adelaide place baptist church

I had a conversation with someone earlier on the week who was looking forward to this weekend as she gets a four day weekend. I said it must be nice to be off on Good Friday and Easter Monday to which she looked a bit puzzled and asked what Good Friday is. Now, this is an intelligent young woman but she never knew why she gets this Friday as a day off. So I told her that today is the day that Jesus was crucified. More blank looks. So I told her the story.

Good Friday is a name that needs some explanation. How is it good? Who is it good for? It wasn’t good for Jesus who suffered the most horrific death, so brutal even the Romans eventually abolished crucifixion. It wasn’t good for Jesus who endured a sham of a trial before a coward after being betrayed by a member of His inner circle. It wasn’t good to die in pain.

But it was good for us as humanity. It was good that God decided to let someone else take our sin upon Himself. It is good for us that we don’t have to pay the price for our own sin, something that we could never do. It is good for us that we can go before a Holy God with confidence because of what one man did. When God looks at us He sees the blood shed by Jesus at the crucifixion, not the sin that pollutes our relationship with God. This day is the most momentous in history, apart from Sunday coming of course.

Today is the best day in the Christian calendar for devotional meditation. There is opportunity to go on walks of witness and to go to three or six hour services that consider the various words of Jesus when He was on the cross. It is sad to me that Christians don’t sometimes bother with going to church on this day when this day matters so much. It shows a lack of understanding of what this day means. It means everything. It makes me even sadder that I have to explain to people what Good Friday is, but at the same time I am glad because it lets me tell others about this wonderful man Jesus. All the better because people now have little preconceived ideas about what church is like.

Jesus dies for us this day, thanks be to God.

Mark 14:32-42

There is so much that can be written about Maundy Thursday. The Last Supper, Jesus talking with His disciples, the betrayal and arrest. The whole Maundy Thursday story is one that deserves and repays close, meditative reading. Reading the text slowly transports you and allows you to look in on that time and imagine the smells, the looks on people’s faces, the noise coming from Jerusalem as the Passover feast begins. It would have been quite a place to be. Try and do that, or watch one of the many movies that has these scenes and see it how it has been done and let fire your imagination and wonder.

I mentioned Jesus Christ Superstar yesterday. I remember when I saw this musical for the first time. The Last Supper is the opening number of the second act and it is followed by Jesus singing a solo in the Garden of Gesthemane. I’ve seen the Passion of the Christ, The Greatest Story Ever Told and others but I think in Jesus Christ Superstar the composer of the  music, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and particularly the lyricist, Tim Rice, captured the scene in a most remarkable way. It can’t replace careful meditation on the Gospel text, nothing can or should but if you get the chance have a listen to what is said in Jesus Christ Superstar.

I think it was so remarkable because there was an intentional decision to focus upon the humanity of Jesus. When I read the story in Mark’s Gospel of the Garden of Gesthemane I see a truly remarkable human being in pain and in suffering. I think Jesus showed amazing superhuman strength, maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was His divinity, but He kept going, He was awake when all others were asleep and were struggling. So compounded with fatigue Jesus cries to the Father to let the cup pass Him by.  He pleaded, He prayed but He must have known Himself it would all be for nothing and that He would be faithful to His task.

Jesus knew He had to suffer for our sake, He knew the betrayer was approaching. Did He want Simon Peter and John to be awake so that He might be saved? What would a lesser man have done? Jesus didn’t shirk His responsibilities and give up on His mission. He knew that in the end it would come to this. Betrayed, arrested and tomorrow facing trial in the biggest miscarriage of justice ever recorded.

Ask yourself the question, what would you have done? Then be grateful and give thanks for what Jesus did today and think about what happens tomorrow.

The bible doesn’t tell us what Jesus did on Wednesday. The assumption is that He stayed in Bethany with His disciples.

The liturgy focuses on the Old Testament on this day, particularly Isaiah 49: 1-7. In this passage the Lord’s Servant is commissioned. As I reflect upon these words I realise that none of what happened in Holy Week is a surprise to Jesus or God the Father. God has the advantage of an eternal perspective so for Him there is no history. But there is for us. When we see some of the language used in Isaiah 49 we can see Jesus clearly in the text. Reflect upon these words today.

A little historical background. It is generally accepted that there are two Isaiah’s. 1 Isaiah is up to chapter 39 and 2 Isaiah is chapter 40 onwards. 2 Isaiah was written after Israel was exiled by the Babylonians. To see how they felt about this take a look at Psalm 137. The people felt abandoned by God, that He had broken His promise to them. In actual fact this exile was the most productive and creative period in the history of Israel. The people were given hope by the words of the prophet, that God wasn’t finished with Israel. Just like the Easter story reminds us that God isn’t finished with us either. So on this day Jesus rested. He would need it for what happens tomorrow.