In 1961, at the
height of the Cold War, the Soviet Navy commissioned its first nuclear powered
submarine with the ability to launch nuclear missiles. The K-19 set out from
port on its first maneuvers to send a message to the world that, just as the
United States had nuclear submarines that could threaten the Soviet Union, the
threat could now be returned.
After testing
their missiles, disaster struck. The nuclear reactor developed a leak in its
coolant system and it began to overheat. As the reactor continued to heat up so
did the possibility of an explosion. The leak also began to send toxic
radiation throughout the submarine. The men on the K-19 were trapped. They were
all quickly becoming contaminated with a potentially lethal dose of radiation.
You can see a version of this story in the movie K-19 The Widow Maker.
The K-19 might
serve as a metaphor our situation and why we gather to commemorate Good Friday.
Our world, like the K-19, has a toxic leak at its heart. Our world is
contaminated. The radiation of Sin and Death, of violence and suffering, greed
and failure to love permeates this world. And, whether we like to admit it or
not, it permeates each of us. We are contaminated. What’s even harder for us to
admit is that many of our actions and thoughts contribute to the contamination.
The leaking reactor at the heart of the world contaminates everything. The
reactor of our own hearts is contaminated. Like the crew on the K-19 we are
trapped, unable to escape the toxic contamination.
Into this world
comes one who is not contaminated. Jesus enters into the world and acts as a
sort of holy Geiger counter setting off a click, click, click as he encounters
the contamination radiating from Sin and Death.
Judas, a
trusted friend and disciple, comes to him in the darkness. Perhaps it was
greed. Perhaps it was disillusionment. Perhaps it as an impatient attempt to
force Jesus’ hand and bring about the kingdom as Judas envisioned it. In any
event, Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss. And with that lip service, the Geiger
counter goes click, click, click, click.
By most
standards the high priests, Annas and Caiaphas, were probably decent enough
men, trying to maintain as much independence for their nation as they could
while appeasing the occupying Romans and forestalling the wrath of the
empire. But Caiaphas was the one who had counseled that it was “better to
have one person die for the people.” Jesus was just “collateral damage” in the
struggle to preserve the nation’s precarious security. There is a logic to his
thinking. It is reasoning with which we have become familiar as we decide
others must suffer for our security and comfort. But the thinking is
contaminated. And again we hear, click, click, click, click.
Peter, the
“Rock”, cracks under pressure and lies to avoid being associated with the one
who had called him and whom he had followed. He denies Jesus not once but
thrice and upon the third denial hears the rooster crow click, click, click,
click.
Pilate
cynically asks the one who is Truth, “What is truth?” Unable or unwilling to
accept the truth and the changes that must follow, Pilate, who claims the power
to free or to crucify, hands an innocent man over to be crucified while seeking
to remain free of the guilt. But he cannot escape the click, click, click,
click measuring the contamination of his actions.
One way or
another, each of the characters that Jesus encounters in the passion narrative
(excepting only Mary and the other women, along with the disciple Jesus loved)
demonstrates his contamination by the radiation of Sin and Death. Each alone
and all together act out of fear, pride, and disbelief leading to betrayal,
denial, desertion, deceit, collaboration, and the justification of violence.
In one sense,
little has changed. We live in a world that still radiates Sin and Death. And,
one way or another, through things done and left undone, we make our own
contribution to the contamination. Called to love God and neighbor we too often
deny, betray, and desert both. Click, click, click, click.
If all we could
say was that Jesus came into the world to reveal and measure the contamination
of Sin, if he merely left us with nothing but the echo of the click, click,
click, click we would still be trapped and lost. If all he said was “Listen to
the click, click, click, click and stop participating in your own contamination
and that of others,” we would still be trapped and lost. But he has done more.
He has sacrificed himself to begin the decontamination.
But that is not
the whole story. Thank God, that is not the whole story.
As the disaster
on the K-19 worsened, levels of radiation in the submarine rose along with the
expectation that the overheating reactor would explode if nothing was done.
Seven crewmen volunteered to work in shifts in the high-radiation area to
create a new coolant system for the reactor. In doing so they absorbed lethal
doses of radiation. All seven died. It was an heroic sacrifice that saved most
of the rest of the crew and prevented an explosion that would have sunk the
submarine.
I wonder if the
sacrifice of Jesus which we commemorate today might be understood similarly. On
the cross, Jesus absorbed the lethal dose of Sin and Death, repaired the leak,
and began the decontamination of the
world.
In Jesus the
love of God was poured out on the hard wood of the cross and into the
contaminated mess of our world. He is the antidote bringing forgiveness,
reconciliation, and healing. Today we who are now in Christ celebrate that sacrifice,
deliverance, and decontamination. As with the K-19 after the repair, we still experience
the effects of residual radiation. But Sin and Death were contained on a Friday
afternoon nearly 2,000 years ago and the decontamination began. And that was a
Good Friday indeed.
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