2021.04.02 | What Good is This Friday?
“What Good is This Friday?”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Eden United Church of Christ
Hayward, California
Good Friday 2021
April 2, 2021
Today we join Christians around the globe observing Good Friday. This is the Christian holiday commemorating Christ’s crucifixion and death on a cross at Calvary.
If I live to be 100, I may still be pondering the same question that I have been asking since childhood, “Why do Christians call this day good?” How can anyone refer to a day filled with suffering and death as good?
No matter which Gospel you read, the narrative in all four accounts is similar. You can’t dress it up. All four point to the same conclusion: the Good Friday story is about denial, deceit, and death. And, the climax illustrates the worst that human beings can do to each other and to God. What could possibly be good about Good Friday?
To compound matters, John’s version of the crucifixion amplifies the conflict between Jesus (who was a Jew) and the Jewish authorities (including the high priest, Caiaphas, and the religious supreme court, the “Sanhedrin”) with whom Jesus clashed more frequently as he embraced his messianic vocation.
In addition, this ancient conflict between Jesus, the leader of a first-century Jewish reform movement and the, then, old guard of the established religion, has been the basis for fueling antisemitism in every generation since Jesus walked the earth. So, again, I ask, how can anyone call this day “good”?
II
If you paid attention when the Good Friday story was read--and I’m sure you did--you hear that although Peter denied Christ, and Judas turned Jesus over to the Roman soldiers; and Anas questioned Jesus and sent him onto Caiaphas, who passed him off to the Sanhedrin, who turned him over to Pilate--in the end--it was the rank and file--not the high priests or the doctors of law, or even the Roman governor who tried and convicted Jesus. It was the rank and file, composed of Jews and Gentiles, who condemned Jesus to death--death on a cross.
The implication of the four gospel accounts is that if you and I had been there in the garden, at the home of Anas or Caiaphas, or in the Governor’s hall that day, we too, would have been saying, “Crucify him! Crucify him! Or, at best, we would have stood idly by as others did just that.
So, again, I ask, how could anyone call this day good?
III
Those who subscribe to the doctrine of substitutionary atonement see this day as unequivocally good.
The doctrine of substitutionary atonement is the Christian teaching that someone must serve as a sacrifice--an offering to God--in order for the rest of us to be cleansed of our sins, because this was the day that our sins were forgiven, and our salvation was secured--IF we confess that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior.
Despite the popularity of the doctrine of substitutionary atonement in orthodox Christianity, I’ve never claimed to be orthodox and I’ve never fully subscribed to this teaching.
For sure, I’ve always believed that Jesus was a Jewish prophet, and that he led a crucial reform movement within Judaism. And, I’ve always believed that Jesus was denied, betrayed, and crucified as a result of human sin.
But I’ve never believed that the God who created all that is and made it good required a human (or a divine) sacrifice to absolve human sin, or to redeem creation. I just can’t (and never could) buy the idea of a good and gracious God requiring a barbaric, third-party sacrifice.
IV
Despite my rejection of the orthodox doctrine of substitutionary atonement, I have come to believe that there is good to be found in this Friday’s narrative.
There is good that comes from confessing when one has betrayed another, especially when one has betrayed a person (or a group) to whom we have made significant promises, such as: a spouse, a best friend, a neighbor, a client, our family, or our faith community.
In addition, I believe that good comes from acknowledging how easily our values can be commodified and sold for a bag of silver. Like Peter, we can know what is right, good, and fitting--and still make the wrong choices. Like Peter, we say we won’t do x. We insist that we’ll stay strong. And then, mic drop, before we know it, we’ve accepted the purse, and the cock has crowed--not once or twice, but three times.
Furthermore, and perhaps especially in these current times, it is good that we face history and ourselves, and that we own up to the fact that we can be every bit as vulnerable to groupthink and mob rule as the rank and file who hovered around Jesus on that first Good Friday, and the fools who fed off of Adolf Hitler’s xenophobia in Nazi Germany.
V
So, yes, there is good to be found in the truth telling that unfolds in the Good Friday narrative, even if the truth is not pretty.
It is good, right, and fitting that we spend at least one day out of 365 each year facing biblical history and ourselves, and that we confess before God and each other that which we ought not to have done, and that which we have failed to do.
It is good that we dare to face these truths, that we admit them to ourselves, and that we confess them to God. Because truth telling is the only thing that can set us free from self-deceit and our own crippling guilt.
Yes, telling the truth is the only thing that can prepare us to receive the Easter message of God’s grace in all of its fullness, and to experience the Easter joy that results from divine absolution. Amen.