about last year’s Good Friday. Easter was almost a month earlier last year, so
we were still in month 3 on the World Race, in Manila. The night before Good
Friday, half the squad went to a little restaurant by our house and parked on
the road where hundreds of Filipinos were marching up the hill to the church.
You may have heard of this cultural phenomenon-when certain individuals
throughout parts of the Philippines will enact parts of Christ’s sacrifice
through flogging or even being nailed to a cross (not unto death, thankfully).
Though not sanctioned by the Catholic Church, these practices still occur.
So last year on Good Friday, we had seen people walking up
the hill and some being tortured (their choice!). The ladies outside our house
in the Philippines had been singing for much of Holy Week in droning voices (we
were thankful when their sound equipment stopped working. Answered prayer…).
Everywhere, essentially, were signs of the predominantly Catholic and religious
influence on the people of the Philippines.
This year, I’m at home. I have heard and been wished a “Happy
Good Friday.” I am not sure about this statement. Yes, I am thankful for Good
Friday and what was accomplished on this day around 2000 years ago. And yes, I
find joy in salvation and thankfulness that Jesus was willing to pay for my
sins.
Good
Friday isn’t good because it makes us happy. It is good because it gives us
freedom and forgiveness from sin and direct access to God our Loving Father.
But here’s the conviction
in my Spirit I can’t shake. I read earlier this week, in Victory Over the
Darkness, that too often we as Christians live and stay stuck on Good Friday-on
the crucifixion element of our faith. Yes, it was a necessary sacrifice and yes
we are thankful for it. Jesus died for our sins, was crushed and persecuted for
us, took our deserved place in the wrath of God. It is hard and sad but good
and necessary and I am thankful, so thankful, for Jesus and His sacrifice, and
for the atonement of my sins.
and believers back on the original day between Friday and Sunday. Though Jesus
had predicted His resurrection, though He has told them death wouldn’t win,
though He had demonstrated His power over death through the raising of Lazarus,
I have to think as the disciples hid out and waited, they probably doubted.
They questioned. They knew Jesus was dead and buried. I wonder if they were
disappointed…or confused.
But we must remember what comes on Sunday. He isn’t dead. He
is risen! The grave is empty! The resurrection and the conquering of the enemy and the victory over
death. The second part of the holiest weekend on the calendar is so crucial.
It’s
really the whole story that we need. Yes, Jesus died for our sins, and yes,
this is a necessary and saving part of the Gospel.
But the other part is living empowered in the resurrection
life of Jesus. The other part is (7 weeks later, after Pentecost, 2000 years
ago, now it’s available all the time) living alive and in victory with the Holy
Spirit. Sin has no hold on us, and we can walk in freedom. God showered us in
His grace at the cross, and now He gives us the power we need to live awakened
into our identity in Christ and in Jesus’ ultimate victory.
So yes,
on Good Friday, we remember Christ and His sacrifice and we are thankful.
And on
Sunday, we are praising God because Jesus is alive. We serve the LIVING GOD who
has victory over death and invites us into a living relationship with Him. We live in FREEDOM and in the knowledge that if our God is with us, whom then shall we fear?
Let us
live alive in Christ, freed from death and shame and guilt and darkness,
walking confidently as God’s children in victory in Christ.
