Good Friday Service

If you weren’t able to take part in our Good Friday service, we’ve made a video of the service—and the text of Harrison’s homily—available here.

From Harrison:

This pandemic has caused me some serious cognitive dissonance. On one hand, things are terrible and scary. On the other hand, there is much good and beauty. I feel this acutely when I am holding our newborn daughter, Ivy. In that moment, though so much is wrong, so much is right. 

Of course, this isn’t just the experience of living during a pandemic. It’s the experience of living “between the times”—between the first and second comings of Jesus. Our world and hearts are plagued with sin and every day feels like a new opportunity to experience that brokenness. But the events of holy week—the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus—mean that though things aren’t as they should be, we can have glimpses of the restoration that is coming. Though all isn’t made new right now, we are in the early Spring of redemption and can see the buds on the edge of full bloom.

All of this is brought into focus today, on Good Friday. How could something so terribly wrong—the Son of God, the only perfect human, executed—also be so wonderfully good? In other words, what makes Good Friday live up to its name?

Two quick points.

First, it’s good because the event of the cross is our remedy for sin. Jesus died the death we should have died. The wrath of God’s judgment was building, building, building, and like an angry bull held in a cage it was ready to be unleashed and crush whatever was in its way. But today is good because we see that it is Jesus who is crushed for our iniquities. He bore the full measure of God’s wrath so that you and I wouldn’t have to. 

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably felt burdened over the past few weeks with the weight of your own sin. Disruptions drive us back to our old coping mechanisms, causing us to walk the well-worn path of dependance upon self rather than dependance upon God. That never pans out well. Fear, anxiety, anger, frustration. Porn, alcohol, hours and hours of social media and Netflix. The opportunities to sin during this season are great. But the cross means that God’s grace is even greater. So, if you feel sick with sin today, look to the cross, for by Christ’s wounds we are healed.

Second, today is good because the way of the cross is the key to resurrection life. Easter is so glorious a holiday because it reminds us that we will share in Jesus’ resurrection. We can have hope in this life because we are assured that sin and death don’t get the last word. 

But in order to experience the hope of the resurrection in this life we can’t view the cross as just a historical act of redemption on God’s behalf, we must also view it as a present reality that shapes the way we live. In the words of Jesus, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross. Christ died on the cross to free us from our enslavement to sin. We take up our cross so we can learn to live in freedom from sin. We’re tempted to think we take the cross to prove to Jesus our dedication to him or to earn his grace (what an awful contradiction of terms), but the opposite is true. We take up our cross to learn dependance upon his grace and to experience the power of his Spirit, who is alive with us. This is true resurrection living and it only comes by way of the cross.

The medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas sums up well what it looks like to follow Jesus by taking up the cross. He wrote: “If you seek the example of love: Greater love than this no man has, than to lay down his life for his friends. Such a man was Christ on the cross. And if he gave his life for us, then it should not be difficult to bear whatever hardships arise for his sake….If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross…Christ endured much on the cross, and did so patiently, because when he suffered he did not threaten; he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth….If you seek an example of humility, look upon the crucified one, for God wished to be judged by Pontius Pilate and to die….If you seek an example of obedience, follow him who became obedient to the Father even unto death.”

While it may seem like this season of disruption provides plenty of new temptations to sin, the opposite is actually true…there are plenty of new opportunities to walk in the way of the cross…to walk in love rather than anger, patience rather frustration, humility rather than pride and its converse shame, and obedience rather than rebellion. How do we do this? Look to the cross and rest secure in your justification…that no sin past, present, or future, can separate you from the love of God. And walk in the way of the cross, living into the freedom and wholeness that Christ has gifted you.

As we do this we’ll find that the paradox of Good Friday—that such good and beauty can come of out such evil and suffering—can redeem even these hard times in which we live.