All posts in Good Friday

  • April 15, 2022

    The Singularity of Good Friday


    The Singularity of Good Friday
    Brian Zahnd

    The dripping blood our only drink,
    The bloody flesh our only food:
    In spite of which we like to think
    That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
    Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
    –T.S. Eliot

    Most of us have an instinct to associate Good Friday with the forgiveness of sins and this instinct is correct. Something did happen on Good Friday that makes the forgiveness of any and all sins possible. But how does this forgiveness actually work? St. Paul says, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.” But what does this mean? Did Christ’s death somehow restore honor to an insulted omnipotent monarch as some have suggested? Is the crucifixion a ghastly appeasement of an offended deity through the torture and execution of an innocent victim? On Good Friday did God vent his anger by brutally killing his Son so he could finally find the wherewithal to forgive? Are we to imagine that John 3:16 actually means that God so hated the world that he killed his only begotten Son? No, imposing the primitive notion of a sacrificial appeasement upon the cross is what N.T. Wright describes as “the paganizing of atonement theology.” The events of Good Friday are not God punishing his Son. Regarding this mistake understanding of the cross, Wright says,

    “If we arrive at that conclusion, we know that we have not just made a trivial mistake that could be easily corrected, but a major blunder. We have portrayed God not as the generous Creator, the loving Father, but as an angry despot. That idea belongs not to the biblical picture of God, but with pagan beliefs.” (The Day the Revolution Began, p. 43)
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  • March 23, 2018

    Don’t Rush Past Good Friday

    crucifixion copy

    Don’t Rush Past Good Friday
    Brian Zahnd

    Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
    –Lamentations 1:12

    Easter is approaching, but between us and the pastel colors of Easter lies a ghastly and bloodstained Good Friday. Don’t rush past it. In your haste to get to the garden of the empty tomb, don’t whistle past the gruesomeness of Golgotha. The resurrection is made as cheap as the fake grass in an Easter basket if we don’t linger long and hard over the catastrophe of Calvary. The cross is the epicenter of Christianity. And it is the cross that is the peculiar scandal of Christianity. As the Apostle Paul said,

    “We preach Christ crucified, a scandal to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” –1 Corinthians 1:23

    There is nothing particularly unique about a religion that worships a resurrected god — the ancient world was awash with such religions. But Christianity is the only religion to have as its central focus the suffering and degradation of its God! Easter alone does not make Christianity unique. It’s with Good Friday and Easter together that we find the uniqueness of Christianity.
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    No Comments / Cross, Good Friday, Jesus /