In class Wednesday, I mentioned that it is a bit odd that Christians call it “Good Friday,†when it is the day that marks the death of their God. A student, as he was leaving, made it a point to tell me that Jesus’ death was a god thing for it saved us from our sins. I told him I understood, but is still a tragic day. He, very obstinately, restated that I did not understand because the effects of the death were good. We got no where. I am sure the student felt I had attacked his faith in class, when in fact, I wanted to stress the weight of this day in our liturgical calendar. Such is the way of foundationalism.1 And such was my error in communication.
But back to the so-called Good Friday. No matter what your theory metaphor of atonement, the death of Christ is never a thing to be celebrated, only mourned. It is not good that Jesus died or had to die. It is a horrible evil. While God turned to good what was intended for evil,2 I mourn two things this day.
- That my God, Jesus, lover of my soul and creator of this wondrous universe was killed. And he was so terribly wrought over it that he sweat blood and asked for the cup of death to be taken from him.
- That I, you, we, us, them were responsible for this deicide. Our sin, our separation, our will apart from Will, sold us as debt-slaves to the Accuser, to Satan. We caused this mess. We inflicted this pain upon our God. We are root of all evil.
While it is Friday and Sunday is coming, let us remember that today is Friday, the most wretched sorrowful Friday of them all. There is no Good in God having to die. At its root, it is an evil thing – and we are it’s cause.
If we only focus on the happy effects cross, the sins forgiven, we miss the weight of world history, the weight of our predicament, we loose the value of the resurrection and we turn the death of our God into a sitcom.
- if you have the only possible configuration of truth, anything that deviates from that is not the truth and must be resisted for the sake of the system
- ala Gen 50
