It Was a Good Friday

A woman was getting swamped with calls from strangers. The reason? A medical billing service had launched an 800 number that was identical to hers, except for the area code. When she called to complain, she was told to get a new number.

“I’ve had my number for twenty years,” she pleaded. “Couldn’t you change yours?” The company refused, so the woman said, “Fine. From now on, I’m going to tell everyone who calls that their bill is paid in full.”

The company got a new number the next day.

This is the day on the church calendar when we celebrate the good news that our bill is paid in full. Christ died for our sins. He paid it all. This is the day when we commemorate Christ’s death on the cross of Calvary.

Writer Robert Shannon tells a fascinating story about a nineteenth century emperor of Ethiopia named Menelik II. Menelik wished to modernize his country. In one unusual move, he ordered three electric chairs from New York. When they arrived he realized that they wouldn’t work without electricity. But Ethiopia had no electricity at that time. Not one to waste things, Menelik decided to use one of the electric chairs as his throne.

An electric chair seems like an odd device to serve as a throne, but is it any odder than deploying a cross as a center of worship? A cross was the means of executing criminals. It was the first century equivalent of a gallows, a gas chamber, or if you will, an electric chair. When you realize that, you have to say, what an odd device to put on a church steeple or in a sanctuary or on an altar.

The cross was a cruel, barbaric way to die. Michael Card, in his book A Violent Grace, describes in gruesome detail how determined the Romans were in their desire to make an example of those who had offended the state. First of all the condemned man was flogged. He could die from that alone. The flogging was brutal. The flesh would hang from the condemned man’s back. Flogging was followed by crucifixion. While the flesh was still raw, the condemned man was nailed to the wood.

“Some scholars think that Jesus may have been flogged twice,” says Michael Card. “The accounts of both Luke and John hint at it. Medical doctors who have studied the accounts of the crucifixion have concluded that severe multiple beatings would account for the fact that Jesus died after only six hours on the cross, while others were known to have hung on crosses for as long as nine days before dying from exhaustion and loss of blood.”

There was the flogging and then the nails driven into his feet and hands. It was a cruel, inhumane way to die. Even today many are offended by the cross. A while back, a pastor in San Francisco stood up before his congregation and said, “The cross has been the symbol of sacrifice and the acceptance of pain and suffering, and we are tired of it. We are not going to be a part of this anymore.” He then walked over and tore down the cross from the church.

Churches are being built today with no cross in sight. The blood, the broken body, the sacred sacrifice are offensive to modern sensibilities. And yet you and I still cling to this symbol of suffering and shame. That is why we are here today for this Good Friday service. We believe the cross still has saving power.

But why did Jesus die on the cross?

For one thing, Jesus could not ask his disciples to pay a greater price than he was willing to pay. Think of Stephen as the stones ripped his flesh, and Peter as he died crucified upside down. Many of the disciples were burned as living torches in Nero’s gardens or were torn apart by wild animals in the gladiator’s arena. Only a soft, sentimental unrealistic faith would conjure the supposition that there was any other way for Jesus but the way of the cross. This is a hard world. The affluence and security of our land shelter us from that truth. But we need to remember that many people through the ages have given their lives for their faith in Christ – and they’re still doing so today.

But we’re so accustomed to comfort and convenience that it would be very difficult for many of us to pay the ultimate penalty for our faith. This may be the first reason that Jesus had to die. He could not ask his disciples to pay a greater price than he was willing to pay.

There is a second reason why the cross was necessary. Without the cross we could not see the destructiveness of sin. A totally innocent man hangs on that cross. A young man. We are always touched by the tragic death of a young person. Jesus was only 33 when he died. Falsely accused, bitterly reviled and yet guilty of no wrong. A healer and helper, a lover of little children, and a liberator of people imprisoned by their own sin and guilt, a man who knew God intimately enough to address him as “Abba,” Daddy, and yet never lost his concern for the least and the lowest. Yet there he hangs on the cross of Calvary, and it was sin that put him there – your sin and my sin.

There was no other way for God to show the depth and the width of His love except by the sacrifice of His Son. John puts it like this, “In this is love not that we loved God, but that he loved us and gave his Son to be the expiation for our sins.” There is something about the cross that speaks to us of God’s love.

Sen. John McCain discovered the power of this love as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Here is how he put it: “I was tied in torture ropes by my tormentors and left alone in an empty room to suffer through the night. Later in the evening, a guard I had never spoken to entered the room and silently loosed the ropes to relieve my suffering. Just before morning, the same guard came back and re‑tightened the ropes before his less humanitarian comrades returned. He never said a word to me. Some months later on Christmas morning, as I stood alone in the prison courtyard, the same guard walked up to me and stood next to me for a few moments. Then with his sandal, the guard drew a cross in the dirt. We stood wordlessly there a minute or two, venerating the cross, until the guard rubbed it out and walked away.”

It was a small gesture, but McCain said it was the best Christmas present that he could have received in that prison camp.

There is something about the cross that speaks to us of God’s love. “What wondrous love is this, O my soul,” writes the poet. “That caused the Lord of bliss to lay aside his crown for my soul, for my soul, to lay aside his crown for my soul.”

That is why it had to be. Jesus could not ask his disciples to make a sacrifice he was not willing to make himself. It was the way to reveal the awfulness of man’s sin and the awesomeness of God’s love. And it was how God showed the depth and the width of His love – by sacrificing his own son. So yes – it was a Good Friday.