It’s Good Friday… and Sunday is coming.
I’ve long somewhat “struggled” with Good Friday because I’ve observed that many of our services tend to imply that we should pretend that the Resurrection hasn’t happened. And I get it. We’re trying to make much of the cross of Christ. After all, St. Paul indicated that all of our boasting should be in the cross (Gal. 6:14). Makes sense to me because “the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands” Jesus has “set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:14).
I sense this same tension in the Molt. He writes,
“In the light of the Easter events the community first looked forwards into the future. The one who appeared to them in the splendour of divine glory was their guarantee that the glory of God and his new creation were not distant, but near. In recognizing his ‘resurrection from the dead’, they also traced in themselves the ‘spirit of resurrection’, the ‘spirit which brings life’ (Rom. 8:11), and waited in the ‘power of the resurrection’ (Phil. 3:10) for the coming appearance of Christ in glory. They understood his resurrection as a preparatory and preliminary action of God in Jesus for the good of themselves and the world. God had answered the evil deed of men in crucifying Jesus in a glorious way by raising him from the dead (Acts 2:24). As the primitive Christian hymns show, his humiliation on the cross faded into the background behind the present experience of his exaltation to be Kyrios, to be the Lord who ushers in the end-time.” (The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, 178–179)
What I like about what the Molt is saying here is that the “Easter event” is tied together with the cross and the Resurrection. He also sees this deeply connected to an eschatological hope (and realization!).
As you are reflecting on the cross today, do you also have a difficult time disconnecting from the fact that Jesus physically raised from the dead, ascended to heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and will soon return?
What say you?
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Luke is a pastor-theologian living in northern California, serving as a co-lead pastor with his life, Dawn, at the Red Bluff Vineyard. Father of five amazing kids, when Luke isn’t hanging with his family, reading or writing theology, he moonlights as a fly fishing guide for Confluence Outfitters. He blogs regularly at LukeGeraty.com and regularly contributes to his YouTube channel.
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