“That’s not a ditch I’m willing to die in.” 

You know that saying, right? You’ve probably heard others say it. Maybe you’ve said it. The thing that strikes me about that saying is that I’ve never heard anyone say, “That is a ditch I’m willing to die in.” Have you? And neither have I said that. But I think that’s the question Good Friday holds before us. 

Ever since Palm Sunday we’ve been following the threads of truth woven throughout Holy Week: doing the truth, betraying the truth, reclaiming the truth.

As tragic and heartbreaking as this day is we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s come to this. Jesus chose the ditch he was willing to die in. He chose the truths that were worthy of his life and his death.

Every day he spoke truth to power — the truth of love, peace, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, justice, nonviolence, welcome and inclusivity; truth that connected people to something larger than and beyond themselves; truth that threatened the powers that be – and he was taken out by those powers.

I used to think that Jesus had accomplished something by dying on the cross and that’s why he said, “It is finished.” He had achieved his goal. But when I look at our world today it sure seems like there is a lot of unfinished business. 

Don’t you see it too? Look at the unfinished business in your life and relationships, in Uvalde, in our country. Violence, pain, brokenness, the way we exclude and treat others who differ from us, injustice, our love of power, making ourselves great, nationalism, materialism, the loss of meaning and purpose, indifference to those in need.

The cross didn’t fix or change those things. They and a thousand other things like them are the false truths for which we are often willing to kill or let others die. And yet, I’m not willing to give up on the cross. 

So maybe the cross is more about a witness testifying than it is a winner achieving (Caputo, On Religion, 135).

“It is finished” are not the final words of a winner. They are the final words of a witness who, God help him, has testified to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 

So let me ask you this. What ditch are you willing to die in? What truths are worthy of your life and your death? That’s the question before us today. 

I used to think that Jesus’ death on the cross saved us from our cross. But Jesus never said that. He did, however, say, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34, emphasis added). So maybe Jesus died on the cross in order to show us how to die on ours. 

I wonder what that looks like and means for you today. 

What’s your ditch?

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Image Credit: By Zlehad – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.