Good Friday and Reservoir Dogs

When the Church tries to embody the rule of God in the forms of earthly power it may achieve that power, but it is no longer a sign of the kingdom.

― Lesslie Newbigin

I recently rewatched Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece of pacing and tension, Reservoir Dogs. Notorious for its profanity and violent imagery, it is broadly considered one of the most influential and important independent films ever made. Most of the movie is filmed in the suffocating confines of a former mortuary lined with coffins and a hurst, while the actors, full of sound and fury, are either dying or soon to be dead. The climactic scene of the movie comes when Mr. Blonde, the “bad guy” (in a room where even the good guy is a bad guy), cuts off the ear of a police officer while dancing to “Stuck in the Middle with You.” It was a moment where killers, men who had already bent the moral restraints of the law to suit their desires, were shocked by how far a bad man can spin into that badness. Like a Shakespearean tragedy, it is brutal, compelling, and, in the end, haunting in its exploration of human proclivity for violence and the strange ways we define right and wrong.

As I was reading the Gospel of John this morning, I was struck by a similar scene on the evening of Christ’s betrayal. Jesus had spent the whole evening preparing his disciples for these events, telling them that he would have to be betrayed and that they would, in spite of all their fear, be ok. He would be with them. The Spirit would come and comfort and guide them. The Father, to whom Jesus was going, was not only with Jesus, but with them. The world, he tells them, hates him and will hate them. The world, in all of its grubby power-hungry self-glory, has been exposed by his love and hates the exposure. And instead of changing, it will instead rise up against the Son of God to silence him through death. But it’s ok, he tells them, it’s all part of the plan.

You will be left here, he tells them,  just for a little while - to be my witnesses. In the same way I exposed the hypocrisy of the world’s fragile and hypocritical morality by my love, the world will know you are my disciples by your love. And the world will hate you for it. The irreligious world will hate you because they cannot manipulate you, profit off you, or build their empires of dust on your shared ambition. The religious world will hate you even more because you will expose their Orwellian propagandist Double Speak for the greedy, profane, self-glorying blasphemy that it is. They will speak of love but will act in hate. They will speak of God’s glory but fight for their own. They will speak of truth and boast of hills to die on, but instead of dying on a hill of love, they will kill on the hill of power.

You are my disciples. You will be my witnesses. They will know you are my disciples by your love.

And then the dangerous world out there showed up in the garden. Jesus placed himself between their hostility and his disciples. He offered himself in love to suffer and die in a supreme act of substitutionary justice. Take me, he says, and leave these alone.

But the worldliness of his disciples rose up in response to the worldliness of the invaders, and Peter (bold, manly-man Peter) takes out his sword and in an ill-aimed strike, cuts off the ear of Malchus (not even a soldier - a servant of the High Priest). The hostile worldliness of the soldiers provoked the hostile worldliness of Peter and the disciples. Violence begets violence and fear begets fear.

And Jesus stands in the middle, quietly rebuking Peter and quietly healing Malchus and quietly extending his healing hands to be bound, carried away to be pierced, delivered up to the world by the worldliness of both his enemies and his friends. Love on display, exposing the hypocrisy of both his enemies and his friends. Love inviting both sides of the fight to repent of their violent self-glory and fearful self-protection. Love - disarming and alarming, powerful in its laying down of power, glorious in its meekness (and appearance of weakness). Love.

I can’t help but look at the landscape of our culture, as Mueller Thursday seemed to eclipse Maundy Thursday, and my social media feed was filled with people picking up their swords and taking ill-aimed swipes at their enemies, that we are reservoir dogs, dying people, full of sound and fury, seeking to kill others in the mortuary, instead of laying down our swords, undone by love to follow a Savior who calls us to the greater power of love.

Today is Good Friday. The day Love died so that I might be loved. The day the boastful and violent intentions of my heart were exposed in their true nature, in the light of his goodness, as pride and fear. The day that comes around once a year to remind us every day of the year to repent of our worldly fear, pride, greed, and desperate need to win (and see others lose). To love.

It was my sin that put him on that cross. It was his love that kept him there. 

That is my security. That is my joy. That is my boast and my pride. Today I commit afresh to laying down my sword and following my Savior on the path of the cross.