The Problem With Good Friday
Good Friday seems to be the most misnamed holiday. At the most basic level, today is a memorial for Jesus’ death on a Roman cross; an awful, barbaric death.
We’re talking ISIS kind of brutality.
What can be redeemed from torture? Where is the reprieve for utter despair?
The crazy thing about Jesus was he wasn’t teaching people to trust in new ideas, he was telling them to trust in HIM. He wasn’t promoting new insights, he made everything about himself.
He was his message.
Then he died.
Hard stop.
His followers abandoned him. They hid in fear like cowards.
The people who knew him best were utterly ruined. No one started a “keep hope alive” movement promoting his teachings because he WAS his teachings.
Messiahs don’t die.
Death changes everything.
What’s left?
Certainly his 11 ragtag, cowardly followers weren’t going to make much of an impact.
What’s greater than death?
Death certainly takes the wind of out our sails. Even when you and I aren’t facing death today or this week, it lingers in the back of our minds.
How can we not wonder if death really is the final punctuation of life. How can we not ask, “is this all there is?”
But Good Friday doesn’t start out good. Friday only becomes good when it’s in the rear-view mirror.
Friday is redeemed on Sunday.
And Sunday is where hope lives.