The Center of Good Friday: The Cross, the Tree of Life

The first issue of Liturgy in 1980 carried articles by many eminent scholars on the meaning of the Holy Week liturgy. Offered here are reflections from Gordon Lathrop who identifies images of the story that culminates in the cross: the city of Jerusalem, a people defeated and brought back together, and life arising from death.

The despised city of Jerusalem becomes the center of the universe; the despised place of execution becomes the great place of gathering and pilgrimage.
 By our common ecumenical keeping of this old feast of the dedication of the basilica at Jerusalem in A.D. 335––which feast subsequently became the feast of the Holy Cross––it is as if we were all together again in our longing both for all that vindicated Jerusalem meant, and, also, for a centered, whole church, itself all that ancient Jerusalem was hoped to be: the universal center and the joy for all peoples described in Jewish eschatological vision. We hope for a church that drinks from the liturgical strength of old Christian Jerusalem with its churches at the places of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Most profoundly, we pray for a church that finds its source, its center of gathering, and its unity in the cross that was raised in Jerusalem. 

 This prayer for the visible unity of the church is an implicit theme of the feast. . . .  

Secondly, Lathrop reminds us that keeping the feast of Good Friday celebrates our hope for a world unified, in which poor and oppressed people are freed from suffering. We celebrate, in effect, our longing for that which bind us on this day.

The lords of this world also have a Lord and final judge––and he is among us as one who serves and suffers. For us the Constantinian imagery of the feast stands not for the triumph of the church but for the eschatological triumph of the cross and, with it, the final remembering and vindication of all the little and forgotten peoples of the world. . . .  

The third image is of healing:

A dying old man sees the cross and lives; the death-giving cross now becomes the sign and gift of life. When three crosses were found in the excavation for the basilica in Jerusalem, the cross of Christ was identified, according to the legend, because by its touch a dying woman was restored to life. 

 The icon and the story mean to witness to the center of our faith: Christ’s death is for our life. In him the very stuff of our loss and death is transformed into the source of life. We are healed in our deepest illness, our chaos, our dissolution, our death. The bishop lifts the cross and the tree of life is proclaimed. The lectionary also includes many images of the stuff of bitterness and death made into the source of life. . .  

 All the reversals of the feast––despised Jerusalem become the joy and center of the universe; a persecuted people vindicated; one who is as good as dead made to live––are meant to bear witness to this central reversal: the cross is lifted for life. This image of the feast is simply a sign for what is at the heart of Christian faith, for the reversal to which and from which the whole tradition of biblical reversals flows: a crucified man is the source of life. The “exaltation of the cross” is a paradox and, at the same time, the sign and foretaste of the eschatological reversal God promises––the sorrowful shall rejoice, the barren shall bear, the poor shall reign, the hungry shall feast, and the dead shall live. It is thereby a sign of the core paradox and core reversal of Christian hope: this death is life. . . . 

 The figure of Jesus in Johannine Christology is like a revealer or redeemer of gnostic description, but only in a paradoxical way. He comes down from the light realm and he returns to glory, gathering with him in his return all the people of the light. But “go up,” “return to the Father,” and “glorify” are all used in John with the same ambiguity that we find in our hyposis: they all indicate Jesus’ death. All gnostic expectation (indeed, all religious hope) is thereby radically broken and remade. This redeemer returns, goes up, makes a place for his own, takes them to God, reveals the heavens, is glorified with the glory he had before in his death. For this one his “being lifted up” is his being lifted on a cross. . . .
 And he draws to himself not just the light-people, but all people, all things. The place to which he draws them is not some place else; it is to himself. The truth he shows them is in himself. The resurrection narratives say the same thing. In the wounds that the crucified-risen one shows to the church are peace and life and the Spirit and forgiveness and the place of the meeting with God. This basic paradox––in the wounds are life; in the cross is glory––is the paradox to which the feast is faithful, and it is the paradox found in each of the central Johannine texts of the feast. . . .   

 The cross. . . invites all to gaze upon the central mystery. All are invited: desolate Jerusalem now made joyful, the dying woman now made alive, the whole disjointed world now given a center––and each of us who have known in little ways the passage out of devotion to death into the strong hope for life. The cross lifted draws us to him who is lifted. His lifting up, his death, draws us to himself, into the very stuff of death transformed, into life. . . .  

