This Bible reflection was given at the Good Friday Meditations on 29th March 2024 at All Saints Church, Oakham.
Have you ever been made fun of because of your faith? I have, and I guess you have too. It might have been from your friends or family, or even your spouse. Often the most difficult time is when we are young. Our friends at school or work are confused by our Christian faith. Why are we not sleeping in on a Sunday morning? Or why are we not free to go and get brunch together on Sunday mornings? Or the family try to organise something over the weekend, and you say, ‘Sorry, I can’t do this Sunday.’ ‘Why?’ they ask irritatingly. ‘Because I’ve got church and it’s my turn to do the tea and coffee this week.’
Growing up, I remember a wave of people who made a career of being professional atheists. I was ten when Richard Dawkins’s God Delusion hit the shelves, and the likes of Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens were held up as heroes of the fight against these medieval concepts of faith in a big god in the sky. These people were frequently referenced in my teenage years and would make a regular appearance in my RE classes and philosophy classes at school. Classmates would say, ‘How can you still believe in a God? Have you not read The God Delusion? Dawkins has disproved God.’
In return, I would say, ‘I have read it and what other atheists have said, and I have found that nothing they say disproves God and what I know of him from my life and experience and what I read in the Bible.’ But they say, ‘Ah, but the Bible was written by humans. How could you say that it is the Word of God?’
To this, I would say, ‘When I read the scriptures, I am moved to the core of my very being by the God of which they speak. When I read about Jesus loving me so completely that he died on the cross for my sins and shame so that I can be drawn back into the love, life, and presence of God for all eternity, my heart is floored. It might not make sense, but I have never found anything truer than Jesus Christ.’
I might go back and forth with these people in our discussions. Sometimes it was gracious, and other times less so. But I was grateful to have the opportunity to share my faith. I get it, to some extent. How is Jesus God? How could he be God if he died a human death? Why would God die the worst death imaginable, and how does Jesus dying save us? These are fair questions, and they show how the Cross of Christ goes completely against the logic and thinking of the world.
I was reading a reflection yesterday from the Christian writer Max Lucado about the symbol of the Cross. He writes:
The is the universal symbol of Christianity. An odd choice, don’t you think? Strange that a tool of torture would come to embody a movement of hope. Would you wear a tiny electric chair around your neck? Suspend a gold-plated hangman’s noose on the wall? Would you print a picture of a firing squad on a business card? Yet we do so with the cross.[1]
Max Lucado, He Chose the Nails: What God Did to Win Your Heart, 2000.
Why is the symbol of Christianity an instrument of execution? You could see why the cross of Christ, the cross of Christianity is so confusing to people. The cross is a symbol of death, not life; of defeat, not victory; of despair, not hope. Most people would see this terrifying symbol of death and would say it is foolishness to say that this instrument of death is what brings eternal life.
But I am reminded of the two criminals who hung on the cross next to Jesus. To them, the cross was their end, where they would perish and die. However, the one who believed in Jesus, believed that Jesus was God, discovered that the cross was not the place of his perishing, it was the place where he found eternal life. Jesus says to him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’[2] That is why Paul writes, ‘For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.’[3]
The cross is foolishness to those who see from afar, who stand on the outside. But when you come close to the cross of Christ, when you come to Jesus at the cross you discover that the cross is not the place of perishing, but the place of God’s saving power at work in this world. The wisdom and reasoning of the world will never understand the cross because they stand at a distance from the cross. They practice their didactic reasoning and make their scientific calculations but never come to stand at the foot of the cross. They hide behind theories and arguments and never come to meet the person, Jesus Christ, who died on a tree to set us free. When we come to the cross and encounter the person of Jesus and what he has done for us, we cannot help but find the source of life.
You may come before the cross regularly, or you might have never done so before. It might have been a long time since you came before the cross. Good Friday invites us to come to the cross afresh. To move beyond theories and ideas and discover the person and the story. The person of Jesus Christ who died on the cross to take away our sins and bring us eternal life, now and forever. You may not find the answer to every question you have. That’s okay. Faith doesn’t give the answer to every question, but it does give the answer to the most important question and the strength to cope with the unanswered questions. Why did Jesus die on the cross? To bring us back to him because he loves us. ‘For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.’[4]
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[1] Max Lucado, He Chose the Nails: What God Did to Win Your Heart, 2000.
[2] Luke 23:43 [NRSV].
[3] 1 Cor 1:18 [NRSV].
[4] 1 Cor 1:18 [NRSV].
Shakeel Nurmahi 