Good Friday

2 Corinthians 5:13-21
13If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

It is easy to see how celebrating the death of our leader might cause people to think that we are out of our mind. Why would anyone celebrate death?

I recently heard a preacher use the phrase 'death is the engine of life'. It's one of the laws of the universe evident all around us: death enables life. One can almost hear Jesus' words from John 12 in the background. "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” On Good Friday we celebrate Jesus’ death in anticipation of Easter Sunday when we rejoice in new life. But we don’t just celebrate history. We equally celebrate what God is doing today in making the Easter story part of our own story and reality. In Paul’s language, by the Spirit we participate in what Christ did at Calvary. We die with him in order that we might live with him. As our reading states: “one died for all, and therefore all died”. But how does Christ’s death relate to us dying?

We can all hopefully acknowledge that we fall short of being the people we were created to be. We regularly neglect the poor and disadvantaged. We pursue our own dreams and ambitions often at the expense of others. We compromise our identity and integrity almost on a daily basis, and only when we’ve given up the pursuit of faking it through life can we admit that we’re broken and wounded and need some help. Though made in the image of God, it’s as if that image has been distorted. The mirror is so cracked that we can hardly see who we were meant to be.

Here’s the gospel message: Jesus didn’t just come to show us what true humanity was meant to look like, he came to restore in us the image of God that had been corrupted. And he accomplished this healing through his death. Through the cross our sinful humanity waves farewell so that a new humanity can be welcomed in. As verse 21 suggests, he dies our death (the result of sin) so that we might embrace his life (and righteousness). This is the divine exchange that takes place at Calvary.

Julian of Norwich, an English mystic of the 14th century, therefore spoke of the cross as the labour pains of the new humanity. So this Good Friday as we look back, let’s celebrate our freedom from sin, death and all that robs us of being the people we were created to be. Let’s celebrate death in the knowledge that death is the engine of life. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

One final note: let’s try and remember to share communion together tonight. Though we’re not gathered together, wherever we are and whoever we’re with, let’s remember what took place 2000 years ago. My encouragement would be to crack open your best bottle of wine, and together with the bread, make a toast to the one who gave his life so that we might experience the life we were created for.