Holy Week is just around the corner. It starts with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
That journey continues to Maundy Thursday and the Seder meal, Jesus' last supper, with his followers in an upper room. The next step is Good Friday, yet how can we say that the day upon which we commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus is good?
For some it's 'good' because their faith understands the crucifixion through the lease of substitutionary atonement theology. In essence, Jesus had to die because God demanded a sacrifice to balance the scales of sin. Those scales had been unbalanced, some believe, since Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
Others would say original sin wasn't until Cain killed Abel and blood splashed on the ground. Still others would claim that the great flood was an equalization payment and that the sin we're talking about is the decline of civilization post covenant with Noah.
Either way, some people believe that the only way the sin of the world could be negated was through the sacrifice of Jesus and that through that sacrifice there was an atonement for sin. The substitutionary part has to do with Jesus serving as a substitute for all the sinful actions of the world.
It's why phrases like 'he paid the price for my sin' or 'Jesus paid it all,' or 'his blood has washed us clean' become so prevalent and powerful this time of year.
For some, what happened to Jesus at Golgotha is the defining aspect of their faith. The crucifixion defines them as Christians. I get that, really I do, yet I also think there's more to Good Friday than substitutionary atonement theology makes room for.
One of my challenges is that I don't want to stay at the foot of the cross. My faith isn't solely one event most significantly defined by Good Friday. For me, it's all about Easter. Good Friday is important, yet if we don't have Easter, what's good about it? If Easter didn't happen, then it's just another Friday at the Golgotha execution site. It's just another Friday when criminals and political revolutionaries find themselves being put to death by the authorities of their day.
If we don't have Easter, it's just another tragic loss of life leaving a mother, family, and friends behind to mourn. That's sad. It's depressing to think that's what the world was like, some would say what it's still like and it's just that's the sites have changed to streets, schools, theatres, vacation sports, and concert venues, yet it's not enough to sustain a living faith.
Good Friday is good because of Easter.
It can only be good when it is viewed through the lens of resurrection, of death losing its power over life, of God establishing another new covenant with us, of God's radical and prodigal love being available to all.
Good Friday is good because with the knowledge of Easter we can create the space to encounter the pain and misery of Jesus' execution, his crucifixion, through the lens of our own pain. It's good because as Easter people we can journey into the bleak, dark, mournful night of the soul and know that we are not alone, that God is with us, that the Spirit guides us, and that Christ has already gone before us. It is good because through Good Friday we are reminded that no matter what we've done, who we love, how we identify our gender, what size our back accounts are, how many letters we have before or after our names, the colour of our skin, the language we first spoke or feel most comfortable with, or where we were born...God calls us into a deep transformational relationship. No matter what life brings our way, no matter what challenges we're currently dealing with, no matter how complicated, convoluted, or contestable our past - we are loved by God. Good Friday is good, it just might not be for the reasons you might think! Good Friday is good, not because God demanded some form of blood sacrifice, not because God is cruel, not because God's back was turned on Jesus and he was forgotten, not because it was necessary or required or predetermined, but because through it and the experience of Easter that it put in motion, we are forever wrapped in the embrace of God's love and grace.
This Holy Week, I encourage you to embrace the journey of Jesus from arriving in Jerusalem to being discovered alive in a garden. I invite you to journey with your own pain, frustration, anxiety, or grief and take it to the foot of the cross, not because Jesus paid it all, but because in those very moments of vulnerability, especially in those moments, God is already there waiting for you. Because no matter how horrible the day, awful the experience, deep the sense of loss or isolation, someday, you'll be able to call it good, too.
