For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:14-21)
It seems a bit strange to talk about Good Friday as a gift, doesn't it. What sort of gift is a rugged wooden cross that was basically used as an intrument of torture and death? This certainly isn't the Christmas story, and if it were I doubt that we'd want to find a rugged wooden cross - the sort on which Jesus was crucified - under our tree, in the same way that we likely wouldn't want to see an electric chair (perhaps the closest modern relative to the cross) under our tree. No, really, the cross is a hard sell. Good Friday is a hard sell. Why bother? Most people just want to get to the good stuff - Easter Sunday - and even then, most people in the world are content to mark it with bunnies and eggs and chocolate rather than with thoughts of resurrection - because resurrection implies death. You don't need to be raised unless you've first fallen. So, where's the gift of Good Friday? What's so “good” about Good Friday?
I'm very taken with the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians, when he wrties that “one died for all.” The loose theme that's been holding our services together throughout Lent has been “building healthy relationships.” The last couple of weeks I've talked about our relationship with God, and even more specifically, about reconciliation. Good Friday is the culmination of that theme. On the cross – as gruesome as the image might be for us (although, unfortunately, it isn't really, because the modern world has sanitized the cross and turned it into a wardrobe accessory rather than a sign of sacrifice) – we see reconciliation taking place at its most powerful. Christ is the concrete sign of reconciliation. In His death, he breaks the barrier between ourselves and God. I remember an image that I was taught by one of my professors when I was in theological college - the image of the cross as a bridge extending across a wide chasm from God to us. A few days ago I saw a news report about the opening of one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. It's in the province of Hunan, in China. It spans a huge canyon between two very tall mountains. The bridge is about a mile and a half long and it's several hundred feet high. The news report took us partway across the bridge with a camera – perhaps we only got partway across because the cameraman couldn't take it anymore. The pictures I saw were terrifying, as one looked over the side of the bridge into what could only be described as an abyss. Sometimes that seems to be a way of defining our own relationship with God. The distance between us can be so deep and dark and the chasm can seem so wide that it seems almost impossible to overcome – until we encounter the cross. And the cross can be terrifying as well – just as that suspension bridge in Hunan is terrifying. It's terrifying because of its sheer ugliness. As I said, we miss that. Even most of our hymns about the cross miss that. So the cross becomes “wondrous” or it's just “an old rugged cross” - something to be lifted “high.” It's as if we don't want to acknowledge its reality; its gruesomeness. And when someone tries to remind us of the sheer brutality of the cross, we shy away in horror. We don't want to see it. Think of some of the reactions to Mel Gibson's movie “The Passion Of The Christ.” I had ministry colleagues who condemned that movie without even seeing it. They wouldn't watch it – it was too violent, too bloody, too gruesome – which was the point. It's about a crucifixion. It's not a nice piece of business. But, ultimately, it really is that terrifying bridge that crosses the gap; it really is where the divine meets the human - because what's both more human and less divine than death? But in the cross of Jesus (perhaps even more than in His birth) we see the divine and the human come together, with all the differences between that which is human and that which is divine set aside and done away with. On the cross, we see God experience as gruesome a fate as any of us could possibly imagine – so that there's nothing left for us to experience that God can't understand, can't relate to and can't walk through with us. That reinforces my own theology of the cross – that the cross isn't so much a sacrifice for sin (although sin is clearly involved with the cross as this passage points out) but rather that the cross is the final sign of divine-human solidarity. God (in Christ) submits to that most human of experiences that God had no need to experience. It's only through the cross (with divine incarnation in Jesus as a prerequisite) that God can finally and fully understand what it is to be us. This is a sign of love beyond our ability to fully comprehend – not so much that Jesus died for us, but that God experienced death with us!
So, as Paul said, “one died for all.” There's reconciliation right there. The world had a need that Jesus could meet, and Jesus met it. It's not my intention to introduce something rather flippant into our Good Friday reflections, but I can't help when I read Paul's words but to think about Mr. Spock's death scene in Star Trek II. Having sacrificed himself to save the good starship Enterprise and its crew, in some closing words with Captain Kirk before his death, Spock says “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” And Kirk replies, “or the one.” “... Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them ...” That “one died for all” is a sign of love, and it teaches us that a real love is that which reconciles us to one another and to God, because as followers of the One Who “died for all,” we also are called to walk that walk of sacrifice for each other. This is why the cross is a gift. As ugly as it is, it brings us together and it overcomes the walls of separation and division that have been built up between us. For all the ugliness of the cross, this is the gift of the cross.
So here (in and through the cross) we find reconciliation - and here (in and through the cross) we find the challenge of Good Friday. In the cross (which is the ultimate sign of Jesus' ministry) we are reconciled to God. And as Paul tells us, as the Body of Christ we are now the ones to whom the ministry of reconciliation has been entrusted. “And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
Ambassadors have to present credentials before they can begin the job of representing those who have sent them. If we are Christ's ambassadors, then we also have to be able to present our credentials to the world. Our credentials are the new life that the cross has opened for us. “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” The cross – by its very example of selfless sacrifice – is our example of what that new creation should look like as it shines forth from us. It should be that which reconciles; that which reaches out; that which loves; that which does not count the cost. It should be that which gives true life and dignity to all and that saps the life and dignity from none. That is the gift revealed on the cross; the gift that has been given to us by God; the gift we are called to offer on behalf of God. What a gift it is!
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