This Is Love - Good Friday

Why did Jesus have to die?

Is he the victim of a God who put him on this earth solely to suffer death and hell?  Does he die to pay God a debt we never could?  Does he die to quench wrath of an angry, vengeful God?

Or is Jesus a victim of his love for the world; a martyr for our cause?

Or, perhaps, is Jesus our victim?  Did we kill him with our sin?

I can’t help but ask these questions as we come together on this day that is ironically called “Good Friday.”

With Jesus crying out, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I want and I need to make sense of all this. 

If Jesus’ death is a gift of love, I want to see love.  I want to know who this Jesus is who would do such a thing.  I want to know who this God is who gives his only Son in this way.

The truth is, God is not some brutal, tyrannical patriarch who would demand the human sacrifice of his only Son.  I say this because, in the Old Testament, Kings Ahaz and Manasseh of Judah sacrificed their sons to the pagan gods. This is not who our God is

Jesus is who God is, in the truth he speaks, and in the life he gives. 

Our God participates in human suffering.  Jesus participates in the helplessness and abandonment we feel amid agonizing pain and horrific evil.  The cross is a sign assuring us that no matter what we’re going through, even death itself, Jesus is in it with us.  That’s love.

Jesus wasn’t born to die on the cross.  Jesus was born so that God could take that cross and his agonizing sufferings and death, and use them to defeat death and the devil.  We don’t need to be saved from God.  We need to be saved from death—both the death we all suffer, and the death we create through our sin.  Jesus death accomplishes this.  That’s love.

Time and time again, the Scriptures speak of Jesus dying as a perfect sacrifice for our sin.  But Jesus didn’t do this to appease God.  What Jesus does, by dying on the cross, is do everything we need to do to get right with God.  Jesus is showing us and proving to us is that it’s not up to us to make ourselves right with God.  It would be impossible for us to work our way up to God with perfect lives and perfect sacrifices.  In Christ, we don’t have to.  Jesus brings God to us, embodying every bit of God’s forgiveness, mercy, and grace.  That’s love. 

Jesus dies because of love—because those who live in love give in love.  In his short life, Jesus gave everything he had.  He gave himself away to the poorest, most vulnerable, and most undeserving persons in God’s world.  Nobody could offer anything in return for what he gave.  But that didn’t matter.  It’s no surprise that Jesus would give his life away, too—giving everything he had to a world that would doesn’t love him back. 

So tonight, we gather before the cross to see who God us, and how precious we are in God’s sight.  But we see also God’s will for our lives and the world we inhabit.  We see the truth about life in God’s kingdom. 

We are called to take up our cross, and follow Jesus—because this is how we come into the life that God intends.  It’s not that we have to live this way in order to measure up to God’s holy standard.  Life and love are not found in the pursuit of power, privilege, and prestige.  Life is born where there is compassion, peace, and justice.  Life flourishes where there is forgiveness, patience, and mercy.  Life flourishes when we stop worrying about the future and stop fighting for our rights, and instead trust God to take up our needs—and live together in a community of mutual care and concern.  This is real life—and this is real love.