I had a fun conversation with Wes Telyea, @westelyea the Provost for Bible Institute of Seattle, about wrestling with the concept of “calling,” which led to a conversation about discovering our purpose, and that ties powerfully into navigating life’s myriad transitions.
Good Friday, which remembers the crucifixion of Jesus, has been given a number of titles over the centuries. Some construe “Good Friday” evolved from a mistranslation of the German phrase “God’s Friday” or “Guttes Freitag.” 1290 is the earliest known use of “Goude Friday” found in a South English dictionary.
It has been called Holy Friday, Great Friday, Mourning Friday, Silent Friday, and even Long Friday.
Good Friday is good because it is so bad.
On Good Friday foundations were shaken, hopes were crushed, and the inconceivable became reality. Good Friday pulls the vaporous veil of life aside and reveals things often don’t go the way we want. Incongruence is the norm. The daily bits and pieces of living have been turned upside down.
It’s called “Good” because Jesus absorbed all the bad, dark, injustice, evil and sin of the past, present, and future into His own body, nailing it all to the cross so that we could be forgiven and freed.
It’s called “Holy” because the love demonstrated by Jesus at this moment causes a holy hush to blanket the world; we remove our shoes entering holy space. “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)
It’s called “Mourning” because our hearts break when confronted with the brutality that accosted Love. The emptiness we feel in the immediate aftermath of so great a tragedy bores deeper and deeper into our soul.
It’s called “Long” because Jesus’ friends didn’t know Resurrection Sunday would actually happen. They entered the silence of a long Friday night…a long Saturday…and a long Saturday night of despair and devastation. They cried out the opening word of Lamentations, “Echah” which means “How?”
How could this have happened?
How could you allow this God?
How will I ever find joy again?
But this is the journey of Good Friday. This is the journey of life. We must learn to sing songs in the night. We must learn to trust God has something better beyond the dark night. Brennan Manning said it this way:
“To be grateful for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness.”
~Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust
I am still learning this lesson, the lesson of whispering a doxology in darkness. In some moments I am surprisingly able, yet in other charcoal moments, the darkness overwhelms me… until I remember.
There is nothing about Good Friday that seems right, and that is the point.
On Good Friday, God dealt death, darkness, and devastation so fierce a blow that the upturned tables of life started to turn right side up.
The dominion of death was changed from a finality to a fermata.
The darkness of injustice was pierced with the Light of Love.
The dungeon of sin was given the keys to freedom.
We live in the “now and not yet” period where Love has pierced the darkness bringing about the capacity for heaven to invade earth. However, heaven and earth will not be united into the Oneness of God’s presence until Jesus returns again (Maranatha).
So, in the meantime, through faith, trust, and love, we push back the darkness as we learn to whisper doxologies in the dark.
“Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
~Psalms 30:5
“Salvation” is a word that flows in Christian circles the way water hurls itself down a riverbank. Assumptions are made, distinctives are codified and labels are assigned.
Most have a narrow understanding of the concept that Jesus called the Kingdom of God, or Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus was excited about it.
He wanted everyone to experience it.
He gave His life to open it’s entrance.
I like Tozer’s take:
“If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus’ fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him.”
― A.W. Tozer
Salvation is more than a get out of Hell card. That limited view makes Jesus a mechanism, and centers everything on me.
Salvation is an invitation.
Salvation is a transformation.
Salvation is undeserved.
Salvation is a person, Jesus.
N.T. Wright notes:
“the work of salvation, in its full sense, is (1) about whole human beings, not merely souls; (2) about the present, not simply the future; and (3) about what God does through us, not merely what God does in and for us.”
― N.T. Wright
The motivation for salvation is God’s tenacious, unyielding, ferocious and all-consuming love.
The hum that you feel in the core of your soul, is the love of God inviting you into an adventure through Christ. Peter Kreeft said it this way:
“We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love.”
― Peter Kreeft, Jesus-Shock
Grace and Peace…
*artwork (c) is by Justin Spencer Lamborn: http://www.specterandbride.co/
