Since it's Good Friday, we will get the "suffering servant" from Isaiah as the first reading when we watch the celebration of the Passion livestreamed from our parish today.
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One of the things I've been doing for Lent is reading the daily Mass readings (not that it's Mass today, but you know what I mean), first thing in the morning after I've had enough coffee and listless news-surfing to feel ready for it. Plot twist is that I've been reading it in other languages that I can decently parse, occasionally Latin or Italian or Spanish for the practice, but most often French since I'm close to fluent in it and it's handily available via the iBreviary app.
I started off thinking that it would be good language practice and that the novelty might encourage me to keep it up, but the language practice has really faded into the background as I have discovered that reading not-in-English gives one a marvelously fresh look at familiar stories. Many of the Gospel readings have struck me almost as if I were reading them for the first time. If you have any other language, I highly recommend giving this a try.
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This is a little bit beside the point. I wanted to look at the Suffering Servant verses today. I know them so well, I can almost hear the deep tones of the radio-voiced parishioner who always reads the first reading on Good Friday. But I was kind of interested in excerpting just some of the verses today.
Even as many were amazed at him, so marred was his look beyond human semblance and his appearance beyond that of the sons of man, so shall he startle many nations, because of him kings shall stand speechless…
I was thinking about the "startle," and the "speechless." (Il étonnera de même une multitude de nations; devant lui les rois resteront bouche bée…)
I am far from the first to observe that one of our modern problems with understanding the Passion is that we aren't surprised anymore. We have seen so many artistic depictions that t is stylized in our minds. The crown of thorns belongs on Jesus's head, the streaks of gore are painted plaster, we don't need to probe the wounds because, yes, yes, we know, there they are, they have pierced your hands and feet and counted all your bones, we know.
I thought to take a close look at the description of the suffering servant before the revelation, before everyone finds out the twist ending. (Bits from the French readings that seem to differ in translation are added in brackets, for your reading interest as you consider word choice in the English version.)
so marred was his look beyond human semblance [car il était si défiguré qu'il ne ressemblait plus à un homme, because he was so disfigured that he no longer looked human]
and his appearance beyond that of the sons of man…
He grew up like a sapling [a poussé comme une plante chétive, sprouted like a stunted plant] before him, like a shoot [une racine, a root] from the parched earth;
there was in him no stately bearing [apparance ni beauté, neither appearance nor beauty] to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him [son aspect n'avait rien pour nous plaire, his appearance had nothing that we would like about it].
He was spurned [méprisé, scorned or despised] and avoided [abandonné, abandoned] by people, a man of suffering [douleurs, pains or sorrows], accustomed to infirmity [souffrance, suffering], one of those from whom people hide their faces, spurned [méprisé] , and we held him in no esteem [compté pour rien, counted as nothing].
…we thought [et nous, nous pensions– emphasis on we thought] of him as stricken [frappé, smited], as one smitten [meurtri, beaten up, bruised] by God and afflicted [humilié, humiliated, shamed].
…Oppressed [arrêté, seized] and condemned [jugé, tried], he was taken away [supprimé, done away with], and who would have thought any more of his destiny [Qui donc s'est inquiété de son sort? So who cared what happened to him?]
a grave was assigned him [on a placé sa tombe, they put his grave] among the wicked…
I've carefully picked out the phrases that describe the servant as he appears to ordinary people, before the twist ending. In the reading these are interlaced with sentences about justification, elevation, redemption; but today is Good Friday and none of that is visible yet.
So take a minute and think about being an ordinary person in the ordinary life that you are living, surrounded with various kinds of people. Whom do you see that gives you the described reaction?
Have you ever passed somebody and averted your eyes to avoid looking into theirs?
Ever seen a person, maybe just a photo, of a person with a face so disfigured—burned, misshapen, broken—that they barely looked like a human face? Have you felt the automatic revulsion—it's a natural human response of self-protection—and maybe been ashamed of yourself, so you scrolled rapidly by to soften the discomfort?
Or maybe it's not a physical disfigurement—something in the eyes and expression and behavior that looks too vacant or crazed to possess intelligence and reason behind the eyes? Not someone that one would call a person—people choose words like "an animal," or "a monster."
Someone who comes from nowhere important, like maybe, not a respectable family. For whatever reason, stunted at an early age. Wouldn't ever have amounted to anything anyway. A nothing. A loser.
Ugly. Pitiful to look at. Unpresentable. Disgusting.
Somebody like that has gotten what they deserved. We don't want people like that among us. Take him away, haul him before the judge, lock him up and throw away the key, send him to where we don't have to think about him and people like him anymore, let somebody else worry about him. Let him die for all we care, and when he dies he can go like the rest, into an unmarked trench with the others.
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"The poor you will always have with you," and we do, and I don't mean the deserving poor, but the untouchables. The poor that no one wants to serve, not even for the small reward of a charitable act; no, the kind of poor that people hesitate to help, because what good could it possibly do to help someone who is obviously beyond help, someone whose degradation is their own fault, someone who might lash out at me for even trying?
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One could think I meant only what Jesus said, that "what you do to one of these least ones, you also do to me," an urging to perform acts of charity to the poor around us despite our feelings about them; and that's a good sentiment; but that reading is for a different day. Today's reading is about the surprise.
For there to be a surprise, there must be a before-the-surprise.
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This is part of what we need to understand at Good Friday:
This is our God, the God of the disgusting, the God of the smelly, the God of the limping, the God of the repulsive, the God of the self-destructive, the God of learned helplessness, the God who was asking for it, the God who will get what's coming to him, the God of the gutter, the God you won't look in the eye. The God with his hand out.
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