We murdered God on a Friday. Why do we call it “Good?”

It was Friday. In a few hours, the Sabbath would begin, and along with it, Passover. 

The night before, Thursday, Jesus and his disciples ate the Passover meal together. In what was the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus shared the cup and bread with them to signify the New Covenant He was making with them and with all humanity. 

God’s relationship with humanity had been defined since the flood by Covenant. It began with the rainbow, which was a Covenant that He would never again destroy the earth with flood. Then, much later, He called a man named Abram to take his family and leave his home among the idol worshippers of Ur of the Chaldees and go to a land called Canaan.

Abram left what was a thriving and sophisticated civilization to live as a tent-dwelling nomad. He was an immigrant and a stranger everywhere he went all the rest of his days. He lived a life of service to the Lord that was separate and distinct from everyone else on the planet. 

People worshipped a plethora of “gods” at that time in history. Each household even had their own “gods.” Abram, who God renamed as Abraham, and his family were almost the only people on this earth who knew and followed the actual God Who made us. 

There were scattered exceptions to this idol worshipping lostness that mankind labored under. The mysterious and prophetic king of Salem, Melchizedek being the most notable among them. 

But Abraham and his descendants were called out of the rest humanity to bear the message of the One True God. The Israelites, as Abraham’s descendants came to be known, were, for thousands of years, the deposit of faith. 

They were also the people God would use to give the gift of Himself to the world. Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and the Son of Mary, and Mary was a descendant of Abraham. 

It was all bound together by prophecy and Covenant. God made a Covenant with the Israelites at Sinai and then He renewed His Covenant with the children of Abraham repeatedly. Each time He did it He emphasized that they must not, on pain of inciting His wrath to the point of bringing destruction down on their heads, worship other gods. 

God repeated these two commands — don’t worship other gods, don’t sacrifice your children to them — again and again. Each time He repeated it, He coupled it with the warning that this sin would cause Him to turn His face away from them. 

Jesus, on the night He was arrested, created a New Covenant. His Covenant was with the whole human race. Take. Drink. This is my blood of the New Covenant which is shed for you and for many, He said as He handed them the wine. 

Twenty-four hours later, He was dead. 

The Levitical priests of the line of the Aaron who God had specifically created as His Priests, fell into the idolatry of power. Caiaphas, the Chief Priest, who was the spiritual and physical descendent of Aaron, led them. From Golden Calf to the power of Rome, the circle was complete. 

Always and everywhere, false gods will eventually get around to demanding human sacrifice. The sacrifice can be unnecessary wars to make money for a few people, brutal prison camps, starvation and grinding poverty, or denial of medical care, but it is at root always the same idolatry of the false god of power and money.

We murdered God. 

Caiaphas was — had to be — the Chief Priest. When Caiaphas and the other priests chose to murder God at Passover ,They were fulfilling prophecy. They had studied this prophecy all their lives, and yet they were blind to what it meant. 

But it wasn’t Caiaphas and Pilate alone who murdered God. 

We did it. All of us. 

Jesus died for our sins; your sins, and my sins. 

That’s how ugly it is when you tell a lie, or commit a rape, or commit adultery, or extort a bribe, or maliciously slander, or murder another human being. 

The torture, humiliation and agony that Jesus suffered is the ugliness of your sins and mine spilled out in blood and pain. 

As Jesus hung on that cross, God did to Him what He told the Israelites He would do to them if they worshipped other gods, He turned His face away. Jesus hung there in agony and He was alone as only someone God has abandoned can be alone; stripped of hope, pity, love. 

Alone. 

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? He wailed. 

That is the ugliness of sin. 

It was Friday. Why is this day unlike all other days? Because it is the Lord’s Passover. 

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us the priest says and it is true. 

Good Friday is “good” because the Lamb of God, who is God, is sacrificed for us. 

Think about that. 

Just stop what you are doing and let that thought penetrate. 

We are the children of the New Covenant. We are grafted onto the Old Covenant between God and Abraham. And we are the fruit of the fulfillment of the promises God made to Abraham and David and through the prophets to everyone. 

We don’t have to make blood sacrifice at a temple in an attempt to wash away our sin. Jesus did it for us. 

The New Covenant is bound up in the Gospel teachings of Christ. The Old Covenant is fulfilled, but not destroyed. 

Sin is still sin, and it still breaks the Covenant between us and God. Idolatry is still an absolute deal-breaker between us and God. 

To be part of the New Covenant we have to follow Christ and Him Crucified and we have to follow Him only. We cannot have any other god. 

Good Friday is “good” because it tore the curtain that separated the people from the Holy of Holies from top to bottom. Now each one of us as an individual can approach the throne of God. I know this is true because I have done it myself. 

We are all God’s chosen people now. There is no one, not slave nor free, male nor female, greek nor Jew, who is outside the love of God in Christ Jesus. 

Today is a day for us to consider the price God paid for our sins. It is a day for us to kneel before the Cross in humility, gratitude and love. 

Note: I paraphrased and referenced a lot of Scripture in this post. The history of the Passover meal Jesus celebrated with His disciples is found in all the Gospels. Jesus’ institution of the New Covenant is found in Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25. God instituted His Covenant with the Israelites in Exodus 19-24. God renewed His Covenant with the Israelites many times, both through Moses and through Joshua. It’s lengthy and repetitive. You can find a number of instances in Genesis, Deuteronomy and Joshua. Why is this day unlike all other days? Is the first of the four questions asked during the celebration of the Passover. The youngest child there answers the questions. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Is a prophecy from first line of Psalm 22. Jesus fulfilled this prophecy when He was hanging on the cross. You can read it in Matthew 27:46 and Luke 15:34. Abram was called in Genesis 15:7. You can read about Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18-20. Melchizedek’s importance in Christianity is referenced in Psalm 110:4 and Hebrews 7:3. I paraphrased Galatians 3:28 in my usage of slave nor free, Greek nor Jew, male nor female.