Long Live God, Long Live God...

I am trying to make sense of three tragic deaths in our parish during a two week period; good people ages 55, 20 and 3.5 years are gone from family and friends who loved them, from lives full of accomplishment and potential.  And there is no sense to be found.

When an aged one dies of natural causes there is grief to be sure and celebration for lives well lived.  But when one dies too young, their lives swept away by accident, illness or crime, the platitudes of religion seem empty.  There is no sense to be found there either.

For some reason I have been listening to music of the Broadway play "Godspell".  Don't ask me why, I don't know why, but I've found this good old 1960's music so comforting right now.  In the Finale after the crucifixion scene the chorus sings softly in repetition, building into a crescendo, "Long live God, long live God...".  It's the musical's answer to the death of Jesus and the Easter resurrection.

As I struggle to deal with these parish losses, the cross is about the only thing that does make sense to me, not that making sense is all that important in the face of tragedy.  Yet somehow we seek it, maybe to reorient ourselves after being knocked off center? 

For me the cross rather than an altar of atonement speaks to me of God's response to the suffering of the world.

The story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection has left us pondering lots questions over the years.  Not the least of which is whether God is omnipotent, in control of each and every event in our lives, and in Jesus' life.  If so, did God plot the death of his only begotten son?  Did God temporarily abandon omnipotence on the cross?  Or did God never have it to begin with?   Godspell's answer is trust in God no matter what.  In the face of mindless violence and the suffering of the innocent we sing "Long live God, long live God...."

Is it a shout of naive arrogance in the face of unwavering fate?   A sad hope on which to cling?   The insistence that love cannot die and in the end all that really matters is love.  Overwhelmed with grief and confusion I find the music so compelling.  What's that about?

The Christology of substitutionary atonement suggests that the cross is God's final and complete act of reconciliation, paying our price for sin in the sacrifice of his son; the supreme scapegoat of atonement for the sins of humanity.  Nothing need stand in the way of our relationship with God anymore.  God has done something for us that we could not do for ourselves (Romans 5).  "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" says John the Baptist (John 1:29).

Citing the cross, orthodoxy offers that what we perceive as evil in fact God is using for a greater good to be revealed to us at the End of Time (Augustine).  The notion of an omnipotent God named "love" (1 John 4:8-f) requires some greater purpose in the suffering death of Jesus, or any innocent for that matter, if such a loss is going to make sense.

Over the centuries people of faith have found great comfort in these doctrines as they deal with the suffering of the innocent.  These doctrines give reason to the unreasonableness that so permeates our living. 

I find them hollow justifications.  These doctrines rely on notions of divine omnipotence that leave God the author of violence, tragedy and brokenness for "a greater good".  And we call this God "love"?!

The primary word used for "love" in the New Testament is "agape" or "the love that seeks the welfare of another", even at the expense of one's own.   On the cross we learn that God's nature is so completely love that God shares our destiny with us...death, even the death of senseless violence (Philippians 2:8).  

In so doing the cross reveals the illusion of death's hold on us.  Death is not the opposite of life. The opposite of life is fear, the fear that drives us to find false security in greed and power as if such could cheat death; the primal anxiety that moves us to settle for an existence of survival rather than abundant living. 

This is not to diminish the impact of death.  Death is a real enemy of living to be sure, the "final enemy" all too often capricious in its brutality (1 Corinthians 15:26).   But death is a part of life as inherent as breathing or sleeping.  If God seeks to share our life incarnate (John 1:14) then there is no escaping death for God.  The Jesus story would suggest that as God embraces life so God embraces death on the cross and in so doing transforms both with resurrection (Moltmann).

The process of life, death and resurrection is found throughout the created order as the tree decays in the forest to build the humus for the next generation, as the seed dies to be planted in the ground for the next crop (John 12:24, 1 Corinthians 15:36), as the stars die in space to generate the stuff of new ones.  Death and rebirth are organic to life itself.  As organic as the human drive to avoid it.

If we accept that divinity is at the heart of the natural order, then as cruel and real as death can be it would not be suspended even for God.  The death of Jesus of Nazareth on a Roman cross more than a sacrificial altar is then a testament to the God that shares life with us, completely.  The God that weeps with us in grief (John 11:35).  The God that laughs, and walks and talks with us.  The God willing to share his wounds with us that we might be in relationship (John 20:25-f).

This is not an idol of omnipotence, in control of all events with its followers labeling those that result in evil "for a greater good".   Rather this is an incarnate God revealed in the life and death of a carpenter from the backwaters of Israel 2,000 years ago, whose teachings and examples are still very much alive in spite of the failures to institutionalize the message.  This God is a Fellow Traveler, a "friend" (John 15:9-18), the one Jesus called "daddy", the one we can honestly call "love".

Vulnerable to everything that humans face and their freedom to choose, divinity's power resides in the yearning for the best in each moment, the lure to greater and greater complexities of life and enjoyment, the spirit that binds all of life and time together.  The natural order is organized for life affirming, expanding, extending agape/love that cannot be snuffed out by death even when it is present throughout, in fact death is and must be a part of its journey.

Does this "make sense" of the sudden unexpected death by accident, crime or illness?  In no way!  There is no sense or reason to be found in such loss, only sorrow.  Yet these very tragedies may be occasions for great love.   And it is in that love that we can find redemption; something much different than rationalization.  

In a recent funeral for the murder of an innocent 20 year old college student Rev. Dirk Damonte answered the question on many minds, "Where was God when Kristina was murdered?  Where is God now as we are left with broken hearts?"   The Pastor said God didn't cause or allow her death for some mysterious "future greater good". 

The Pastor said God was with the community first-responders who did everything in their resources to assist the victims and their families and protect the public from the violence of the perpetrator.  To dedicate your professional life to serve and protect the public, whether police, fire, paramedic or hospital personnel is an act of agape.

The Pastor said God was with the community that gathered to support and comfort each other in the face of such tragedy, for it is in such community that we see the face of love.

To make sense of the senseless is certain human folly.  Yet to embrace love and affirm it in the face of suffering and death may be the only thing that can redeem the madness of this world.

There are things worse than death.  To never know love certainly is one of them.

"Long live God, long live God...."