In the Christian custom I was elevated in, the events of Excellent Friday were being reduced to a transaction. “He paid out a personal debt he did not owe/ I owed a credit card debt I could not pay” had been the lyrics to a tune we sang that summed it all up.
That way of comprehension the explanations for the dying of Jesus isn’t without the need of biblical benefit. It is a single of quite a few theories we have pieced alongside one another to response the question, “Why did Jesus die?” (Jarrod Hubbard touched on this yesterday in his GFM report on womanist soteriology.)
Just about every unique strategy has caused damaged church buildings, fractured interactions, and even war. I develop into considerably less curious about these theories with every single passing 12 months. For individuals who see the Bible as a puzzle with pieces that in shape together beautifully, this will make them furious.
“How can you not evidently see which principle is clearly the proper just one, and that it is the a single that I individually keep?” But any individual who has browse the Bible at all (and is genuine) knows that the parts never click on into position with as a great deal ease as we hope.
But as my theological curiosity wanes, my resonance with the drama of Great Friday boosts.
For many Christians who will recall and reenact the tale nowadays, our providers will start out in light-weight. With each individual flip in the narrative, a candle will be extinguished, and darkness will overtake the home, reversing the illumination of Introduction.
Jesus is condemned and a candle is extinguished.
The cross is put on his back again and a candle is extinguished.
He falls for the initially time, and it receives darker.
He satisfies his mom, darker even now.
Simon the Cyrene normally takes up the cross, a bystander wipes his encounter, he falls again, and the gals weep–darker, darker, darker and darker even now.
Last but not least, Jesus is dead. The light-weight of the entire world is extinguished, and we are in overall darkness.
If you have ever expert a Very good Friday assistance like this, you know the supreme dissonance involving the moments when the final candle is extinguished, and we walk out of the sanctuary, and when we are all standing jointly in the lobby, quietly wondering, “What now?”
The dichotomy concerning the two times can be so absurd and humorous. But that is for the reason that, no subject how tricky we consider to continue being in the second, we know what is coming.
It can be complicated to bear in mind that the first individuals who lived the story did not know what would happen up coming.
But in the latest a long time, the “not knowing” is not as hard to fathom.
As I feel about the soreness in the world–families of Israeli hostages heading to mattress in anguish each individual night time, little ones in Gaza coming out of the other finish of bombings with burns all around their bodies, households escaping terror only to be met with razor wire–the darkness with no any hope of mild is simpler to fully grasp.
For these and so numerous far more, the darkness is comprehensive, and Jesus is dead.
Senior editor at Good Religion Media.