April 7 Devotion

What's So Good About Black Friday

Reading - Luke 9:28-52

We do not know the details about what was said between Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mountain where the transfiguration occurred. Scripture tells us only that they spoke of matters to be accomplished when Jesus finally arrived in Jerusalem. Implicit in the text is the notion that Jesus is understanding, perhaps for the first time, some specifics regarding the Passion. Regardless of what was said, Luke's Gospel is clear that, after his descent from that mountain, Jesus' first priority was to "set his face to go to Jerusalem." The question raised in this mediation is whether or not in this Lenten season you and I will set our faces in the same direction and go with Him.

Lent begins with the solemn service of ashes. We make promises that we will abstain from self-indulgence and will initiate new worship practices to achieve a 40-day focus on the meaning of Easter. For me, the first 4 Sundays of Lent are usually uneventful. In the main, my promises serve me well in elevating my daily Christian awareness. But by the 5^th Sunday the tide of my devotional attention begins to turn on me. Usually about this time I grow increasingly aware of a foreboding sense of dread. My inner turmoil is this: Holy Week is getting closer and, once again, I must confront the reality that I cannot get to the joy of Easter Sunday without enduring the dark anguish of Crucifixion Friday. I cannot participate in the victory without enduring the pain. I must turn my face away from my own mirror and go through Jerusalem before I get to sit in Johnson Memorial on Easter Sunday morning and sing with my brothers that Jesus Christ has risen today

How can we call such a black Friday good when it serves as a battering ram on the very foundation of our personal faith? How can we, one more time, live through the loneliest day of the year and, once again, see the limitations of our faith so exposed and vulnerable? On Good Friday I must face my two darkest secrets: the first is that I have failed today, yesterday and the days before yesterday to live for Him ... failed to put Him first in my life and the second is that, had I been there 2000 years ago, I would have failed Him then too ... failed to have helped Him carry the cross, failed to help Him endure the beating He took, or failed to admit three times before the cock crowed that I even knew Him. Crucifixion Friday is the day, above all others, when my failures in faith are most thoroughly revealed. I deal with the angst by praying ... thanks be to God for Resurrection Sunday, the power of which rescues even a poor excuse of a Christian like me.

Fortunately for us all, however, the analysis does not end there. To end there is to leave our faces still squarely set only in our own mirrors. Shame on me for making my discomfort the focal point of Good Friday. How dare any of us allow any of our personal inadequacies to interfere with the power of God's message in the Crucifixion. The point of Good Friday is not that it exposes our guilt about our failures to live for our Lord. The point of Good Friday is that the Crucifixion is the single event in history which God chose to justify, sanctify and redeem mankind. The cross is the medium which He ordained to overcome our constant inadequacy and state of sin. We must not just set our faces toward Jerusalem this Lenten season; we must try to place the whole of our beings there. Good Friday is not black Friday; we should call it Great Friday. First, before He arrived in Jerusalem, God transfigured His Son and then, on Great Friday, He used Him to claim all mankind. Holy Week begins in 2 days. Hallelujah.

Thomas Craig