Good Friday
April 2, 2021
Call to Worship - from Isaiah 53, The Message
He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn’t say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, even though he’d never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn’t true.
Still, it’s what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him.
Out of that terrible travail of soul, he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many “righteous ones,” as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly—the best of everything, the highest honors—because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
The Good News of God’s Hate, Part 7
reflection from Pastor Justin
It was dark as I laid there crying about “my sin”. I wasn’t older than 9 or 10 years old. The light from the hall warmed my bedroom and silhouetted my parents. This was my confession booth. My parents were the priests to comfort as well as the offended party.
Earlier that day, my Grandma took me to Sunday school and the lesson was about the call of discipleship…
Jesus said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”
As a kid, the spiritual practice of healthily hating my own life was lost on me. However, the disowning of my mom and dad was tangible. The tears on my pillow that night were because I loved my parents and depended on them. I knew they loved me, even if imperfectly. I felt torn inside.
My parents didn’t have a great experience with “the church”, and yet they didn’t trash the lesson I was wrestling with as religious garbage. They consoled me and said it was okay to love God more than I loved them. “We want you to love God more than us.”
/ / /
The seventh thing the Lord hates (Proverbs 6:19) is a person who sows discord in a family; one who stirs up conflict in a community. The Word says, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with all and have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies that only breed quarrels.
But what about things that aren’t foolish and ignorant? What about when the Prince of Peace disrupts the community?
Jesus tells us that the Gospel He brings will, at times, cause strife, contention, and a “pulling apart of the heart” and of community.
Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother…
The call to follow Jesus makes us put everything on the line, including our most beloved relationships. This isn’t about getting out of covenantal responsibility or finding a way to spiritualize not wanting to be around people who annoy you. It is about our hearts being utterly abandoned to Christ, which can sometimes bring a freedom to better live in those relationships with family and friends and community, but could also mean saying a sorrowful goodbye of sorts.
When the gospel tears us apart, it does so to heal us. God isn’t looking for a superficial cosmetic rescue to happen, but a deep turning the insides out for light to shine on and through all things. When we lose in Christ, we also gain; God is looking out for us.
Jesus promises that, in the renewal of all things, those who lost and left things for the sake of the Gospel, will receive a hundred-fold back (Matthew 19:27-30). We don’t have to wait for heaven for that promise to start. Even though we might lose biological or cultural community, God is knitting together a new humanity, a redeemed household that still has its issues (boy, does it ever!) but is not based on DNA or trendy affinities or limited likes/dislikes, but on the Spirit of the Living Christ.
As we contemplate the cross of Christ tonight, along with all the discord surrounding the events, may we also be looking for the goodness of God in taking brokenness pieces of life and reorienting them together into something new. God sets the lonely in families.
Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.