There is no battle field on earth, nor ever has been, which it has not cost the bloodshed and anguish to supply, than it has cost the men who lie there. We pay the first cost on all human life...No woman who is a woman says of a human body, "It is nothing."
-- Olive Schreiner, a peacemaker in 1911.It is not some religious act which makes a Christian, but participating in the suffering of God in the life of the world...The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard.
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Scripture: Mat. 27:27-55, Mark 12: 39, Luke 11:29
Some may ask why there be a reading of Jonah on Good Friday. The reason is Jesus himself alludes to his death and resurrection in the light of Jonah's experience in the belly of a sea monster (Mat. 12:39-41, Luke 11:29). "Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth."
The only prophet in the Hebrew Scripture to whom Jesus compares himself is Jonah. Further Jonah and Jesus came from the same Galilean area. Beyond this the comparison ceases. Jonah went into the belly of the whale because he was fleeing from the will of God, refusing to prophesy against Ninevah, since Jonah knew the goodness and mercy of God, and that God would repent and not punish even the "heathen other," if they showed repentance. For Jonah, God ought to be consistent with his vengeance, and not change his mind.
Could such a person even be called a prophet? Even the locality of Galilee, where Jonah as well as Jesus came from, was looked down upon as a spiritually non-descript area. Some of the Pharisees said, "No prophet is to arise out of Galilee" (John 7:52). But Jesus compared himself to this reluctant prophet who unwillingly proclaimed the Word of God to Ninevah.
Jonah's story is a story of repentance and resurrection to the giver as well as the recipients of the warning. A national day of mourning and repentance follows in Ninevah, with the kings and his nobles fasting and praying. Even the herds and flocks of animals were not given food (Jonah 3:6-7). It was a prayer for survival and aversion of evil. God heard the prayer and God changed his mind about the calamity that he said would befall Ninevah. God heard the people's peace-making prayer with God and God relented. But Jonah got angry with God for not punishing the people of Ninevah for Jonah's religious practice accommodated no surprises, the divine scale of forgiveness which upsets the prophet's schedule. Why should one bring one's self to an enemy country only to be asked to go back? The thing is Jonah precisely knew God would act like this. He knew God might do such a thing as forgiving Israel's enemy.
The story of Jonah is as much about the church's need for expanding its own missional thinking as about the surprising knowledge about the enemy's direct access to Yahweh's compassion through repentance and peace-making prayer. To be inside the belly of the sea monster is to "descend into hell," and to descend into this complexity of "hell." An unlikely place to be for a prophet, a church, or even a Messiah.
But God in Christ shows great compassion to both God's church that flees its prophetic call, but cries for God's help, as well as the enemy who calls upon God for survival through repentance and peace-making prayer. God in Christ "descended into hell," as the Apostle Creed says.
Elsa Tamez, a theologian from Costa Rica, once said, "...the greatest possible solidarity of God with humankind is to the point of taking on their humanity and even more specifically the humanity of the poor...In the Son, God entered into the perverse and deadly logic of sin in order to condemn it..." She goes on to say that not only Jesus' death, but his whole life of love and service, his resurrection too have meanings for one's salvation.
The God of the Christians is a crucified God. A betrayed God. But this God has tasted the suffering of the "crucified peoples" of the world. That is why the poor and the suffering, the victims of injustice and the oppressed, identify with this Christ. Ignacio Ellacuria once called the poor oppressed Latin American people "the crucified Christs of the Indies."
Many of us seek healing. We still ask questions. Where was God on September 11, 2001? God is with the victims of terrorism. God was with the victims of terrorism before September 11 and after September 11 here and elsewhere. Is God then "a wounded healer"? I would like to say, "yes." Not merely because God was crucified in Christ and has known terror, but because he continues to accompany the crucified peoples of the world today.
That is why, the cross offers no "cheap grace." It demands a discipleship of depth which involves both woundedness and healing, the call to extend one's concept of love, even to the extent of loving one's enemies. This is tough love. Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTIONS:
(1) Is God invoked by both the sides the same God?
(2) Is God on both the sides?
(3) If not, on whose side is God?
(4) What has been revealed to us about God in Jesus on the Cross?
(The above questions have been taken from The Road to Damascus: Kairos and Conversion. Catholic International Relations, 1989.
PRAYER:
Teach us to pray for whom we support as well as our enemies. It is tough. As war affects leaders of the countries, military personnel, women, children, and youth, and people around the world, teach us to pray, Lord. Teach us, even us. Help us to stand with the crucified peoples of the world in Christ's way. Amen.