Good Friday?

So, I don’t know if any of you are like me and grew up in the church with all of the Easter language and talk. And I don’t know if any of you had questions like “Why is it called Good Friday?” or “What does the Easter Bunny have to do with Jesus and the Cross?” I think these are some good questions and I think they are questions that our kids ask, even if they don’t verbalize them to us. Some of you know me and know that I have some issues with the conflation of cultural “holiday” ideals with what we do in the church. More on that later…sorry if you already have big Easter Bunny plans for you kids this weekend.

But, what about Good Friday? Why is it called Good Friday? Let’s catch up on the story…the Friday in question of nearly 2,000 years ago. Jewish days started at 6pm the day before, so Friday would have started at 6pm Thursday. Let’s do one of two things here. Either first, rehearse what we have learned all our lives in church about Easter week (Holy Week as some would call it), or, if you are unfamiliar with all of the Christian lingo, hear (with your eyes, because you are reading this) for the first time what is going on. BTW, Christian people, please understand that most of what we talk about on a regular basis with great fluency in the church is jibberish or German (two languages that sound very much the same…sorry Germans, but you gave us the Easter Bunny) to the culture around us. Take note of that because the world around us is watching.

I don’t know about you, but I like to eat around 6pm. And it’s not just me, because the Jews did, too. Imagine this world where your day literally starts with a BBQ dinner because your day starts at 6pm. Sounds like a great day to me, except Jews didn’t eat pork. I imagine that if they had ever eaten BBQ, they would have probably settled for ceremonial uncleanness (I picture ribs and pulled pork on the blanket from heaven in Peter’s vision…Acts 10.12). Nevertheless, Jesus and His Disciples are having the Passover feast to remember the great thing that God had done for Israel in Egypt 1500 years before. He predicts that one of the guys around the table is going to betray Him and no one really believes Him, rather they start purporting their own holiness and righteousness as a means to excuse themselves from such ungodly behavior. However, Judas gets the nod from Jesus to do whatever it is he has set to do. Funny that once Judas leaves the scene, no one asks where he went. The other disciples were too concerned with why they wouldn’t sin to assist someone else who was struggling with sin (another note to take, church people).

By 9pm (still Friday), Jesus has given His disciples one of the greatest teaching in all of the Bible (see John 14-18) and is in the garden to pray. He takes a couple of the guys with Him to watch while He prays and twice has to chastise their laziness because they fall asleep (Matthew 26.36ff). In the middle of the second rousing of the sleepy troops, Judas shows up, kisses Jesus and hands Him over to the temple authorities. If you are unfamiliar with the story, this is a big deal to the Jews, not because they were bad people, but because Jesus claimed to be the Son of God (equality) and this was a violation of the 10 Commandments. They did not believe that Jesus was who He said He was. In the middle of the night, there is a sketchy trial before the temple authorities and the High Priest. I say sketchy because the details are not exactly accurate and the Gospels tell us that the temple authorities had conjured up stories and paid people to tell them in the trial. Not exactly 6^th Amendment stuff here; oh yeah, also violates the 9^th commandment, since they were so concerned with the first two here.

By midnight, Jesus is handed over to Pilate, the Roman proconsul in the area. Pilate doesn’t really get why this is such a huge deal for the Jews…partly because he wasn’t Jewish and didn’t get their Law. So, he tries to expunge Jesus and free Him, offering to give Him a good beating. By 2 am, Jesus is in front of Herod, the joke of a king of the Jews in Jerusalem because Pilate wanted to keep peace with the Jews and to get some clarification on the whole Jewish Law thing. Jesus is sent back to Pilate where it is ordered for Him to be beaten and crucified. Here is the concern that I had and I think kids might have, too…beaten, crucified? What is “good” about that? Hang on, we are getting there. See, the beating was a brutal Roman scourging, the betrayal by Judas was only the tip of the iceberg compared to Peter denying the Lord three times (as predicted…never say never), and the people who had been healed by Jesus before and were excited to see Him come to town (John 12) now called for His death. Lonely is not quite the right word for where Jesus is right now.

