Friday, 14 April 2017

Post 162--Good Friday




Today Christians all over the world for two millennia have been commemorating Good Friday. That is to say, the death of Jesus Christ by one of the most cruel executions the ancient Roman Empire ever devised, namely crucifixion. The story is told in the New Testament of the Bible at various places:  Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23 and John 19.  If you’re not too familiar with the Bible, you will find the most understandable translation to be that called The Messenger.  I was almost going to say “the most pleasant translation,” but reading the story of Jesus’ crucifixion and the events leading up to it is anything but pleasant; it is heart wrenching, nothing pleasant about it.

In Post 161 I referred to Maudy Thursday, the day before Good Friday. Many churches attend special services that day, as my wife and I did in the evening at First Baptist Church in downtown Vancouver. The choir sang a few very beautiful hymns, but the last one really did me in. I broke down in tears, I was so emotionally overcome by the lyrics themselves as well as the melody and, not the least, the way it was sung. I played it on Utube again this morning and had the same experience. Even now, at this very moment, I have tears in my eyes. I am a singer and when I hear songs that I know, I sing along. But both last night and this morning, I was too overwhelmed to sing along. I could only listen and let waves of emotion run over me—emotions, I hasten to add, of joy, gladness and peace, but also of sadness and shame, because of the reason for all of this tragic drama, namely the sin that has distorted the entire world and every individual in it, including me.

Another word for sin is evil, both words that we, heirs of the Enlightenment of some centuries back and the subsequent rationalist philosophies it has spawned, including secularism and postmodernism, do not want to hear.  Well, evil is one word we may tolerate, but sin? No way. That’s nonsense, primitive. We will have no truck with it. Well, neither does God. But He does not deny its reality as most of us do. Instead, He provides a way out; He does not leave us stuck in or with it. The events from Christmas through Good Friday are the prelude to His way of overcoming it by diverting the punishment from us to Jesus. 

I know, for most of us it sounds like a bizarre story, something that no one immersed in our culture could possibly think up; it is simply too exotic for us. But, you know, much of our Western culture is exotic to most of the world. Every culture is exotic to another culture far away. But no matter what you do, it is always in the context of a specific culture that is exotic to almost every other culture. That’s just the way we are; we exist in various cultures, all of them exotic to others. So, if God was going to do something in the world of humans,  no matter what, He has to do it in terms of a specific culture. No way around it. That’s how we are created. He can’t do it in every culture. No one will understand.

So, for His own reason, he chose the culture that was started by Abraham and developed into Jewish culture of the ancient past in the Old Testament. Of course, it is exotic to us, for we live in another culture and have difficulty understanding that of the Bible. So, why do you reject it just because it is expressed in an exotic culture? Why would you insist that God did His special work with Jesus in our culture?  Isn’t that selfish?  Is that what you want to be? That ain’t very nice, you know, to put it mildly. 

So, we just have to bite the bullet and recognize that we live in an exotic culture that finds it difficult to understand events in another, but that does not make them untrue or false or a figment of someone’s imagination. Nor is it because the people in those days were primitive and ready to believe anything. There was an entire class of highly educated Jews who disbelieved the very notion of a resurrection. Same with some of the ancient Greek philosophers.  None of these people wanted to believe the story; it was too irrational for them. 

I herewith reproduce the lyrics of the song that so moves me. After that, I offer you the URLs of five different ways this song is sung. There are more and you can access them yourselves. Please read these lyrics carefully, slowly, meditatively. And then, when you’re done, as today’s newscasters tend to say, “Have a listen.” And respond with your heart. 

Go to Dark Gethsemane

Go to dark Gethsemane, you who feel the tempter’s power;
your Redeemer’s conflict see; watch with Him one bitter hour;
turn not from His griefs away; learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

Follow to the judgment hall; view the Lord of life arraigned.
O the wormwood and the gall! O the pangs His soul sustained!
Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; learn of Him to bear the cross.

Calvary’s mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at His feet,
mark that miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete:
“It is finished!” hear Him cry; learn of Jesus Christ to die.








No comments:

Post a Comment