Saturday nof the Fourth Week of Lent

Do me justice, O Lord, because I am just,

and because of the innocence that is mine.
Let the malice of the wicked come to an end,
but sustain the just,
O searcher of heart and soul, O just God.

The passion of Jesus is fundamentally the final contest between good and evil. Everyone has a stake in it, whether they believe or not, whether they have ever heard of Jesus or not. If Jesus collapses under the regime of evil, the struggle for justice, mercy, peace, beauty, prosperity and every other good is lost. Every virtue will be nonsense. Every generous act, no matter how heroic, will be vain romanticism.  

As he dies on the cross it appears that wickedness has won the day.

Hannah Arendt famously described the “banality of evil” as she observed the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi war criminals. These were ordinary looking men. They were middle aged and balding with a paunch. They were not monsters. Some of them loved their wives and children and they paid their taxes. They went to work in the morning and came home at night. They explained their crimes by say they were only obeying orders. They were just doing their jobs. What could be wrong with that?

They were products of their society, engaged in a massive enterprise which that society had agreed to undertake. They were surely no worse than the investors who sponsored slave ships from Africa to the Americas for four hundred years. They intended no more harm than the cigarette industries in Louisville today; or the merchants of firearms along the Mexican-American border; or the travel agents who organize trips to the brothels of Thailand.

Jesus seems to be just another in the line of prophets who have challenged Israel for over a thousand years. The elders of the city probably supposed about him what we suppose about our prophets today: “Just watch and see. Something foul will turn up about him as it does with everyone who challenges the system.” How many televangelists have been exposed for frauds? And ministers and priests? And politicians? Why shouldn’t they rid the city of this nuisance? Why bother with a fair trial? You know how it will end; let’s get on with it.

But God raised him up and revealed him to us as the eternally begotten Son of God. God has awarded the prize to goodness. The Book of Revelation will describe Jesus’ victory as a cosmic event. John of Patmos saw the heavens purged of evil, and he saw evil falling to earth to torment us for only a little while. The war is over; goodness has won; we have only to keep the faith until his authority reaches into every darkened corner of human life.