 Jewish and Christian speculation and poetry knew, in common with much of human religion, the image of the great tree, the world tree, the tree of life, Yggdrasil, giving a foundation to all things and a place for them to be at rest; binding together all contraries, forming all diversities of our human nature into a unity; providing fruit for eating and leaves for healing and oil for anointing to life and joy, shimmering with light; growing in the midst of paradise or on the great mountain or in the heart of the city beside the flowing water of life. . . .

 

Gordon Lathrop, “Tree of Death, Tree of Life,” Liturgy 1, no. 1 (1980): 2-9

Gordon Lathrop is emeritus professor of liturgy, author of the trilogy beginning with Holy Things (Fortress, 1993) and most recently The Four Gospels on Sunday: The New Testament and the Reform of Christian Worship (Fortress, 2012).

Funerals and Food ~ Part Two

Benjamin Stewart writes about the relationship between the funeral liturgy and the liturgy of the funeral meal in the April-May 2017 issue of Liturgy focused on Liturgy and Food Culture, guest-edited by Jennifer Ayres. Here, Stewart further explores the relationship between eating and the death of Jesus in order to bring to the funeral meal the weight it carries in comforting the bereaved.

Do our scriptural accounts of the Lord’s Supper bear evidence of an early ecclesial conflict around the meaning of food and death? In his work of liturgical-biblical scholarship, Gordon Lathrop suggests that Paul, in a project partly continued in the Gospels, seeks to reorient the Christian meal more directly toward the account of Jesus’ suffering and death for all the suffering mortals. (The Four Gospels on Sunday [Fortress, 2012]). 

 Paul is clearly determined to strengthen the link between the Christian meal and the death of Jesus. Some of Paul’s correspondents in Corinth seem to have been delighting in the life of the resurrection, especially at the table, without concern for the cross, and in Lathrop’s view, it is this mistake that leads them away from solidarity with the sufferings of the poor—those who share most visibly in the sufferings of the crucified Christ. Thus, in the scriptural meal narratives, especially of Paul, Mark, and Luke, Lathrop sees strong theo-ethical reforming interest in the meals of the church, accomplished especially by tending to the cruciform marks of the meal: “These central meal characteristics—the ones accentuated by the climactic Lukan narratives of the Last Supper and of Emmaus—are being urged by the Gospel exactly so that the meal keeping of the churches may be the meal with the widow, with Levi, and with Zacchaeus, and may thus become the breaking of the bread and distribution to the poor imaged in Acts 2:42–27. 

 Lathrop argues that the reforming proposals of the Gospels—holding together the death of Christ and the meal, and therefore all of the suffering mortals—are always actively before the church. Among other reforms, Lathrop urges “better preaching conjoined with strong intercessory praying for a suffering world … [and] attend[ing] to what seems to be the counsel of both Mark and Luke, echoing Paul: hold no Eucharist without a collection for the poor and hungry beyond our assembly.” 

. . . While it is perilous to assert definitively the experienced meaning of any ritual practice (and the distinction between deathbed communion and bread for the corpse was likely of little significance for some), the church seems to have been wrestling here with two significantly distinct interpretations of bread at the time of death. One set of food practices suggested the transactional payment of a debt that comes due after death, while another set suggested nourishment and comfort for the living in the face of suffering on the journey into death. 

. . . Both food and funerals lead us back to the earth. It may be that in this age of ecological emergency we rediscover ancient wisdom in our encounters with food at a time of death: strict human limits along with the fecundity of God coursing through the good earth. Three final images hold together these themes of mortality: earth, God, and food. 

The entire essay is available to download through either your library’s subscription to Liturgy or your own individual subscription. Liturgy is published quarterly with each issue focusing on a theme.  

Benjamin M. Stewart is the Gordon A. Braatz associate professor of worship and director of advanced studies at the Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago.

Benjamin M. Stewart, “Food and Funerals: Why Meals Matter for Christian Mortality and How We Might Respond Gustatorily to Changing Death Practices,” Liturgy 32, no. 2 (2017): 52-61.

