Lent: Day 2 The Good in Good Friday
The Wood Between the Worlds (By Brian Zahnd)
Chapter 2: The Singularity of Good Friday
“The cross is not what God inflicts in order to forgive; the cross is what god in Christ endures as he forgives. This is essential an essential and enormous clarification! At the cross the Son does not act as an agent of change upon the Father. Orthodox theology has always insisted that God is not subject to change or mutation. Rather, God is immutable. Thus the cross is not where Jesus changes God but where Jesus reveals God. On Good Friday Jesus does not save us from God; Jesus reveals God as Savior! We don’t have to imagine the son pacifying an angry Father in order to understand Good Friday as the epicenter of forgiveness.” (Zahnd, p. 16)
The above quote has been one of the most influential revelations that I have come to understand about the cross over the last 5ish years, maybe a little more. My understanding of things was that before the cross, God the Father was angry and unwilling to forgive, but after the cross He became loving, and full of grace and mercy.
The problem when we have a BC (before Christ) and AD (after death) God is that it does great damage to the Trinity, separating the Father from Jesus on the cross because “God can’t look upon sin” as some would say (but somehow Jesus can take sin of the world upon himself). Some would point to the words of Jesus on the cross when he quotes Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” as proof that there was a moment when the Father turned away from Jesus on the cross. The problem with this theory is that it doesn’t take into account what Psalm 22 actually says.
Psalm 22 was THE primary Messianic Psalm of Jesus’ day. It would have been at the top of the charts, if they had charts. To quote the first line was to quote the entire Psalm. It would be like if I walked into a karaoke bar and sang, “Blame it all on my roots…” The crowd would respond with, “I showed up boots…” Pick any number of well known and popular songs where all you need to do is play the first few notes or sing the first line and everyone knows the song.
When Jesus quotes Psalm 22, the Jewish people standing around the foot of the cross would would have immediately began to think through the words to this Psalm…
But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
“let the Lord rescue him. (v. 6-8)
Many bulls surround me;
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
Roaring lions that tear their prey
open their mouths wide against me.
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.
Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
they pierce my hands and my feet.
All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.
They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment. (v. 12-18)
Think of the crucifixion scene. Jesus was mocked and insulted by the Romans, and even a criminal next to him. They wondered if he was able to do so many miracles, why he wasn’t able to save himself. When the spear was thrust through his side, blood and water flowed out from him. He was extremely dehydrated after the loss of so much blood and body fluids. The lacerations on his body no doubt revealed many of his bones. His hands and feet were pierced. To top it off, verse 18 is exactly what Luke records in 23:34.
This man hanging on the cross was not claiming that God had forsaken him, but rather as it says in verse 24…
For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.
God the Father was not standing far off, looking the other way while Jesus was suffering on the cross. Paul says that “God was IN Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). John writes in Revelation about “the Lamb (who) was slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8)
Jesus entered into human history and hung on a cross on a particular day in time. But what was true about God’s love for sinners and His willingness forgive after the cross, was just as true before the cross. Jesus came to reveal who the Father was and is, not change how the Father thought about us. Jesus reveals the love of the Father to us, He didn’t need to twist the Father’s arm with his death on the cross. The Hebrew author writes, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…” (Heb. 1:3). Paul writes, “The Son is the image of the invisible God…” (Col. 1:15).
As Brian Zahnd often says…
“God is like Jesus.
God has always been like Jesus.
There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.
We have not always known what God is like—
But now we do.”
On the cross we see clearly who God is - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
God is GOOD.
All the time.
Amen.