Category Archives: Easter

The Double Meaning of Good Friday

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Good Friday commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth for blasphemy against Israel’s God and insurrection against the Roman Empire. Only in light of God’s act of raising Jesus back to life again on Easter morning, can Good Friday be called “good.” It is “good” only in view of the part it played in God’s plan to reconcile the world to himself in Christ (2 Cor 5:18-20) and because it demonstrated the depths of divine love (Romans 5:1-11). The cross of Christ is, as Paul never tires of saying, something in which to glory—an irony indeed because crucifixion was designed to shame the victim to the extreme measure. There is much to ponder in this reversal. However, on this Good Friday I found myself thinking of another divine revelation made known in the events of that day.

On the first Good Friday, God displayed his wrath on the world and pronounced his judgment on all flesh. In the persons of Judas the betrayer, Peter the coward, the Jewish religious leaders, and the Roman Empire, all humanity betrayed, rejected, denied, and murdered the Messiah and the Son of God. Whereas the Jewish leaders and the Roman Empire acted to judge and condemn Jesus, in fact they judged and condemned themselves. In their act of judicial murder, God revealed the corruption and futility of all human efforts, religious and political, to bring about salvation. Democratic politics can do this no better than Imperial politics. The Christian religion will fail just as the Jewish religion failed. Coercion will not work. Nor will persuasion.

Every new generation thinks it can do what no other generation has been able to do: If we evangelize the world, the Kingdom of God will be established! If we put all our energies into social causes, we can create a world of justice, love, and peace. Just one more war, one more revolution, one more election, one more treaty, one more freedom achieved, one more scientific advance…. But the glorious future never arrives. It never will.

Good Friday stands as the definitive refutation of optimism in human capacity for goodness. When the very embodiment of justice, love, and peace—indeed the exact image of God—appeared on earth, the “best” of men condemned him to death. They still do.

We Do Not Fear Death—For Christ is Risen

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As a child, Athanasius (296–373) lived through the infamous Diocletian persecution, which began in 303 and ended in 313 with the Edict of Milan. With the memories of those dark days etched in his memory, he wrote about the change that has come over the world since the resurrection of Christ:

Death used to be strong and terrible, but now, since the sojourn of the Savior and the death and resurrection of His body, it is despised; and obviously it is by the very Christ Who mounted on the cross that it has been destroyed and vanquished finally. When the sun rises after the night and the whole world is lit up by it, nobody doubts that it is the sun which has thus shed its light everywhere and driven away the dark.

Equally clear is it, since this utter scorning and trampling down of death has ensued upon the Savior’s manifestation in the body and His death on the cross, that it is He Himself Who brought death to nought and daily raises monuments to His victory in His own disciples. How can you think otherwise, when you see men naturally weak hastening to death, unafraid at the prospect of corruption, fearless of the descent into Hades, even indeed with eager soul provoking it, not shrinking from tortures, but preferring thus to rush on death for Christ’s sake, rather than to remain in this present life? (Athanasius, Incarnation of the Word 29).

Death use to be powerful and intimidating. We hid our faces from its glance and trembled at its threats. It owned us. We obeyed its every command. But as Athanasius reminds us, the resurrection of Jesus deprived death of its terror and strength. Jesus frees us from its hold: “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body  and after that can do no more” (Luke 12:4).

Fear of death is the root and essence of every other fear. If you fear death, you are the slave of those who hold the power of death. But Jesus exposed death as powerless. It cannot defeat God’s love for us! What, then, is left to fear? Poverty or prison? Frowns or whispers? Pandemic or famine?

Name your fear, my friends, whatever it is. Face it, and say to it, “I do not fear you! For I do not fear death your master! I do not fear death! I do not fear death! For Christ is risen!  He has risen indeed!”