Day 93: Crucifixion 3 (Good Friday)

April 3

Today's Connected Passages: 

• Matthew 27:11-49, 27:54-56 
• Mark 15:1-41 
• Luke 22:63-23:49 
• John 19:1-37 
• 1 Cor. 1:22-23, Hebrews 10:19-20 

Transcript

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Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. Thank you so much for joining us here on day number 93 of the Canon Connected, which also happens to be, if you're caught up on the reading plan, actual Good Friday, crucifixion day number three for us, where we talk about the actual crucifixion stories. We look at the four accounts in the Gospels, and as well, I added a couple of very short passages from the New Testament in the form of commentary on this. And today, as Christians, we commemorate, we remember, and in my opinion, a very solemn way, um exactly what Jesus did for us on the cross. I've been going back and forth between celebrate and commemorate based on the feast and the festivals in the Old Testament, and I think that's entirely appropriate for this week as well. Some of so much of Holy Week is celebratory. But today I think is a very, very serious and very reverent day on the Christian calendar. And it is good. Um we have a very bad understanding of good, in my opinion, in American English, because we think good has to be positive or nice or pleasant or beautiful, and in a large sense, the crucifixion of Jesus was none of those things. And yet good, whenever it truly means what God I think intended for it to mean, whenever it is an expression of love for a person where you want what is absolutely best for them, no matter what it looks like, and even if it's not beautiful, even if it's not nice and it's not pleasant, and even if it is as horrific as Roman crucifixion, which again was so bad, just as was prophesied that we read earlier this week in Isaiah 52, just before Isaiah 53, that you couldn't even tell Jesus was a man anymore. Now, John 19, one that you read today reflects that through the Greek word for flogging, severe flogging. Um, as horrific and as excruciating as the pain was, and again, as unpleasant as it is, today is good because we know what happened on this day. Jesus paid the full price for our sins. And so today we look at the actual four crucifixion narratives as given to us in the four gospels. And the details differ. We've covered that, but they tell the same main story that Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate, he stood before Caiaphas, he stood before Herod in various ways. They all dismissed him. The Jews obviously, you know, accused him of heresy. Jesus claimed to be the Lord from Psalm 110-1. He claimed to be the God from Daniel 7, coming on the cloud, sitting at the right hand of God. There was zero doubt what he commute he was communicating to them, which is why they were so riled up and so angry and so offended and outraged and ready to kill him, and why they manipulated the Romans to killing Jesus. Um, that's the first part of the story. We also see how in all the accounts how Jesus interacts with the other two criminals on the cross. Don't miss this in their story. It is absolutely essential to me to understand that it's not just grace in the sense of Jesus indiscriminately chose one of the criminals to say, I'm gonna save you and you're gonna be with me in paradise today, and the other one he didn't. There was confession and repentance as well there. So we still see that the two men had a choice even in their moments before death. And their stories are a part of the Jesus' crucifixion to me, because they both responded to Jesus, one positively and one negatively, one with repentance and understanding who Jesus is. He's innocent. And, you know, you know, uh, please be with me today, Jesus, Jesus, and Jesus promised to Kim, you'll be with me in paradise. These kind of things are, again, details that I think absolutely matter that the gospel writers gave us for um for our benefit to understand, again, how we are supposed to respond to the crucifixion. They vary in details on what Jesus said. I think Luke is the only one who said that he said, Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. Into your hands I commit my spirit. We read a few days ago from Psalm 31.5. Um, I think that uh that John is the only one who said, uh, it is finished uh right before he died, which possibly means paid in full. If it does mean that, it reflects the ideas of redemption that we've talked about this year, that God buys us back, you know, by the blood of Jesus Christ. It definitely reflects those ideas. And we definitely see, again, in every one of the accounts just how unfair and how horrific and how you know excruciatingly painful it was. The things that they did to him, the nails, the spear, um, the inhumane treatment, being treated by something less as something less than human, um, and being held uh forced to hang up there to asphyxiate, to suffocate, you know, before he died. And so this is our gospel. This is why it is Good Friday, because this is what we deserve. The wages of sin is death. And in the two commentaries, 1 Corinthians, it's foolishness to the Jews, the cross of Christ. Why? Because they asked for signs from heaven. And we're going to see this in the silent Saturday readings tomorrow. The Jews in Jesus' day, they wanted a sign. They want to see miraculous things from heaven, just like in the days of Elijah, and Jesus didn't always give it to them. Jesus gave miraculous signs to the humble, but to the proud, he gave rejection. And he told them, The only sign I'm giving you is the one of Jonah, and who was buried, who was in the fish for three days and nights, just as I'll be buried. And that's part of the readings tomorrow. This they they wanted signs, and God didn't give it to them. And the Greeks wanted wisdom. They want to be intelligent, they want to be perceived as, you know, these great deep fellow philosophical thinkers, and the cross is so offensive to that because it's God's way of saying, you can't get to me on your own. You have to come to me by confessing your sin and admitting that you were not good enough, you're not smart enough to come to me. And so this is offensive to people. We have to remember that on this Good Friday. This is the message of Christianity. The cross will offend people because it communicates that we are sinful and God is holy. And the only way to him is through Jesus. And the only way to him is through carrying our cross as well. We'll see that tomorrow as well. Jesus took this symbol of humiliation and excruciating pain, and he turned it on his head and said, This is how you're going to have to live. You're going to have to die to yourself, this instrument of execution. You're going to have to live it daily to follow me. Because that's Christianity. That deeply intimate association with who Jesus is. And then Hebrews 10, as we've talked about so many times, to a first century Jew, this is mind-blowing, mind-boggling. Again, this would have been offensive to a lot of people. We can boldly enter heaven's most holy place because of the blood of Jesus. Not just the priest anymore, not just the Ark of the Covenant, not just the Holy of Holies, not just the curtain, but by his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the most holy place. I can't think of a better way to conclude a connected reading, a connected study, a podcast on the crucifixion of Jesus than with that thought. And so tomorrow we'll do something very special. We're not going to really have a podcast. I'll come on here for about three minutes. Few moments of silence, a short prayer, and that's it. No commentary from me, because I want to reflect the silence of God on that Saturday by allowing God to speak to you. There will be scriptures, there's still a lot of them, somewhere between 80 and 120 verses on Silent Saturday. But I want God to speak to you. I want my voice to be silent. And whatever you choose to do tomorrow is totally up to you, and you between you and God, the Holy Spirit's leading. But I hope that God speaks clearly and that human voices are diminished, that noise from our culture, especially, but even in some sense, you know, teachers and preachers. Because you'll hear from them on Sunday. But I hope tomorrow God speaks poignantly about what um what the crucifixion truly means and what the three days truly mean, because that's what we're going to be reading tomorrow. So come back and be with us tomorrow, as even though we will be silent, we will continue in a manner of speaking. Uh keep reading the connections, seeing the connections, saying the connections. Thank you.