Frankly Speaking - April 19, 2019
What I received I passed on to you as of first importance:
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures … (1 Corinthians 15:3)
I do not like to admit this - and I look back on it with some bewilderment and embarrassment – but in the early years of my ministry, none of the churches I was in honored Good Friday with a special service. The church I grew up in did not pay much attention to it. But we were all about Easter.
It is odd, because without Good Friday, Easter does not actually mean very much. It is impressive, to be sure, but it is just one guy coming back to life; an “interesting” historical event, but distant and remote to my daily experience. In the scriptures, however, Easter validates Good Friday. It vindicates Jesus. It makes clear that Good Friday was more than just an execution. It was a victory for the entire human race.
Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that Christ’s death for our sins was “of first importance.” The gospel writers devote a great deal of papyrus to the death of Jesus. Jesus himself speaks repeatedly of its significance. The letters talk about it constantly, and the preaching of the early church was full of it.
Of course, we prefer Easter! It is all light and hope and joy and “success.” Who wants to focus on all that grim stuff on Good Friday? But therein lies the problem. We think it is just about grim stuff. We fail to see what it is really about. The cross reveals to us a divine love so much deeper and incomprehensible than we ever knew. It requires a particular kind of vision to discern the meaning of what God was doing through Jesus’ death on the cross. Once you see it, you are never the same. It is transformative.
In keeping with our Lenten series on the Gospel of Luke, we are going to walk through Luke’s account of Jesus’ final hours. Every year I have to spend many hours dwelling on those details and pondering them. It is kind of exhausting, to tell the truth, but it is also incredibly rewarding. At the service tonight we will be meditating on the story and allowing God to speak to us through it. It is not a performance; it is a corporate meditation experience. The services are at 6:30pm and 8:00pm. Nothing is quite like being there in person, but if that is not possible for you, perhaps you could join in during the 8pm Livestream.
Let me leave with you with penetrating words from Craig D. Lounsbrough: The cross unerringly exposes this stunningly marvelous and abruptly exquisite declaration that God will not let this single life of mine, with all of its grotesque maladies and pathetic filth, pass into oblivion without unflinchingly declaring that my life carries a value worth the expenditure of his. And if I dare look upon the cross, I am utterly perplexed but wholly enraptured by the immensity of such a love as this.
Gazing with you,
Frank