John 19. 31-42
The cross is the force that sets the universe in motion!
If you couldn’t guess, I’m a Boomer. A Baby Boomer. Born sometime between the end of W.W.2 and the beginning of the War on Poverty. My life a product of the Cold War, the Race to the Moon, and – of course – Rock and Roll Music. In school, there were only two priorities. Science and math; math and science. Truth, for us, was something repeatable and observable. Truth wasn’t a feeling, an emotion. It was something that could only be counted and measured and weighed.
But, at the same time, we dreamed. There at the start, we wanted to change the world. Make it different. Better. Brighter. More. We were going to usher in the Age of Aquarius! When peace would guide the planets! When love would steer the stars! But, in the end, when all was songs had been written, when they’d all been sung, everything stayed, pretty much, the same and we were the ones who were changed. The world wore us down. Life wore us out. The Charlottesvilles of the world returned. Wall Street reclaimed its place. The status quo returned … with a vengeance. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Teacher, ”All is vanity.” Maybe most ironic of all was how quickly we became our parents! Or maybe we’d been them, all along. Muttering and mumbling about “the next generation.” Just the way our parents did us. Bout the way they talked. About the clothes they wore. About their music. Their tattoos. Their piercings. How they just weren’t like we’d been at their age. It was like the Teacher said, ”Nothing new.” The sun rising; sun setting. Streams flowing into rivers, rivers to seas, and the seas never get full. Nothing different. Nothing changing. No matter what. No matter how. What has been is what will be and will be and will be. But there, for a while, in the beginning, we tried …
But after a while, we gave up … and we got older … and we stopped dreaming … And here we are, one year later, doing the same things we did, last year, at this time. Doing the same things. Saying the same words. Singing the same songs. In worship. On Good Friday. Looking, again, at a man – at a god – hanging on the same cross. Believing nothing ever changes. Believing no one’s eve different. And we wonder why the church is the way it is …
But as I was reminiscing, as I was ruminating, I thought a something. A little piece of that science I grew up with. A little piece of that science that had been so important to us … “An object at rest will remain at rest … An object at rest will remain at rest, unless and until acted on by an external force!” Whether that “object” is a billiard ball or a planet or the church, it won’t move unless and until someone or something moves it! Truth is, as Boomers, we were never that “external” force! We were always in the world! Of the world! Always at rest! No matter what we did! No matter how hard we tried! To change the world! That’s why everything stayed the same! Unmoved! Unmoving! At rest! After all, that’s the science! The reality! The truth!
And as I thought about that rule of inertia, I got to thinking about all this, here, tonight. And I realized that this, THIS is that external force! This is what sets a world-at-rest into motion! This is what a lifeless world’s been waiting for! We’re not here, tonight, to mourn the death of a messiah. We’re not here to grieve the loss of a friend. But we’ve come to celebrate! To rejoice! To be sure, in a subdued, somber way. But think about why we’re here. God has entered our world, at last! God has entered this still and static world and thrown “himself” the wall! God has placed a shoulder against the cross! God has placed hands against the sides of the grave. And god has pushed and god has shoves. God has struggled and strained. With all his might. With every fiber. And tonight, we fee the universe shudder. We feel creation tremble. And the world starts to move! As it does, god leans forward. Relentlessly. Ruthlessly. And slowly the world, once at rest, begins to move! All because if this external force we call the cross. This cross is the until! This cross is the unless! This cross changes everything! This cross is what we all have been waiting for!
It doesn’t happen on Zion or Sinai. It doesn’t come from the Temple or the Law. It happens only here on Golgotha. It only comes from the cross! Because, you see, this suffering, this sacrifice, is the love god has for – the love god gives to – all creation! There, at the beginning, when we were young, we thought that force, that love, was made of rainbows and butterflies. We thought we could change the world by placing a flower into the barrel of a gun. We were wrong. That external force, that love, is a cross. A cross that, in the hands of god, becomes the lever by which god moves the world! By which god moves the universe! And once that world, that universe, begins to move, it never slows and it never stills. After all, the second bit of science that goes along with the first? An object in motion stays in motion. This time, there is no unless. There is no until. No other force – external or otherwise – can hinder or halt what god has begun!
It is finished! Those – according to John – are the last words Jesus spoke from the cross. It is finished! He said the words. He bowed his head. And he gave up his spirit. He gave up his breath. But my friends, the truth is, here, tonight, it has only just begun …