BY REV. H. STEPHEN SHOEMAKER

Why is the day of Jesus’ crucifixion on a Roman cross called “good”?

Here’s a beginning: Because on the cross Jesus forgave the ones killing him: “ Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

None of us know the harm we do to others, not fully. It’s our human lot, and we are forgiven. That is good news for our hearts. Because of the miracle of forgiveness, memory of harm can bring hope and renewal.

There is another. On this day the suffering of Jesus and the sufferings of the world become one. He is with us and with us all in our human suffering. On this day we cannot disconnect the crucified Jesus from, to use the words of Ignacio Ellacuria, “the crucified peoples of history.”

American Christians must place the cross alongside the lynching tree. So wrote America’s leading Black Theologian in his last book before his death, “The Cross and the Lynching Tree.” We cannot understand American Christianity and American history apart from this horrid juxtaposition.

In the “lynching era” of Jim Crow, from1880 to 1940, more than 5,000 Black persons were lynched, and those are just the ones that have been identified. These were “extra-legal” killings, but had broad cultural approval, including, in the South, the support of church-going Christians. In Iredell County, we have identified three persons who were lynched.

The Statesville Branch NAACP and friends have begun the “Iredell County Remembrance Project” (ICRP) to memorialize those who were lynched in our county. A leader in the project, Frank Johnson, says, “Organized forgetting is not a good thing for Statesville.”

You can hear about it this Good Friday as the last stop on the Community Peace Walk, which begins on the lawn at Broad Street United Methodist Church at 10 a.m. and ends at 11:45 a.m. at the same spot, in time for the Community Good Friday Service at Broad Street Methodist. This last stop will take place at the Old Jail, now home to the Iredell Arts Council, at 203 S. Meeting Street.

There are, however, new lives under fresh threat in our nation, and we will remember them as well. German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by order of Hitler on April 9, 1945, wrote that one of the responsibilities of the church toward the state was its “unconditional obligation” to come to the aid of the victims of state action.

So, this year the Community Peace Walk will include not only stops to talk about segregation in our city’s past and words about the Green Street Cemetery renewal but also a stop to hear about the Hispanic and Immigrant communities under threat in our nation and community; and a stop at Congregational Emanuel to hear about the needs of Jewish and Muslim people here and the new threat to religious freedom; then a stop to support our LGBTQ neighbors who live with deep anxiety and under social hatred today. The Trans community has been especially targeted this past year for political purposes.

On this Good Friday, many people of good will and of various religious traditions will join to hear our Community’s “Messengers of Peace” and stand with those most vulnerable in our community and nation. We invite all join us this day.

Rev. H. Stephen Shoemaker is pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Statesville.