Good Friday thoughts

Here's a thought prompted by Jars of Clay Liquid, the Vigilantes of Love When you're blinded by the Light and 2 Corinthians 5:21...

No one noticed that first Good Friday – except a handful of angry priests, a rent-a-mob crowd and a few baffled soldiers on crucifixion detail. It was just an ordinary day in the Roman Empire, not written up in the annals of the Caesars and histories of the elites – no one pays attention to obscure corners and unimportant people.

Likewise, today so many are oblivious to its significance – the grace of God slips in under the radar; God reconciling the world to himself and no one notices; Jesus who knew no sin, quietly and resolutely becoming sin for us and the world so that we might have a shot at righteousness – and the world carries on shopping and gardening and planning BBQs if the weather holds

But for us who are paying attention, he invites us to come and see, to gaze in wonder at these events, to bring our fears, pretence and sorrows and find them melting away in his embrace.

This is the one thing, the one thing that I know – he didn’t die for nothing; he died for me and you; he died to put things right; to reverse the unravelling of creation caused by human sin and rebellion; he died for the small sins – our greed, bitterness and unkind words; he died for the big sins – the slave trade, the holocaust, the world system that means someone dies of poverty every three seconds.

Somehow – in a way only God can fathom and organise – in that obscure corner of the Roman empire, a man on a stick was God putting things right; Jesus became sin – with all its ugly consequences – so that we might become like Jesus – the righteousness of God and part of his wave for putting things right breaking across the world.