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.
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