The Goodness of Good Friday

My kids are at the age where they understand just enough to NOT understand why we call it Good Friday. I've been swimming in Christian lingo and mindset for so long that the utter strangeness of the cross starts to "make sense" in ways that it really doesn't from a merely human perspective. I say it "makes sense" because we talk about it so much that it starts to feel normal: that our God would die on a cross. We sing songs about the cross. We wear them around our necks, and we talk effortlessly about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. It has begun to feel almost obvious--as though the one through whom all things were created would obviously die on a cross for us. 

In my seminary class, we're looking at the works of Paul as he helped the early church deal with the newness of faith in Jesus. One of the big hangups was the idea that anyone of any importance could possibly have been crucified. It was, likewise, strange to think of a multinational group considering itself a family, but the early Christians did. It was strange to think that a god would NOT be represented by a hand-made idol. It was unusual for a god to value the lowly, the unworthy, and sinners, and it was a non-starter to think that a person's god would dwell within everyone from the greatest to the least. 

Jesus upended everything.

In a sermon, I showed a quote from Tom Holland (not the Spiderman guy). He's a non-Christian historian and an expert in the time period in which Jesus appeared. Here's Holland's quote about the New Testament: 

“Compacted into this very, very small amount of writing was almost everything that explains the modern world and the way the West has then moved on to shape concepts like international law, concepts of human rights. Through the image of Christ bending over the prone form of a slave, the notion of compassion entered the world. Christianity, and only Christianity, had made possible the making of our world."   

Holland has the perspective of a person who is deeply aware of the Pre-Christ world. His perspective is that the modern world we know was utterly shaped by the radical influence of Jesus. Jesus changed the way humans interact. He changed the way we think of the poor and lowly. He changed the way we think of greatness. Greatness through being humiliated, overpowered, and killed was not really part of any hero stories--until Jesus came and changed our idea of true power. 

When it comes down to it, the big guy who wins by beating up all the smaller folks is victorious, but he'll still die one day.  He's only as great as he is strong. The king who comes to rule and expand his kingdom by force certainly looks great, but he's only as powerful as he is able to keep people on his side. Jesus exhibited the purest of all greatness. He gave up all his personal will and power, trusting entirely in the unyielding power of His Heavenly Father.

Jesus defeated the one thing all humans must face and ultimately succumb to, death. But the way he defeated it was by letting it pour out the fullness of its power upon him. He didn't cheat it or avoid. He swallowed it up, drank it to the dregs, and in the end there wasn't enough of it to keep him dead. 

When I started writing this post, I didn't quite know where I was heading. I figured I'd just start with that first sentence and see where it went, and here's where I've landed. This year, Good Friday strikes me as good because that is the day a hero stood up to the one enemy that no one can outsmart or outrun. If every dead person between Able and Jesus was death training for its greatest battle, then Good Friday was the day death would have its chance to show what it's made of.