Shatterproof is my new blog for 2007. 2006 was the year of the Jo. 2007 is about that solid core inside me that keeps me from shattering completely. 2007 is about God, and the transformation of me and my life I hope for in Him.
Welcome readers, old and new, to Shatterproof
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Good Friday meditations
Thoughts and ideas from our a series of talks at Good Friday meditation service.
Despite Jesus' public solitude of the cross ahead of Him; despite Him being troubled at His separation from the Father, Jesus' 1st concern was for his troubled disciples. They were troubled because their teacher, their friend, their rock tells them He is leaving. But He is going that He might come back. Even in death, Jesus is not static.
He comforts them. He tells them to trust in Him. He will not let them - nor us - be cast adrift, alone in a world of meaninglessness. No. He is going ahead of us to the eternal life in the Father's presence, the life beyond this life that gives meaning to this life.
When we are in Christ Jesus we are in fellowship with the Father, and the Spirit is in us too. Jesus went, but sent His Spirit to us, to be our comforter, our companion. He has not left us as orphans.
And He asks us to trust Him. And to love. And to obey. If we love Him we will want to obey Him.
Our way to God is through Jesus. And we are comforted by the sure knowledge of His love for us. Which He proves to us by dying for us.
Glory has come to Jesus through His disciples. But how did this rag-tag bunch of people, chosen by Him, drawn to Him, all get along? How did they learn from Jesus to become church - for they were the first church.
They were drawn together in unity by their love for Him.
Jesus prays for His disciples to be one. What does it mean to be 'one'? It doesn't mean uniformity. It doesn't mean we will always agree with one another, like the same songs, styles of doing church, have the same passions. A body has many parts - yet it's one body. In order for a body - for the church - to work, there needs to be difference and diversity. It is when we polarise our differences, focus on what we don't agree on, that conflict arises. And conflict can lead to violence and death.
Oneness is about completeness. All things are complete in Jesus. Everything belongs to Him. Yet, because He is in us, everything belongs to us. As does every person. As does the responsibility to one another, to our world, belong to us, just as it does to Him.
It is in Jesus that we become united, become complete. We may not be fully finished - but we are complete enough to do what we have to do.
Pride. Greed. Jealousy. Fear. Selfishness. These turn us away from Christ.
Despite all he knew about Jesus, Judas still turned away from Him. Despite all he knew, Judas' heart was not right with Jesus: he let his earthly, worldly desires, he let the world take a higher place in his life than Jesus. A deep-seated sin had a grip on Judas' heart and paralysed his conscience.
Jesus was not arrested because of Judas. Had He so wished, He could have escaped. Jesus was not arrested because He was over-powered, but because He was willing to submit to the will and duty of the Father. Despite being fully human, Jesus was willing to dies so that we might be taken into His Kingdom. Us - full of our pride, greed and all other sins that separate us from Jesus.
Despite being about to die, Jesus is still concerned for His disciples, demanding the soldiers let them go. Those who commit to Jesus will not be abandoned to evil.
Peter, by wielding the sword, is exercising his own will. This was not the will of Jesus, who rebukes Peter. Jesus is following God's will - willingly.
Peter's denials of Jesus - a man willing to raise a sword to protect his master one minute, succumbing to his own fear the next, denying Jesus.
Despite His arrest, Jesus was in control of His own death.
Jesus is the new Adam. Our cleansing begins in the garden. Adam, who had all that was good turned to sin. Jesus, in the garden where there is evil, submitted to that evil so that he might bring good.
Why is Pilate so bad? After all, he was only doing his job, doing what the Jewish leaders wanted. He didn't want to hand Jesus over to the Jews - he offered them ways out of killing Jesus.
But he gave in. In the end he handed Jesus over, against his better judgement. He gave in to the pressure of others. Which we do time and time again.
But God doesn't want us to be not like Pilate. He wants us to be like Jesus. And He's transforming us into Jesus' likeness. If we follow Him.
Pilate didn't know what He was doing. Jesus knew what He was doing.
Even when you know the right thing, we don't always do it. Jesus had choice, being fully man, and He made the right choice.
He had the Father's love - He knew the Father's love - and He gives this out to us. It is His love that enables us to stand firm and do the right thing.
The cross is the crux of our faith. Without it, our faith is pointless. The cross is the point at which death is defeated and we are saved.
God, who knows everything, knew that He would raise Jesus from the dead. So the big question is: if He knew this, then why was the cost so huge for God?
Take an example from chemistry.
Group 1 - The Alkali Metals: lithium, sodium , potassium , rubidium , cesium , francium. Introduce one of these metals to water and there's an explosion.
God is the source of life. God is full of life. He is life perfect - bursting with lifeness. Death is the opposite of god. It's power is only in its ability to decay and destroy.
Like alkali metals and water, life and death can live apart from one another. But, mix life and death together - there's an explosion. Storm, darkness, earthquakes, the temple curtain torn from top to bottom.
And when life and death mix, like cesium and water, both are affected. Neither are the same again. Through the cross deaths' power is defeated. But during that time when Jesus, the God of life, goes through death, the Trinity is split in part. The perfect family is divorced. The cost is far greater than death alone: God should never have to experience this separation.
The cost of God dying is unfathomable. It is not temporary - Jesus forever bears the marks of the cross. His wounds are the power of the cross.
Death has, since time began, enthralled and troubled each and everyone who has ever lived. Grief and memorial are a part of being human.
We grieve because we have lost - and are lost. Death is the end of physical life. When we encounter death we also relive the death of our hopes, dreams, expectations, opportunities. These die along with the one we grieve for. Death leads to regrets.
Death resonates with lost hopes in our lives. Death, grief, memorial can take us back to those dark places in our lives: dashed hopes, broken dreams, missed opportunities. When we mourn our friends we also mourn our lost hopes.
But it we wrap up our hopes and bury them with Jesus, they can be resurrected, as He is. Unwrapping our hopes requires courage and a change of thought. In mourning, perhaps we become used to letting go of our hopes. We are encouraged to hold on to our hope in Christ.
Trust in God. We can trust in Him because of what Jesus has done.
Trust in Him. He will comfort us.
As an aside, Aphra posted a thought-provoking reflection on Good Friday.
