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Easter Friday and the suffering heart of God

It’s Easter Friday. Imagine.
Imagine seeing the events of Jesus triumphal entry the week before through the eyes of those who were there. From the child to the seasoned saint straining to get a glimpse of the King.
Imagine, Jerusalem is crowded with pilgrims. Hear the sound of unadulterated praise swell. The shout of hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Feel the sense of excitement and anticipation.
That was last week. A lot can happen in less than a week. Just ask Kevin Rudd, or Julia Gillard, or Tony Abbott. The human heart is a fickle thing.
The scene has changed: from royalty to the relegated; sovereign to the sidelined; from hallelujahs to heckling.
Jesus has been betrayed, arrested, taken to the house of Caiaphas, and on to Pilate – a revolving door of kangaroo courts where justice was in absentia.
After the crowds were duped into calling for the release of the convicted criminal Barabbas, they called for the crucifixion of the Christ.
In the scripture narrative, Judas, Pilate’s wife, Pilate, one of the thieves crucified alongside Him, and the centurion at the foot of the cross, would all declare His innocence.
‘Jesus died for God before he died for us’, said Althaus
The Japanese Lutheran theologian Kazoh Kitamori published his famous and ground-breaking book Theology of the Pain of God in 1946. ‘Only a suffering God can help.’ writes Jurgen Moltmann (the Crucified God) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (letters and papers from prison).
A. Dismore (English) writes about the suffering heart of God: ‘there was a cross in the heart of God before there was one planted on the green hill outside of Jerusalem. And now that the cross of wood has been taken down, the one in the heart of God abides, and it will remain so long as there is one sinful soul for whom to suffer.’