Spectacle of love

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here.” Mark 16:6
Throughout the world, Christians remember the “big three” events from Jesus’ life. We call them Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. Very few witnessed the first and third events. Only Mary and Joseph saw the birth of God’s Son. Later a few shepherds would poke their heads into the delivery room. After that, Magi came to see the child Jesus, but they didn’t see the birth.

The resurrection of Jesus didn’t have any witnesses either. A rock-rolling angel terrified Roman guards before they ran from the cemetery. Otherwise nobody saw the actual event.

Watching the execution of the Son

The event that had many eyewitnesses was Good Friday.

To me it seems a little backward. One would think that God would parade joyful Christmas and victorious Easter before the world. Instead it’s the execution of his Son that is held up for all to gawk at. When God appears at his weakest, his creatures are allowed to watch.

On that Good Friday, pilgrims from around the world were spectators of this cruel sport, chanting for their team to crucify him. Then they watched as their team did it. God, like a ragged scarecrow, hangs from a post.

And to rub salt in his holy wounds, they taunted him to come down if he were really God. All that was and is bad with the world seemed to win over all that was good with the world. So pathetic was the scene that the earth rumbled in the darkness at midday . . . and there was standing room only.

At first glance it’s ironic that the gospel writers highlighted the dark low of our Lord, using so much ink to document the details for the world to read . . . that God died.

Seeing the greatest exhibition of love

“You are looking for Jesus . . . who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here.” More improbable words could not be spoken. God pulled off the impossible, and it was shared with the first-shift embalming crew coming to the tomb as Jerusalem slept. Why didn’t Jesus reappear on Pilate’s porch and get in his face? Why didn’t he show up in the temple courts to see the look on the face of the high priest? Why didn’t he ascend to the pinnacle of the temple and blast the treetops with a withering shout: “I was dead, but death couldn’t hold on to me!”?

Instead Jesus chooses to woo people with his love. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). The public execution of Jesus is the greatest exhibition of love that the world will ever witness. And he wants us to see it and believe it.
Author: James A. Mattek
Volume 95, Number 3
Issue: March 2008
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