Matthew 27:38-66
My grandfather never went to church on Good Friday.
Our church typically held a Tenebrae service on Good Friday. Tenebrae, I understand, is Latin for "darkness." The service would begin with several altar candles lit. As the service progressed, through scripture readings and solemn Good Friday hymns, candles would gradually be extinguished. At the same time, the lights in the church would dim. Near the end of the service, the church would be lit only by one candle, representing Christ. When the verses were read announcing the death of Christ -- "Then Jesus shouted again and released his spirit." -- the last candle was extinguished and without even a final benediction, the congregation would depart in darkness and silence.
The point of a Tenebrae service is to communicate the emotional aspects of Christ's passion. For my grandfather, it was far too depressing. The rest of the family attended church on Good Friday, and my grandfather stayed home.
Today we read the Good Friday passages. Jesus hangs, nailed to the cross, enduring the immense pain of crucifixion. He also endures the taunts of religious leaders, the taunts of bystanders, and even the taunts of those being crucified alongside him. From the most important people to the least important, all who saw him being crucified mocked him.
But what Jesus seems least able to endure -- the thing that causes him to cry out in anguish -- is complete and utter abandonment. "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" Jesus, who in some mysterious way was God himself, experiences a separation from God. And his despair is unendurable.
This is the mystery of Christ on the cross. Somehow Jesus took on the sin of the world -- the sin that would cause all of us to be separated from God, cast away from the presence of God, forever, cast into darkness -- and Jesus went to that place of darkness on our behalf.
Our familiarity with the story -- and the fact that we know how it ends up a few days later -- may prevent us from really knowing the deep darkness of that Friday. Hindsight takes the edge off.
I used to think that my grandfather's refusal to go to church on Good Friday indicated a lack of understanding about the gospel. But it may have been that he understood all too well just how dark and depressing this part of the story is. And how dark and depressing separation from God is.
On Easter Sunday, my grandfather joined us for church. But you can't have Easter Sunday without Good Friday.
Drew Clausen
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5 comments:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Drew!
As I was reading, I was struck again by Jesus' commitment to be our perfect sacrifice. If I'm in a friendly conversation and someone misquotes me, I often quickly correct them. I can't stand to be misrepresented, even in little ways. Then in our reading today, we see Jesus, our great Savior, the all-powerful God, hanging on the cross, being taunted by the people he came to save. They accuse him of being powerless of making empty promises. They say they won't even believe unless he comes off the cross, while, in fact, he's on the cross to save them.
I would have wanted to jump off the cross and say, "See that! I AM! And because of your unbelief, there's no hope for you!" It wouldn't have accomplished salvation, but I would have proven I was right. I'm so thankful that proving himself was not a higher priority for Jesus than saving us!
Maybe I'm related to Drew's grandpa. So much of my reading of Scripture remains cerebral. But today, as I read, my emotions got involved. I, too, felt the sadness of what was happening. Then, as I slowly closed the Book, having finished chapter 27, into my head came the words, "I can hardly wait to see what happens." How strange, yet somehow ... delightful. I know what comes next. Yet, I felt the suspense. Lord, may I continue to delight in your Word and let it penetrate my heart.
I am struck by the fact that at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, when he was led into the wilderness to be tempted, Satan's method was to try and provoke Jesus to do something to prove he was the Son of God.
Now, on the cross, that is the same thing the crowd demands of Jesus. Satan is still at it.
If Jesus had yielded to Satan either time, he would have been doubting the testimony of his Father - "This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy."
CBW
I see the political intrigue here. Every measure is being taken to assure that "the deciever" does not get away with any of his claims. We have the human world working against God with two opposing forces ( the Jewish higherarchy and the Roman rulers) working together which in itself is so striking. This is like cats and dogs joining together. And it is all because of fear. Can you feel the fear and the need to control the situation and to make sure that everything is secure. Yet the temple curtain is torn, which was no small thing from what I understand about this temple curtain. This massive barrier was exposed. Certainly, this was an amazing occurance for anyone who was a witness to those times.
Would it be any different now? Would we be better at trying to control the situation.
But Jesus is triumphant over all of this. His passion on the cross rises above the human instinct as Mr. Quade describes of wanting to just wipe those out who were taunting him through this horrendous scene of agony and death.
What we are left with through this passage is our own agony on Good Friday knowing He was the one. He was it. He was the reality of the Lords love on a wooden cross broken for us. There is nothing more poignant in all history then this moment
Thank you CW for sharing that insight. It does bring Jesus' life full circle in a unique way. Did anyone else notice that the Pharisees remembered that "He said He would rise after three days" but the disciples had a hard time believing that it would happen? For determined unbelievers, they really knew a lot about Him - after all, they were spying on Him a lot - too bad it didn't change their hearts. Chris S.
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