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Let’s move beyond Good Friday
I’m not a big fan of Good Friday. As everyone takes today to reflect on Jesus’ sacrifice upon the cross, I’m already looking ahead to Sunday. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been much for waiting that I don’t particularly like to celebrate Good Friday, maybe it’s because I enjoy living too much in a post-resurrection world. Maybe it’s my silent protest against the Church for living as if it’s Good Friday everyday, living as if we’ve lost and are powerless by simply celebrating the crucifixion but forgetting about the resurrection. So, as Good Friday marches forward and hundreds of thousands of Christians around the world gather to celebrate let me offer up a few words of challenge from theologian N.T. Wright:
The wrath of the Lamb, of which Revelation speaks from time to time, is the anger of love against all that hurts and damages the beloved [you are the beloved]. The love of the Lamb is the great reality that under girds the entire vision. And it is that love which is revealed at Easter.
Without Easter, Calvary was just another political execution of a failed Messiah. Without Easter, the world is trapped between the shoulder shrug of the cynic, the fantasy of the escapist, and the tanks of the tyrant. Without Easter, there is no reason to suppose that good will triumph over evil, that love will win over hatred, that life will win over death. But with Easter we have hope; because hope depends on love; and love has become human and has died, and is now alive for evermore, and holds the keys of Death and Hades. It is because of him that we know–we don’t just hope, we know–that God will wipe away all tears from all eyes. And in that knowledge we find ourselves to be Sunday people, called to live in a world of Fridays. In that knowledge we know ourselves to be Easter people, called to minister to a world full of Calvary’s. In that knowledge we find that the hand that dries our tears passes the cloth onto us, and bids us follow him, to go to dry one anothers tears. The Lamb calls us to follow him wherever he goes; into the dark places of the world, the dark places of our own hearts, the places where the tears blot out the sunlight, the places where tyrants pave the grass with concrete; and he bids us shine his morning light into the darkness, and share his ministry of wiping away the tears.
This year, let us leave Good Friday behind and instead be Easter people, Sunday people, the people that we have been called to be and let us move forward in the power of the Resurrection and change the world.
11 Responses to “Let’s move beyond Good Friday”
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Monts,
Thanks for this quote from N.T. Wright. But my question is this: Can we be Easter people (experiencing Sunday’s joy and peace) without first walking through Good Friday with it’s heartache and pain?
Thanks for challenging me and keeping me thinking!
Peace brother,
Thadd
By the way,
Where did you get this quote?
how many times do we have to walk through it before we start living as Easter people? i’m still waiting for the church to realize Jesus did rise from the dead… and be realize i mean action as opposed to lip-service.
we also talk more about the cross in our church services (every communion it seems) but hardly ever talk about the resurrection… I’d say we’ve got a good handle on the cross, but a poor understanding of resurrection.
From the book Following Jesus… pages 61-62. It’s a great, great book!
great post aaron. i thought the exact same thing today.
http://www.allopinionsarenotequal.com/2009/04/good-friday.html
In regards to Thadd and your post Aaron, I will point to some words from a friend of mine on this 2009 Good Friday.
“But we are for the most part unaware of the sequence. We don’t really stop on Good Friday, most churches hurriedly tell that portion on Sunday morning, with the certainty of immanent resurrection. The rush to redemption, characteristic modern evangelical theology and the half-hour sitcom alike, is what flows out of a narrative that is dismissive of experiences of death and avoidant of experiences that hold the ambiguity of waiting. The implications of such a one-dimensional narrative of redemption has long reaching effects on the way we are as people, with each other, in this world. Not only does it turn Resurrection Sunday into a sacrine-like sweetness, but we begin to normalize the ideal and we diminish our capacity to meaningfully engage that which is less. When resurrection is a certain given, we exist in a false utopia that does violence to our experience and the realities of life in this world.”
From Phil Nellis @ http://elnellis.blogspot.com
Dear Aaron,
I love reading your insightful posts. I agree with your distaste for how most churches live on Good Friday every service and rarely move toward the importance and significance of Easter.
Though, I ask you this, can’t we have both? Just as importantly, mustn’t we? As the resurrection can’t live without the crucifixion, we cannot live in righteousness without the death to our old selves.
Since I became Christian, I have not understood why I enjoy so much going to baptisms. Whenever they are announced, I attend. I thought it was maybe that I just enjoyed supporting people and seeing them move forward in their spirituality, but there still seemed to be something more to baptism. This post made me realize that it is that death, which rises us to life that is so exciting and promising of hope that moves me deeply.
So I do sympathize with your dislike of the over emphasis of Good Friday. I had a discussion with someone just this week on that over emphasis which seems to be so prevalent in much of religious dogma. However, I await the day when these will have the same weight, inspiration and move people just as they do me.
Peace and Love my brother,
Anthony
Great post, Aaron – I agree with you 100%.
Aaron, you used the word “celebrate” three times in reference to the crucifixion. Maybe our approach/verbage needs to be changed in order to more adequately reflect what this day represents.
As for our celebration of the cross during the rest of the year… I think this is the tip of the iceberg that runs deep and thick into many modern theologies.
Can we change this old school of thought?
I think new church planters will have to influence the old guard. Good luck…
and Happy Easter!!
One of the things we seemingly forget about resurrection is that the crucifixion must be assumed. There is no resurrection without the crucifixion, but the crucifixion does not hinge on resurrection in the same way.
Therefore, I would tend to argue that resurrection is the fullness of the gospel, the “crown jewel” of the gospel instead of the cross (which is what typically gets referred to as the “crown jewel”).
Much of my perspective hinges on attending Easter services for years that spend 90% of the time talking about the cross and throwing in the resurrection at the end for good measure. It’s a complete re-writing of the liturgical mode of the Easter calendar. Which, honestly, is probably why we’re in the season of forgetfulness as a church we’re in. This is not an argument or an attempt to forget the pain and suffering of the cross, but rather to remember the resurrection as the crown jewel of our faith – Remember 2 Timothy 2.8:
“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal.”
The gospel is wrapped up in the resurrection, not the cross. Don’t misread this last statement because the cross is assumed in the resurrection, but it’s not the crown jewel nor is it the main focus… it’s the resurrection.
I do agree with you about the overbearing we put on the cross. The resurrection does seem to be lost to the dramatization of the crucifixion during church services. There needs to be a better story telling that puts everything into perspective.
That is I imagine where you come in. Good Luck my friend.
Anthony