COMMENTARY: On Good Friday, did Jesus feel like a failure?

c. 1996 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of”Turn Toward the Wind”and publisher of Religion News Service.) (RNS)-Jesus was fully human and fully divine. It is one of the basic tenets of Christian theology and one of the great paradoxes of history. And during this Christian holy season, much of the pomp […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of”Turn Toward the Wind”and publisher of Religion News Service.)

(RNS)-Jesus was fully human and fully divine. It is one of the basic tenets of Christian theology and one of the great paradoxes of history.


And during this Christian holy season, much of the pomp and passion is meant to emphasize the dual nature of Jesus.

As a child I remember shuddering as preachers described the crucifixion in gory detail in order to emphasize the pain Jesus experienced.

But as an adult I’ve begun to wonder about other aspects of his humanity. If Jesus truly understood what it was like to be human, did he feel like a failure on what we now call Good Friday?

Did he feel that terrible weight of having tried your best, but not being able to succeed?

Did he understand that human horror of imagining triumph and instead facing humiliation?

When he said,”It is finished”, was part of him saying,”I give up”?

I wonder these things because it is easier for me to understand humanity than divinity. Being divine has no bounds; being human has constantly shifting handicaps.

The longer I live, the more I understand that my humanity works against me in ever-increasing ways. My knees give out. My memory dims. My tolerance diminishes. Failure happens. Being human is no picnic.

Says writer C.S. Lewis of Jesus’ decision to become human,”If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.” If Jesus was fully human, he must have doubted himself. Even though the divine part of him knew that he was part of a plan, the human side must have wondered if he was up to the job.


Perhaps he wondered if he was getting too old to accomplish what he was called upon to do. Thirty-three sounds young to some of us, but it was middle age in his time.

Surely he questioned why he had made the effort to feed 5,000 people or to raise Lazarus from the dead when in the end he was ridiculed.

Maybe he wondered if he’d gotten the game plan right. All of that effort just to end up in pain and rejection? Surely that wasn’t the best way to accomplish the goal.

In his prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asks God to consider a different way to work it all out, even though he knows how it is supposed to end. I can identify with that sentiment. I know what it’s like to pray for what looks like the inevitable to take a different course.

If Jesus was fully human he even knew what it was like to feel as if you don’t have a friend in the world. Remember that on the cross he cried out,”My God, why have you forsaken me?” Knowing that he also was divine, did Jesus question why he was going through all of the messiness of being human? Weren’t there times when the human condition seemed ridiculous to someone who could part waters and heal the sick?

And so there is even greater paradox in the Easter story than a painful human death and a divine resurrection.


There is the irony of Good Friday representing the ultimate failure and humiliation. Even physical pain cannot top that human feeling.

The act that now represents salvation must have felt like total loss at the time. The crucifixion scene that is depicted in paintings, sculptures and gold crosses that are worn as ornaments must have been the very worst human experience ever.

As I reflect on this Christian holy season, I think again of the paradox of crucifixion and resurrection. But even more, I am struck by the idea that to be fully human means to feel not only physical pain, but emotional pain as well.

When I celebrate Easter this year I will have new appreciation for the days that led up to it. Good Friday was not just a day in which Jesus died a painful death. It was a day in which he experienced all of the emotions any of us feel on all of our worst days combined.

While I may not fully comprehend the sacrifice of a painful death, I do have some understanding of human emotional suffering. For Christians, it is another reason to celebrate. Jesus understands how we feel on the worst days of our lives.

MJP END BOURKE

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