Sitting with the Pardon

I love Good Friday. From what I gather, I'm in a small minority. I've received a lot of negative reactions for this sentiment. I've heard the arguments that if we've been saved, why should we reawaken guilt; doesn't being sad on Good Friday crucify Jesus all over again? My answer is no. It's different than that; it's more than that, and it's certainly not reapplying guilt.

Much of the last year and of the journey of my faith in general, God has been redefining what I think about some concepts I thought I well-understood. One of the many things it's led me to believe is that I will forever be learning, absorbing, and rediscovering all of what defines my faith and, if you will, God. For as much as I am a feelings person, I'm equal in needing to think. And in all honesty, I can go too long without really thinking about the cross. Then sometimes when I do, I feel like I don't really get it. After all, it is a thing fierce and confounding:
A God who spares Himself for the sake of the undeserved to be able to come close to Him, by taking on their due judgment and thus pardoning the unholiness that is their sin! An unearthly definition that is: Grace. Without God and this story, this concept of Grace doesn't exist. It's part of why the story is so unbelievable; Grace such as this seems out of the realm of possibility.

So there's something good for us in taking one day - if only one - to be somber and sit with the idea of the Great Pardon that was bestowed to us. To contemplate the weight of such a death, and to revel in the bearing of all the brokenness of this world on one man, who was also God. If there is only one day to just feel whatever the intentional musing on the cross makes you feel, there is immense importance in allowing that.

The resurrection can only have full meaning when you take into account the death that led to it. In that one moment, the sinless Christ took on the guilt of many, and as I've heard it preached, the devil was sure he won. And many others never thought Jesus was the Messiah, especially after death. It was the best plot twist. No one expected it, and it's unfathomable; that's the beauty.

So I'm done arguing the importance and the good grit of Good Friday, because the entire thing is bittersweet and I don't think as a Christian you can ever escape that - but it's not something I want to. Living in that tension compels me toward striving to know God more and show the incomprehensible grace I was so kindly shown.

"We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body." 2 Corinthians 4:10