LRC, Houston - the weekends-free church in Houston, Texas

FRIDAY DAY # 6

Why Good Friday? In one sense it should be called Terrible Friday. We in the West call it Good Friday, but it has several names in other nations and cultures. I like the German characterization of “Sorrowful Friday”, or Gottes Freitag (God’s Friday).

The Gospel of Mark sanitizes it with a nuts-n-bolts, blow-by-blow narrative. Mark 15:1-21 covers the 6am to 9 am slot. Mark 15:22-32 covers the story from 9am til noon. One verse, Mark 15:33, covers the noon to 3pm time. Hey, Mark wasn’t a wordy kinda guy. And finally, Mark 15:34-41 takes us from 3pm-6pm. Bang! There you have it in a nutshell, but shellshocking it really is.

Did He really have to die? Was it inevitable?

It’s interesting when you look at history and see how the Bible has developed, how traditions have set in, and what culture has done to color and shade what may have had a different tone, or no shade at all. It’s clear by reading the gospels, and especially Mark that Jesus died because He felt the dominating systems of religion and Caeser needed to be brought down. And His death as the Jewish Messiah was somehow going to bring that to a conclusion.

Paul comes along and gives us many doctrinal reasons why Jesus had to die. But as one looks at the historical trail, a theme that developed slowly and didn’t come into full bloom until around 1200ce was the concept that He had to die for our sins. Yes, it was there early on, but not like we make it out today- Primero Uno! St. Anselm of Canterbury put the flower on the stem in this garden.

There are two “passions” at play here. We call His suffering, pain, and death on the cross “passion”. He died though for another passion- The Kingdom of God. That was His mission, purpose, raison d’etre, and calling.

What’s yours?

What are you LIVING for, and willing to DIE for?