Good Friday sermon by Deacon Donna Lockhart, based on John 18:1 – 19:42
Lessons:
John 18:1 – 19:42
“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.”
Acts 10:39 NRSV
Imagine; Jesus’ mother Mary at the foot of the cross as she watches her young son, tortured, bloodied, and suffering beyond comprehension. Imagine the heart wrenching pain of watching your child being nailed to a cross; knowing his only infraction was speaking truth to power. Imagine standing helpless as a mob mentality takes over and is strengthened by the corrupt, self-indulgent, government. Imagine, watching for hours, keeping vigil as your child slowly dies, all the while continuing to bear the hateful words coming from the angry mob.
Death finally comes, and like a sweet embrace ends the torture. As Jesus dies, in his final act of obedient submission, he surrenders completely, body, mind, and spirit to the powerlessness of the cross. An out-of-town guest coming to be of support and witness, asks the corrupt government for his friend’s body. Jesus’ human remains are released, readied for burial, and laid in a freshly hewn tomb.
Imagine now, two thousand years later, another mother and son. A young fourteen-year-old black youth, who in August of 1955 is pulled from the Tallahatchie River. His body having been beaten and now bloated beyond recognition, with the only identifiable item being a ring showing the engraved initials of his beloved father. This young fourteen-year-old black boy was Emmett Till, who for the infraction of whistling at a white woman, paid with his life.
Mamie Till Bradley, in an anguish only a mother of a murdered child could know, cried out to God saying, “Lord you gave your son to remedy a condition, but who knows but what the death of my only son might bring an end to lynching.” Seeking to make sense of her son’s death, and praying that it might not be in vain, her actions became guided by her faith and a voice that told her to take comfort and know that her son’s death was not in vain, and that he would forever be remembered as the sacrificial lamb of the civil rights movement.[1]
After receiving her son’s bloated and beaten body, Emmett’s mother, laid him in an open casket for a three-day viewing so all could lay witness to the ruthless murder of her baby. Six hundred thousand people viewed Emmett Till’s beaten and bloated body and attended his funeral. Millions more around the world lay witness to this atrocity through published photographs. [2] Though an unbearable cross to bear, Emmet’s mother faithfully lay public her grief so the world could witness the depth and brutality of black suffering, the depth and brutality of white supremacy, and the depth and grace of black faith.
In his book, “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” James Cone, draws a distinct and powerful correlation between the cross Jesus died on and the lynching of countless members of the black community. He explains the paradox of our crucified Savior is what rests at the heart of the Christian story. Cone speaks to the Roman Empire and their use of public crucifixion. These crucifixions were deliberately made a public spectacle, accompanied by humiliating and unimaginable torture in the government’s effort to let society know who was in charge and what the punishment would be for stepping outside of what was deemed, acceptable behavior.
[As Cone explains,] out of such a horrendous death, Jesus conquered death itself, giving to us the redeeming grace and promise of salvation. The paradox of the cross lies in this religious symbolism. It upends the value system of the world by offering the conscious thought that from the deepest depth of suffering rises hope. The cross shows us that suffering, and death do not have the last word,[3] bringing into the context of the present day, Jesus’ words; “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.”[4]
Public lynching, equivalent to the pain and suffering of Jesus’ crucifixion, ravaged the black southern community as well as some northern communities, from 1880 – 1940. [As Cone explains,] This time in history is now known as the Lynching Era, and lynching fever, spread like wildfire, while white communities made blacks their primary target. Lynching took the form of grievous acts of torture culminating in a slow, humiliating, painful death, equal to the pain and humiliation that Jesus suffered leading up to, and culminating in, death on a cross.
Every black man, woman, and child could find themselves, at the hands of an angry white mob for the slightest infraction. White people were invited to witness these lynching’s; tickets were sold, with crowds of up to twenty thousand white taunting spectators gathered after Sunday services to lay witness to these atrocities. Pictures were taken and sold, postcards purchased for profit and sent to family members unable to attend.
So, where was God in the crowds of venom who gathered around the lynching trees? Where was God when the Roman soldiers beat, taunted, and nailed Jesus to the cross? Where was God when young Emmett Till was dragged from his home in the middle of the night, beaten, shot, and thrown into the river as if his life meant nothing.
