Good Friday

Isaiah 52.13-53.12 and John 18.1-19.42

There are many ways of looking at the cross.  Like a magnificent diamond you can hold it up and turn it around and as the light catches it in a new direction, something new is seen – a different facet, a deeper understanding.

One way of looking at the cross is to see it as a wonderful demonstration of Jesus’ love for us and as an example to inspire us:

And in the garden secretly

and on the cross on high

Should teach his brethren, and inspire

To suffer and to die.

Each gospel writer has their own way of editing and presenting the facts of the crucifixion.  For example, in Matthew’s gospel at the moment of Jesus death, we read of the curtain of the temple being torn in two from top to bottom (that is without human intervention) and tombs opening and many holy people being raised to life.

Mark has the tearing of the curtain but not the tombs opening.  Instead he has the centurion making a statement of faith, ‘Surely this was the Son of God.’ Luke doesn’t have Jesus’ cry of dereliction like Matthew and Mark: ‘My God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ Instead Jesus tells the penitent thief: ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.’  Each nuance provides us with a different perspective on the cross.

In John, as we have been reminded, Jesus commits his mother into the care of this disciple and as he dies he says, ‘It is finished.’ That’s not ‘O thank goodness that’s over!’ but ‘It is completed, achieved, accomplished.’ What Jesus did on the cross was more than an example of love albeit the supreme example of sacrificial love.  First and foremost it was an accomplishment, an achievement of something.  Throughout the New Testament the cross is presented as the climax of God’s plan for the saving of the world. The world doesn’t need more good advice or more good examples as if it were merely slightly misguided or muddled in its thinking. The world is sick and it needs a doctor, it is sinful and it needs forgiveness, it’s under the reign of the wrong king - it needs liberation to be free to serve another. That’s the bible’s assessment of our situation – we don’t need another example we need a Saviour.

Jesus walked the way of the cross for our healing from sin’s sickness; to be the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; to be the king who will win our loyalty.

When Jesus went to the cross he went to do battle with the forces of evil; to bear the world’s pain and sorrow; to be wounded for our transgressions; to take upon himself the sins of the whole world; and to defeat death itself – by his death – this was the work he had to do and he saw it to completion.

It is finished! This is why we call this Good Friday. So, don’t keep Jesus at arm’s length, make him more than an acquaintance, embrace him as your friend. ‘Greater love has no one than this, than he lay down his life for his friends.’ To follow Jesus is to first become his friend.

It is finished!

Jesus has won a victory for us.

He has done it all, dealt with every sin.

The past is past.

And we can know ourselves to be his forgiven friends'. 

Friends who will now share in his mission to the world to be part of the kingdom enterprise.

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.

 To wage the victory he has won for us and for the world on Calvary.