A Simple Request for Good Friday and All of Life
On seven-year-old Faith and what if I'm not getting Holy Week right?
A casual glance at the cross is not enough. The saints of the centuries have been surveying it, they have been looking at it, gazing upon it, and meditating upon it. And the more they look at it the more they see in it.” - The Cross, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (emphasis mine)
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. - 1 Corinthians 2:2
The first time I remember hearing about Jesus’ death was during mid-week choir practice. I was probably around seven years old, exploring a room in the Chinatown church where my parents were practicing. I was hiding behind some sort of room divider when without warning, a song hit me with surprising force. The lyrics described someone “dying for me” and though I didn’t yet understand who had died and why it was “for me,” I was surprised (and embarrassed) to find myself holding back tears.
It’s Good Friday today, and this day of remembrance has often been accompanied with some anxiety on my part about getting the day right. In my youth, I sought to be somber enough, trying my best to feel the horror of Jesus’ death through realistic depictions of the brutality of his torture and crucifixion. Later, my efforts were directed more introspectively, toward confessing and soul-searching with regards to my sin. I have struggled to feel sinful enough, repentant enough, grave enough, grateful enough. Even now, I find myself at the end of Holy Week wishing I’d been more deliberate to meditate on Jesus’ Passion, though unsure of how I would’ve managed that with all that life and family and book launching and my sick body have demanded.
So I am grateful that in a few hours, I’ll be attending Good Friday service at church. I am grateful that there I will be led to meditate on Christ and him crucified.
I deliberately say “led” here because the truth is, as I look back at my life, I see how anytime I have arrived at a deeper understanding of Jesus’ sacrifice, it has been by the gracious work of the Spirit, not my own effortful control.1 It is part of what happens as we walk with God and he walks with us—the glory of the cross is increasingly revealed to our hearts by God himself.
He spoke the cross over me when, in self-hatred and shame, I declared in a college dorm room that I didn’t believe he loved me. And when I felt sure that the sinfulness inside me could never be defeated or resisted—that I would never change—he taught me what it means to live in the supernatural reality that because Christ died, I too am dead to sin (Romans 5:8, 6:10-11). Later, it was Christ’s death for sinners that he brought to mind when I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving for a fruitful season of ministry. Through the cross, he surprised me with the assurance that he would’ve loved me the same even if I hadn’t been fruitful.
With each passing year, the gospel accounts of Christ’s suffering hit more deeply, simply because I’ve lived more and come to know him a bit better. As I’ve come to see more of Jesus’ worth, the accounts of his humiliation are increasingly jarring to me. The way he, the true King of all Kings, endured the scorn of those who’d dare to crown him with thorns and mock him with “worship”. The way people jeered “Save yourself!” even as he hung to save them. And I’ve wondered at the love and holiness of a Savior who did not respond in anger to scorners and mockers.
As I’ve faced with more regularity the reality of darkness and death, I love God for giving us the grittiness of the gospel accounts, the unflinching look at the horrors of sin and death that affirms to my soul, yes, it is right to mourn even as you hope in the resurrection. What’s more, as I’ve ministered to the hurting whose stories of being wronged make my blood boil, I have been comforted at the way the cross demonstrates God’s righteousness—that he does not wave off sin, but hates and damns it (Romans 3:25).
In my fight against Satan’s accusations, I have learned to find refuge in the cross and God has discipled me in how the cross disarms the powers of hell and silences the lies of the enemy (Colossians 2:15). In my scrupulosity, I have come to treasure the description of the reconciling work of the cross— that we are at peace with God, which means he’s not always low-key mad at me (Romans 5:1). In serving the church, I have learned to see the cross of Christ as both a charge—Look, see the way your Savior walked! It is the way you have been called to walk too, death to self and for others—as well as a promise.
Chronic illness too has changed the way I see the cross. That our Savior not only understands my physical pain, but endured an excruciating death willingly for my sake, has taken on a greater knowing-in-my-joints-and-bones kind of significance.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve grown. That over the years, I have come to “see more in” the cross so that if you asked me what I see in it now, I can truthfully say that it means everything to me. And I know that even as I confess that today, it will come to mean even more to me in the years, decades, centuries to come.
Maybe like me, you aren’t as ready as you wish you were for this holy day of remembrance. But as we gaze, meditate, consider the cross, we are being led day by day into its glories. God, by your Spirit, lead me into greater knowledge of Christ and him crucified. This is my prayer for tonight and all the days of my life. Perhaps you could pray it too.
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This is not to discount careful, deliberate study. In fact, as I wrote this newsletter, my daughter came to tell me “someone” was at the door and I went downstairs to see my newly delivered copy of Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ. Some of my struggles earlier in life in not knowing how to respond to the cross of Christ were rooted in a need for greater teaching from the Scriptures on what Christ accomplished in his death and resurrection. Still for all this teaching, it is ultimately the Spirit who reveals spiritual truths to our hearts. (1 Corinthians 2)