How Great the Father’s love for us!Good Friday, the day of remembering the sacrificail love of Christ our Savior. A dark day that showed many the fear, betrayal and selfishness that dwelt deep within them. A day that had been planned since time began. A day that seemed like all was lost. Many who rejected Jesus saw it as a victory. Brennan Manning quotes Hans Kung in his book Signature of Jesus of that day:
Jesus’ unresisting suffering and helpless death, accursed and dishonored, for his enemies and even his friends, was the unmistakable sign that he was finished and had nothing to do with the true God. His death on the cross was the fulfillment of the curse of the law. “Anyone hanged on a tree is cursed by God.” He was wrong wholly and entirely: in his message, his behavior, his whole being. His claim is now refuted, his authority gone, his way shown to be false…The heretical teacher is condemned, the false prophet disowned, the seducer of the people unmasked, the blasphemer rejected. The law had triumphed over this “gospel.”Jesus found himself left alone, not only by his people, but by the One to whom he had constantly appealed as no one did before him. Left absolutely alone. We do not know what Jesus thought and felt as he was dying. But it was obvious to the whole world that he had proclaimed the early advent of God in his kingdom and this God did not come. A God who was man’s friend, knowing all his needs, close to him, but this God was absent. A Father whose goodness knew no bounds, providing for the slightest things and at the same time mighty; but this Father gave no sign, produced no miracles.His Father indeed, to whom he had spoken with a familiarity closer than anyone else had ever known, with whom he had lived and worked in a unity beyond the ordinary, whose true will he had learned with immediate certainty and in the light of which he had dared to assure individuals of the forgiveness of their sins; this Father of his did not say a single word. Jesus, God’s witness, was left in the lurch by the God to whom he had witnessed. The mockery at the foot of the cross underlined vividly this wordless, helpless, miracle-less and even God-less death.The unique communion with God which he had seemed to enjoy only makes his forsakenness more unique. This God and Father with whom he had identified himself to the very end did not at the end identify himself with the sufferer. And so everything seemed as if it had never been: in vain. He who had announced the closeness and advent of God his Father publicly before the whole world: someone judged by God himself, disposed of once and for all. And since the cause for which he had lived and fought was so closely linked to his person, so that cause fell with his person. How could anyone have believed his word after he had been silenced and died in this outrageous fashion? It is a death not simply accepted in patience but endured screaming to God. (pp146-148)
Jesus bore humiliation and suffering on the cross. His torment was beyond what any picture could paint. We remember this act regularly in communion when we partake of the bread. It represents the flesh of Christ, his body broken for us. We eat it in recognition that we have been united to Him and to his suffering and humiliation.
Today is even more of a rememberance than that of communion. We can not skip past the pain of the sacrifice and jump to the joyous conclusion. Today we think back to the horror endured because of our sin, because we have inherintly spit in the face of God who loves us. Today we do not pass by with a simple bow of the head and a quick sorry for the sin I’ve comitted.
Think about how devasted the followers of Jesus were on this Good Friday. They saw all that was good in the world, hanging as a curse on the cross. They saw him breathe his last breath. They saw the enemies of Jesus gloat and spit on this righteous man. Then the wait began. What happens now? The hours, minutes and seconds ticked past as if time itself had ceased to move. Sorrow so overwhleming.
This was the dark night. This is when all hope seemed to vanish. It is a reminder that the grace that we so freely take advantage of was not cheap. Dietrich Bonhoeffer states in his book, The Cost of Discipleship:
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it cost a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
Remember on this day, the price Jesus paid for you. The punishment you should have paid was covered. And in that darkest of nights all hope did not vanish. Time did not stop and Sunday did come. Praise the Lord, How great the Father’s love for us!
