Every year on Good Friday, Christians around the globe gather to commemorate the death of Jesus Christ. Together, we fix our eyes on Golgotha, that hill where his body hung pierced through hands and feet on a wooden crucifix. Crucifixion was a common form of capital punishment in the Roman empire. It was designed with two concepts in mind, shame and torture. The Romans almost always crucified their criminals in a public place in order that their final hours might be covered in the shame of being made a public spectacle. The victims, like Jesus, were stripped, usually beaten, paraded through the streets, and then ridiculed. The death was slow and painful.
For us to even have a sense of the wonder of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, we must have a proper sense of who he was. Crucifixion was a terrible event for any human to endure, but Christ was not simply any human. In the days leading up to the crucifixion, Christ was led into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. As he entered the city crowds had gathered around him singing praise songs from Psalm 118, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” When the Pharisees saw the crowds exulting Christ they rebuked him, and order him to command the crowds to stop. But Jesus’ reply hints at something beyond our capacity to fully understand. Jesus replied, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
This phrase is consistent with the entire Bible. This little phrase declares the nature of who Christ claimed to be. He was more than a prophet. He was more than a sage. Jesus was Immanuel, God with us, the exultant one in human form, the creator himself immersed in his creation. In John 17 when Jesus prayed over his disciples he prayed, “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” The claim of Jesus is that He is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Before time and space existed, He existed. The trinitarian God, communing with himself in perfect love and unity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Out of love he created the world both as an expression of his love. He had no need to be satisfied by anything beyond himself, and yet he chose to create in order that he might bestow his love upon his creation.
That God of inconceivable love, that God of unimaginable artistry and beauty, that God of incommensurable power and authority, that transcendant God, made himself imminent by uniting himself to a human body. In theological terms we call this the Hypostatic Union. Jesus Christ was fully man in every way, though without sin. He had a human nature, being born of a woman. And yet he also had a divine nature, being united to God the Son. He was the God-man. In this life he experienced the fulness of human life, not cheating humanity by drawing attributes of divinity from his divine nature. He hungered, and tired, and wept, and bled, just as we do.
He lived a life unstained by the depravity of sin. Not one thought was out of place. Not one affection was angled towards anything other than the will of the Father. Not one action marred by the weakness of impurity. To study the life of Jesus Christ is to be overwhelmed both by the fulness of what life can be when fully surrendered to the will of God, and simultaneously it is to be deeply aware of the presence of sin in our own lives. When we compare our lives to the perfect life of Christ, we see how far short we fall. Our hearts are corrupted by sin, our wills are maligned by idolatry, our affections are distorted by wounds and insecurities, and our relationships are hindered by the shadows of self-glory. Christ’s is the perfect life.
It is only when we see that reality, that we can begin to feel the pangs of Good Friday. One can scarcely imagine little children conspiring to murder their parents. And yet here on Good Friday, a crime of infinitely greater magnitude has occurred. Christ is not only the great creator, but he is the source of love that flows through the entire world. He is the deep fountain of purpose that weaves its way through every human heart. And yet, we crucifid him. We murdered him. We stripped him, flogged him, beat him, shamed him, mocked him, pierced him, wagged our fingers at him. This is how deep sin runs. When God himself entered the story, we chose to murder him rather than listen to him.
But of course the deepest agony that occurred on Good Friday was not the physical pain of crucifixion. While we can scarcely imagine such horrors, something of a deeper sort was occurring at the same time. During the crucifixion Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken.” Quoting from Psalm 22:1, Jesus hinted at some spiritual experience that took place on the cross. In some way, beyond all human capacity to fully understand, the Son permitted himself to experience a “turning away” of the Father. The Son did not cease to be the Son, nor was there some kind of a cleavage in the unity of God, and yet in some very real way, the Son called out to the Father and heard no response. It was in this moment that the purpose of the crucifixion is most clearly seen. The prophet Isaiah said it well, “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” On the cross, Christ took our place underneath the wrath of God towards our sin. In a very real way, his death is a payment, or as the scriptures call it a propitiation. The wages of sin is death, separation from God, and Christ paid the wages on our behalf.
Jesus is described as the founder and perfector of our faith “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” What joy is it that drove Jesus to endure the agony of the cross. The joy of Christ is the fulfilment of what would be accomplished on the other side of substitutionary death. On the other side of his death, Christ would raise victoriously as King over his Kingdom. On the other side of his death, the New Covenant of Grace would be established, a people would be secured, a prophecy would be fulfilled, the Spirit would be sent, the Church would be established, and the gates of heaven which had been locked would open to him who holds the keys of life and death.
On Good Friday, we recall the infinite mercy of God, that He would suffer our curse in our place. His death was our healing. His blood was our atonement. His agony was our security. His abandonment was our adoption. There is no other event in all of human history that compares with the atrocity that is the murder of God the Son on Good Friday. And yet, in a divine juxtaposition, God has turned what the world meant for evil into something beautiful. He has made a way for men and women like us, who fall so far short of the standard that is Christ’s life, to experience God, to be immersed in the ocean that is God’s love, to live in daily wonder of grace upon grace poured out on sinners like us.
Consider the lengths that God would go to redeem you from your fallen state. His blood is the blood of certainty. There is no debt left to pay. In Christ, forgiveness is total, redemption is secure, eternity is sealed, life is everlasting, joy is abounding. As the great John Flavel once preached
“Reader, the word assures thee, whatever thou hast been, or art, that sins of as deep a dye as thine, have been washed away in this blood. Those very men who had a hand in the shedding of Christ’s blood, had the benefit of that blood afterwards pardoning them, Acts 2:36. There is nothing but unbelief and impenitency of heart can bar thy soul from the blessings of this blood.