To make matters worse, by sunrise on Friday morning, He was being spit upon, slapped in the face, had a sardonic purple robe wrapped around his bloody and shredded flesh (“royalty”), his head gashed by a makeshift (and again, sardonic) crown of thorns, and now has to march a heavy wooden cross through the streets. Humiliation is piled on to the physical torture. Oh yeah, He is getting whipped by the Roman legion the whole way up the hill. I know that these mudruns are the “in” thing right now as are having the 26.2 stickers on your car. I’m sorry, but what Jesus is doing here after the night He has had makes your bi-, tri-, or decathlon look like a 3 yr old girl’s tea party. Then He can’t even finish the course uphill and a man named Simon of Cyrene has to carry the Cross for Him. See, when you do your mudrun, marine obstacle course, or Athlon of sorts, you get to the finish line and you’re done. Victory. Water, Gatorade, rest. No so for Jesus, the finish line of this road course is a flat spot on top of the hill where the blood stained (now dried) robe is ripped from His flesh, reopening the wounds that had been gashed hours earlier (Band-Aid has nothing on this), flipped onto His back, and have railroad spikes driven through His wrists and the Cross hoisted up where He would hang. Please keep in mind that Pilate pleaded with the Jews to let Jesus go because He was INNOCENT (Matthew 27.23; Mark 15.14; Luke 23.4,13-16, 20, 22).

Every breath becomes more and more painful as the crucifixion was ultimately torture while asphyxiated. The spike through His feet would be the point on which  He would thrust all of His weight, just to free up His diaphragm enough to get a little air. The spikes through His wrists would radiate electrical currents of pain as He hung. Parched, naked, bloody, and in utter anguish, the darkness falls upon Jesus as He now cries out in the pit of despair because God, His Father has forsaken Him (Matt. 27.46). So again, what is it about this Friday that makes all of this Good? I don’t want anyone to think that I am irreverent or that my blitzing through the Scriptural account of what Jesus experienced on that day is less than orthodox. I will affirm the Cross of Christ until my own death as the only means for peace with God. Ask my church, they will tell you that the Gospel is central to what I do as their Pastor. But, what we find in the Gospel accounts is not Jesus having a pillow fight with the Sanhedrin or Pilate or Satan on our behalf (or a tickle fight, if you prefer Buddy the Elf). It’s time we get real with our kids and our adults and ourselves that this was the only true experience of Hell on earth in all of time. This was the ugliest, bloodiest, most torturous death that has ever happened. What the Gospels describe would be a top-grossing rated R box office horror flick if it had not come from the Bible (unless you are Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel). There is nothing about what they describe that makes me want to say, “Oh, yeah…that was a good Friday.”

Here’s my point: It was only good because it was the only way that my sins could ever be forgiven. It was only good because, as Isaiah 53states, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed…But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; His soul rendered as a guilt offering.” Or as the author of Hebrews so eloquently states in 9.22 “all things are cleaned with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Jesus did not offer forgiveness through the blood of bulls, goats, sheep, or doves, but by His own blood. Not for sins that He had committed, but for mine…and yours. Because I lie, cheat, steal, lust, get angry, hate, boast and brag. Because you lie, cheat, steal, lust, get angry, hate, boast and brag. Because your children (and grandchildren) lie, cheat, steal, lust, get angry, hate, boast and brag.

Today is Good Friday because on today we remember that God from eternity past chose to forgive us for sins yet committed through the blood of Jesus Christ shed on Golgotha’s rock. Today is Good Friday because God loved the world SO MUCH that He would come in the form of a man in Jesus Christ, His own Son, and die an atrocious death. Today is Good Friday because today YOU can know what it means to be forgiven of your sin. The same Jesus that hung on the Cross and pleaded with God to forgive His assailants, offers you the same forgiveness He offered me…the forgiveness that leads to everlasting life (church talk for eternity with God, not condemnation). A life that has a new orientation, a new ability to thrive and survive, a life with a purpose beyond the physical. That makes a Good Friday.