wishing all my Christian friends who observe, a blessed Good Friday. 🙏🏻

i invite Christian and non-Christian friends alike to view the crucifixion as a political act (in addition to a metaphysical, mystical, spiritual act if that is your belief). the crucifixion, after all, was state sanctioned violence. and in the case of Jesus, state sanctioned violence against a Jewish man who was teaching a message of nonviolence, a message of including the excluded, of reaching out to the marginalized, a message of the outcast as embodiments of the sacred, a message of loving one’s enemies as a way of embodying one’s love for God. a message of love that disrupts the status quo (which almost always brings suffering to someone) and destabilizes the hierarchy of power (that almost always oppresses someone). 

and yet as the writers of the Gospels tell us, at every step, Jesus embodied nonviolence, even when facing the horrifically violent death of crucifixion. i recall the story of the Roman guard who comes to arrest Jesus prior to the crucifixion. Peter, Jesus’ disciple, cuts off the guard’s ear in defense of Jesus. who does Jesus’ rebuke? Peter, not the Roman guard! Jesus rebukes Peter and heals the ear of the Roman guard. imagine that! a path of nonviolence and healing, a path committed to inclusive love, even if it leads to death. it’s revolutionary.

it’s impossible to reconcile such a message of love and nonviolence with the violent, marginalizing, exclusionary rhetoric we hear today or with a love for weapons of violence and war, over the lives of children. Jesus’ message of love is still challenging us in these times.

may hearts open, may sanity arise, and may such a revolutionary love find a home in our words and actions.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏻

#GoodFriday #Crucifixion #Jesus #JesusChrist #DeathPenalty #Nonviolence #Nonharming #Revolutionary #Love #OpenHeart #Suffering #Healing #Sacred #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #Art #Enso #Cross #ContemplativeArt