Lent #36: Good Friday.

There they crucified Him.

(John 19:18)

“Fix your eyes on Jesus …who endured the cross with its shame” (Hb 12:2).  After this day, we can never ponder Christ apart from “the cross with its shame.” The cross, as depicted in the film “The Passion”, was indeed the cruelest instrument of execution the world has ever devised. There is the brutal torture of it; but, on top of that, as the book of Hebrews points out, there is the shame of it. Crucifixion was a public event with the victim hanging up there naked, bludgeoned and helpless for all to see. It’s the cruel instrument of pax romana—Roman Peace.

The greatest mystery in all history is how this same cross has become the symbol of a completely different peace: “My peace I give you, not as the world gives” (Jn 14:27). It is a peace that does not come from the powers of the executioners; but, by surprise, from The Victim—the One Crucified. This is “the gospel of peace--the peace of God, which transcends all understanding” (Eph 6:5 & Phil 4:7). Or, again and again, as the Apostle says elsewhere, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.” It is a God event. On the cross God is having dealings with us and with the whole of creation.

That’s what turns this violent, shame filled and tragic Friday, into Good Friday. So good, that the cross has been changed into something one might wear around their neck; or, placed high for all to see where people gather to worship. It’s on this cross, at this place and at this Hour, that Christ became “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1Jn 2:2). Easter morning makes it so.