Here is where God is; God is in the lifegiving resurrection of Jesus Christ, just as God is in the lifegiving work of liberation, and God is in the body of every person of color lynched to this very day. Redemption is found in the cross and as Cone puts it, redemption is having the faith that “God snatches victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair [as revealed in the biblical and black proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection.]”[5]
What has happened to our black brothers and sisters, and all people of color, at the hands of white supremacy and racism is nothing less than what happened to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, at the hands of the Romans. Every time a hate crime is committed, or a person is murdered because of the color for their skin, be it by a private citizen or a law enforcement agent, we are present day witnesses to the crucifixion of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Last week’s April 4th shooting and murder of twenty-six-year-old Patrick Lyoya [Lee-o-ya] in Grand Rapids, Michigan is yet another horrifying example of this modern-day witness to Christ’s crucifixion; and yet another example of the constant threat our siblings of color live under daily.
The lynching of Emmett Till took place a full fifteen years after the “Lynching era” had supposedly ended – and recall God telling Mamie Till that her son’s death would not be in vein. Albeit far too long in the making, on March 29th of this year, President Biden signed into law the Emmitt Till Anti-lynching Bill. Congress has seen anti-lynching bills come up for consideration no less than 200 times since the year 1900.
Friends, that is one hundred and twenty-two years, too long to enact such a law and to officially make acts of lynching a federal hate crime. And where this law is a step in the right direction, there is much work to do to ensure the justice, equality and safety of all who are targeted for the way look, the color of their skin, their gender identity, or the religion they practice. Racial profiling is alive and well my friends and we cannot stop until the racism that feeds it is also stopped.
I challenge every [white] person in America who does not find themselves outraged by the lack of urgency to pass the Emmett Till Anti-lynching law, to ask themselves “Why?” And I challenge further for these same people to find God’s saving grace in their answer. Again, our redemption is found in the faith we have that through Jesus Christ, God claims victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair.[6]
Representative Bobby Rush, a longtime sponsor of the Emmett Till Anti-lynching legislation, said on the eve of the Bill’s signing, “Lynching is a longstanding and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy.”[7] And though crucifixion was not uniquely Roman, it was also a weapon of terror and domination utilized by the Romans to maintain control, to dominate, and to oppress. Again, our redemption is found in the faith we have that through Jesus Christ, God claims victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair.[8]
It is in the cross that we look to for the hope of salvation. So, I invite us all to look at the cross with a new redemptive lens. Take a look at the cross that you are wearing around your neck, or your wrist, or have tattooed on your shoulder, what does it mean to you? Look at the cross that is hanging from your review mirror, or in your living room at home, or in the sanctuary of this church; what does it say to you? I challenge us all to look at the cross, the main symbol of Christianity, and recognize Christ in every black person who has been lynched from this nation’s inception to this very day.
This my friends, is where Jesus is, this is where you will find God, weeping, comforting, liberating, and resurrecting, those who have died at the hands of racism and those caught in the death grip of systemic, racial discrimination; “And the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” This is where God is, God is in the strength and the endurance of the last, and those of us who are first are asked to truly join with the God of the oppressed, in the work of justice and liberation. And in the words of James Cone:
“The cross can heal and hurt; it can be empowering and liberating but also enslaving and oppressive. There is no one way in which the cross can be interpreted. I offer my reflections because I believe that the cross placed alongside the lynching tree can help us to see Jesus in America in a new light, and thereby empower people who claim to follow him to take a stand against white supremacy and every kind of injustice.”[9]
And as we read in the book of Acts:
“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.”[10]
[1] The Cross and the Lynching, pg. 68-69.
[2] The Cross and the Lynching, pg. 65-67.
[3] Cross and the Lynching Tree, pg. 1-2
[4] Matthew 20:16 NRSV
[5] The Cross and the Lynching Tree, pg. 150.
[6] The Cross and the Lynching Tree, pg. 150.
[7]NPR https://www.npr.org/2022/03/08/1085094040/senate-passes-anti-lynching-bill-and-sends-federal-hate-crimes-legislation-to-bi
[8] The Cross and the Lynching Tree, pg. 150.
[9] The Cross and the Lynching Tree, pg. xix
[10]Acts 10:39 NRSV.