Good Friday - Blog Posts
In the spirit of holy week ♱, I've decided to drop this, if this post doesn't resonate with you, feel free to skip....
-I hope you are happy, happy enough that you're living in the moment.
©-shelovesskiez
Good Friday
The more you think about it, the worse it gets.
No part of the Passion Gospel, the Gospel for Good Friday, has any hope.
Even the tender moments – Jesus asking John to take care of his mother, Joseph and Nicodemus making sure that Jesus has a proper burial – they’re just people dealing with the fallout from death.
You know what Joseph and Nicodemus are thinking about while they’re wrapping Jesus’ body up for burial? How much this sucks.
And whether the Romans will stop at killing Jesus. Or will they, and other followers of Jesus, be next?
The more you think about it, the worse it gets.
You know what Joseph and Nicodemus aren’t thinking about? How anything good can come from this.
Much less how God is already using all of it to do more good than either of them, or anyone on Good Friday, could ever imagine.
And yet, you and I know, that’s exactly what’s happening. Because you and I know something that Joseph and Nicodemus don’t know. Not on that worst of Friday’s.
They don’t know that Sunday is coming.
But that’s how it is, when you’re where they are. When you are right in the middle of the very worst.
When you and I are right in the middle of the very worst, there is nothing that human eyes can see to tell us that it’s ever going to get any better.
When that’s where you are, the only open question is whether it’s going to get worse.
In the middle of everything that you are dealing with right now – whether it’s death or illness, divorce or the end of a friendship, job loss or financial problems – while you’re waiting to see whether you’ve hit bottom or if it’s going to get worse. You get Joseph and Nicodemus. You are right there with them.
The more you think about what you’re dealing with, the worse it gets.
There’s nothing that our human eyes can see to tell us that anything good can come from what you’re going through.
And yet, you and I know, that’s not true.
Because you and I know something. Something that’s easy to lose sight of when you’re in the middle. Something that’s hard to hold onto when you’re scared.
But it doesn’t matter. It’s okay if we lose sight of it. Because it’s still true. Even if we’re scared.
Today is Good Friday. And Good Friday shows us that none of it, not even the very worst, can hold down our God.
Because Sunday is coming.
Today’s Readings
John's Passion narrative has a never-ending fascination for me, because it's where you get Jesus at his most divine--knowing everything that was going to happen, making the guards fall to their faces when he speaks the name of God--while the people around him are at their most human.
There's an entire political drama going on. Pilate the Roman pagan getting dragged into this provincial Jewish religious dispute. These Jewish leaders and Jesus providing different visions of truth to a politician who doesn't care what the truth is. There's extremely sharp political back-and-forth between the Roman and the Jewish authorities--the Pharisees trying to force Pilate's hand by saying that everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar, then Pilate backing them into proclaiming Caesar as their king and twisting the knife of pettiness by labeling Jesus as the Jewish king in four different languages while He hangs on the cross.
Petty, personal, political human drama taking up all their attention.
And meanwhile, God is dying.
Happy Good Friday ✝️
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”-Genesis 3:15 KJV
Even as far back as the book of Genesis, God revealed His plan of salvation for mankind. That even though the devil (the serpent) would decieve and manipulate to bring sin into the world, and have Christ crucified (bruise His heal), it would all be in vain! Christ would arise the third day, defeating death and the devil! (bruise his head)