“And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis Chapter 1)
This day, known worldwide and for 1000s of years, as ‘Good Friday’ is the most solemn of Holy Days in the Christian tradition. There are many reasons for the solemn, quiet, and reflective nature of this day. We just heard the narrative of the Passion from the Gospel of John. It began with Jesus’ arrest in the hillside gardens of Gethsemane, progressed through the hearings and trials in the courts of very powerful people (in human terms, that is), and then followed the path of Jesus to the rock quarry just outside the city gates, called Golgotha.
Along the way, Jesus was betrayed, denied, scourged, spit upon, beaten, ridiculed, and ultimately killed.
Along the way, Jesus was betrayed, denied, scourged, spit upon, beaten, ridiculed, and ultimately killed.
With confidence, I can say that none of these things would make our ‘good’ list and yet we label this day with that adjective. There are some etymologists who draw a connection between ‘Good’ and ‘Holy’ in ancient English usage. That may be true, but I do believe that there is something deeper than that. Even something hidden within the subconscious of our theological lives traced through God’s gift of salvation.
That narrative begins with the story of creation in the 1st chapter of the Book of Genesis. In that one chapter, the word ‘good’ is used seven times. After God said, “Let there be light!” God saw that the light was good. God saw goodness after forming the dry ground, bringing forth vegetation, creating the sun, the moon, the animals in the sea and the beings that crawl on the earth. And in the last verse of that opening chapter, shortly after creating humankind, God surveys the entirety of creation and knew it was “very good.”
In this year’s Lenten class on Salvation, we talked about how the creation narrative leaves us with a gift often taken for granted. If you remember, God creates all these amazing building blocks but leaves much work to be done, creative energy that continues even today. God gifted humankind, the creation in God’s image, with the responsibility to “subdue and hold dominion” over all of these good things.
The treacherous nature of this gift is filled with boundless potential and it is a humbling responsibility to foster, and enhance, and develop God’s creation.
We are so used to possessing this gift, that we forget what the act of the gift teaches us about relationships and about life itself.
Instead of prescribing each step that we take, God opened up an opportunity to be intra-creational partners. God gave up on the details to allow us an opportunity to form the world in which we live. That is not how we imagine an all-powerful being. A human, with power, hoards it. God gives it away. This gift is what we call love. There are many times that God was and will be disappointed with what humans create, the way we treat one another, but God never forgets that the core of creation is ‘very good.’
So that leads us back to this day we call “Good.” We grieve for every step that Jesus took on that day, but Jesus willingly made each of them. We fear the pain, suffering, and death that Jesus experienced, because beyond those experiences is the great mystery. Jesus, on the other hand, steps right into death. He gave of himself. He shared his life as an example that through death comes resurrection. And for that, it is ‘good.’
We can’t put our minds around our own resurrection (and we can’t sense, at least not physically, the resurrections of those we love who have preceded us in death), but Jesus promises us that it is even greater than the gift given to us through our creation. It is eternal and is greater than anything we can imagine.
That does not mean that we are supposed to wait patiently for death to take us. We still have the responsibility to live into the call of God to be intra-creational beings. For each of us, that call nags us to challenges and hurdles that will grow us in our relationship with God. As we move through the challenges, parts of us will die while others are reborn, as we come closer to God’s dreams for us.
As you reflect on this day called ‘good,’ remember God’s good gifts that came to be known through Christ’s death.
Good Friday A
April 22, 2011
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