Healing Envisioned – 25 October 2015 – Lectionary 30/ Proper 25

Major upheavals are imaged in the readings today. In Jeremiah, the exiles return. The image in Mark is the healing of blindness. Both of these are about restoration to wholeness, but we should be careful not to lean too much on physical disability in the preaching.

In our time, linking blindness with ignorance or white with goodness (and other such metaphors) has raised healthy cautions about marginalizing people who are blind or of a race/ethnicity other than white. Here is one antidote:

The preacher should . . . help the congregation appreciate that it is the blind man who sees beyond visible reality with spiritual insight, while the disciples (who seem to have no problems with physical sight) remain unable to recognize what sort of savior Jesus truly is. – Aaron Couch

In Holy Ground (Augsburg Fortress, 2003) Gordon Lathrop addresses this Gospel text even further: “Here is the ‘son’ of Timaeus [Bartimaeus = son of Timaeus], Plato’s Timaeus, and, ironically, he is himself blind, crying out in lament, seeing nothing, going nowhere.” (p. 31)

Bartimaeus sits by the side of the road in the perspective of his people: a Greek rendition of the universe which holds that sight is paramount and that the heavens are the location of perfect and best.

But when he “sees” Jesus, he throws off the mantle of the teaching he has received and cries out to a new way. Jesus heals his vision. His new sight reverses the wisdom of the Greeks who found truth in an order that is not here on earth. Jesus, fully divine, fully human, represents a different perspective, a new way of living that is “hidden under the form of disorder and loss… on the earth, in the way of Jesus Christ, ‘seen’ in faith.” (Lathrop, 33)

Mark 10:46-52

Mark pictures Jesus as having passed through Jericho, about 15 miles from Jerusalem, when Bartimaeus calls out to him, addressing him as “Son of David.” Mark has not used this messianic title before. At this point in the story it reminds the reader that Jesus is on his way to the city of David. Although he is David's heir and comes “in the name of the Lord” (11:9), the religious authorities will reject him.

Bartimaeus, though, recognizes Jesus and calls out for mercy. When Jesus calls him, he throws off his cloak, jumps up and comes to Jesus. After Jesus heals him, he follows Jesus “on the way,” suggesting both the way to the cross and the way of discipleship. The reader may be reminded, by contrast, of the rich man who asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life (10:17–22). The rich man and the blind beggar occupied opposite ends of Judean society. Their responses to Jesus were equally different. The rich man could not part with his possessions, but Bartimaeus threw off his cloak (perhaps his only possession) to approach Jesus. The rich man went away grieving, but Bartimaeus followed Jesus—joyfully, one may imagine! – Aaron Couch

Jeremiah 31:7-9

The first reading is a portion of “The Book of Consolation,” chapters 30–33 of Jeremiah. In contrast to the consistent message of doom through the rest of the book, these chapters announce the saving work of God to restore Israel after years of defeat and exile. The prophet calls on God's people to sing and celebrate God's faithfulness. They may only be a remnant of the former nation (v 7), but they will still be a great company (v 8). God has neither forgotten nor abandoned them. God exalts them so that they are the “chief of the nations.” The people may weep for what has been lost, but they will also weep for joy as God leads them home again.

Thematically it is the reference to God gathering the blind and lame that links this passage to the gospel reading. It is worth noting that while Leviticus excludes the blind and lame from presenting an offering at the altar of the Lord (21:18), Jeremiah names them first among the great company that God will bring back. – Aaron Couch

Hebrews 7:23-28

With Jeremiah promising rescue to the distraught and Mark’s Gospel imaging a deep insight coming to one who, on the surface, had no sight, the reading from Hebrews announces a priest  who is eternal, “able for all time to save those who approach God…” This is a Savior who leaves no one behind.

How many gospel stories record people who have been left out of the holiness code of Israel who were reclaimed by the personal and responsive work of Jesus? The disciples themselves along with many of those who were attracted to follow Jesus offer ample evidence of crowds of disaffected Israelites who were changed by the high priestly service Jesus performed. – H. Gregory Waldrop

Aaron Couch is a co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

H. Gregory Waldrop was baptized in Mayfield, Kentucky in 1954 and ordained in Atwood, Tennessee in 1981. He is a United Methodist pastor serving Fountain Avenue United Methodist Church in Paducah, Kentucky.

Homily Service 39, no. 11 (2006): 46-55.