Good Friday

I have grown up--some would say "grown old"--in a world that is dedicated to removing all unpleasantness.  Paint it.  Coordinate it.  Decorate it.  Don't talk about that.  Medicate it.  Make it up.  Make it over.  The problem is behind the color-coordinated paint and masked by the pain-killers life is a mess.  Here is an eloquent statement of the reality:

  

This whole smashed world's a bloody mess 

and there are people right outside the window, 

right behind those velum thin walls all down the street, living this slow, soundless bleed, 

and Holy week can feel like a hell. 

And that's why He came.

(You can read more of Ann Voskamp's thoughts here.) 

  At the heart of Good Friday is a horrible event.  It is a blessed event.  I am incredibly grateful for what Jesus did on the day we remember, but pretty it is not.  Several years ago I sat through The Passion of The Christ.  I have no desire to see the film again.  I remember the lump-in-my-stomach feeling I had more than forty years ago when I researched and wrote a paper on crucifixion. I figure the depiction of Jesus' death that will be presented Sunday evening in The Bible miniseries will be very moving.  Without needlessly wallowing in the blood and dirt of Golgotha just think of the cruelty that abides in the human heart.  What if a group of people spread out over several generations sought to come up with the cruelest most painful, and shameful form of execution possible?  That is just what the Romans did.  From the 

gruesome beginning of impaling people on a sharpened stake, crucifixion developed.  By the time the people shouted to Pilate, "Crucify Him." the execution of criminals on a cross was a finely tuned process for producing agony and shame so great that it would serve as the ultimate deterrent.The temptation to look at the cross for the wrong reason, or the tendency of our fallen mind to have wrong thoughts in the midst of that which is supremely sacred are so great that we dare not look full on at the cross too often.  If we are not careful we turn the sacred into something vulgar.  

Change the focus with me, though, and behind the cross you will see a scene even more horrible than the one on the cross.  What could possibly bring about the crucifixion of the Son of God?

My Sin. 

Don't flinch just yet.  Historically the question of "Who is responsible for the death of Christ?" has caused untold suffering.  Theologically, two images coalesce--my sin, and God's love.  Change your point of focus one again.

God so loved the world that 

He gave His only begotten Son, 

that whosoever believeth in Him 

should not perish, but

have everlasting life.

Tonight at CBC we will remember the crucifixion.  It is a scene of horror.  It was made necessary by my sin.  It is the supreme statement of God's love.

It's STTA.

 (Here is an online resource you can use to read a harmony of the Gospel accounts of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection: http://www.parallelgospels.net/Page_240.htm)