In our culture the Cross is a fashion symbol. But when we hear again these readings of Good Friday, I hope we see once again it’s a scandal. The cross offends us, challenges us, but if we can see it for what it is, it can also change us.
It’s a scandal because it gives us what we don’t deserve; reveals a God we don’t expect; offers a life we feared impossible; and asks us to pay the highest cost.
The Greeks, Romans and Jews at the time of Jesus found it a stumbling block – they wanted a powerful or wise God. We too find it a stumbling block. We want a God who says yes to our plans.
Good Friday is about remembering, but also re-enacting, revisiting the story so that we might find ourselves in it and be defined by it. The cross invites us to say no to our way of life, individually and corporately, in which we try to be God. And to say yes to His way of life – life under the loving rule and reign of the one true God.
And yet, what does that mean? In our sophisticated 21st Century culture, it all sounds very dark ages.
Good Friday only makes sense in the context of the whole story – the birth, life, death, resurrection and future return of Jesus. Jews were expecting a Messiah but a human one, not a God one. A perfect human who would fulfil the law, lead Israel back to God and defeat the Roman Empire that enslaved them. They got a fully human messiah, but He claimed to be God, incarnated in humanity. They didn’t expect a messiah to die a victim on a cross, let alone God to die.
No wonder on that first Good Friday, despondency filled the air after Jesus’ death. And yet three days later, resurrection life burst out of the tomb. The promised new creation life that Jews expected to enjoy at the end of time just broke free in the midst of human history; through the same messiah.
Easter is about life, but life that had to come through death. A brutal death in which Jesus gave up His life to give us life, in which the blood was shed that we might know blessing. Resurrection life was fought for in the tomb and death was conquered. The gospel is this: God loves you and offers you life. And it’s free. But not cheap. There is no room for cheap grace.
Today – we come to join with the global church to sit at the cross and reflect on death in order that we might embrace life.
In exchange for His life, we give our lives in service and sacrifice. The end is not yet – the good news – He is risen, will soon echo again throughout creation.
Today we wait in the darkness, remembering what it cost the author of life to conquer death.
