem paralysed at the breathtaking character of this ‘one’ episode. Your mind will find it hard to teach, learn, create or destroy in the face of this incident.
It is defined by what is not wanted first, and then what is wanted is revealed. What you are about to see are perplexing combinations, impossible connections and it simply defies description and beggars belief.
You may have seen it at work as vast sums of money are wasted but someone gets a rebuke for the loss of some petty cash. Whole lives are ruined by corporate incompetence but individual error is called out. A system can be fatally flawed as someone seeks to adjust a simple practice. A leader blames his team while ignoring his faults; an employee steals stock while joining the neighbourhood watch.
But even this does not describe what you are about to see. Truly, the shadows have come out to play – or work.
Move your inner telescope to an interview between some Jewish leaders and Pilate, the Roman governor in the region. Over the previous eighteen hours these leaders have been constructing a strategy so corrupt and polluted that it stinks to high heaven. Lies layered upon lies, bribery, law breaking, conspiracy, manipulation, treachery, blasphemy, envy and downright murder was in the air. Every major law, probably all ten commandments and a whole host of by-laws lay smashed and fractured in the spring sand and dust. Everyone had blood on their hands and guilt on their faces, along with sin in their hearts.
Markets were rigged, professions compromised, politics abused and every noble principle dragged from its bindings and ripped to shreds. All brakes were removed, checks and balances disappeared and unrestrained evil gorged itself on its own vomit.
But this was Friday and the weekend was coming. Saturday was a very special day because Sunday connected to religious festivals so Jewish leaders, knee deep in blood, waded in to ask if the bodies on the hill could be removed, in keeping with an ancient law, so that they could get on with an unpolluted Sabbath Saturday and a continued Passover Sunday. It almost leaves you speechless. For a whole week – which we now call the Holy Week – these same leaders had been staining and polluting anything that moved – they wanted to get out a feather duster and freshen up the place.
Let’s be clear – they wanted the crucifixion on the hill to stop. The way to stop it was to break the legs of the victims, then remove the bodies and clear the site. All traces of the executions could then be removed.
Watch what they are trying to do. They want a Sabbath without a cross. They want a cross without a crime. They want a Passover without a cross. They want a cross without a fuss.
They want to carry on as normal – a repeat of last year – no cross to interrupt the flow of life, work, religion, festival, celebration, family or meals.
But they were not watching, nor were they listening. A voice has yelled out in the darkness ‘it is finished!’ They were not listening because they thought he would last several days on the cross, like everyone else, and that it would interrupt their schedule. But when he shouted ‘it is finished!’ it was their schedules that were finished as well.
You cannot have a Sabbath without a cross. You cannot find rest without a cross. You cannot have a Passover celebration (a celebration of rescue) without a cross. You cannot go from Friday to Monday, pretending it does not exist or trying to clear the site. You cannot obliterate the cross from the hill. You cannot even tell him when to finish – he already has.
What they didn’t want was as impossible as what they did want. They wanted a crossless holy day and a crossless religion, a crossless work, a crossless life. They wanted to wash away their actions and get on with their plans.
Meanwhile, what was in fact being finished was the construction of the deepest rest possible. What was being established was the complete rescue – not just from a plague, or a disaster or from slavery, but from the inner prison barring us all from freedom. An exquisite strategy has been designed to change the face of bitterness and finally clear up the stench of corporate corruption by cleaning out the pollution from the human soul.
While they wandered in the foothills of an ancient law, a new law of love was ripping the temple curtain apart, revealing the throbbing heart of love behind the God of their fathers.
So here are your questions. Do you want a rest without a cross? Do you want a religion without a cross? Do you want a rescue without a cross? Do you want a life without a cross?
It does not work like that. You cannot work like that. The stench is too strong, the corruption too complete and the laws are too broken. You can’t fix it by evoking some ancient, anti-pollution principle. The very cross you want to remove is the means of your rescue.
It always was and it still is. What do you want?
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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