Good Friday Freedom

I would prefer to think of myself, as Martin Luther once said, as a painted sinner in need of a painted savior. That is, I would like to believe that the threads of brokenness and rebellion and idol-worship did not run through the core of my being. And thus I would prefer to think that Jesus had only to die a little death for me, or at least that my part did not hurt quite so much as yours.

But Good Friday will not allow me to use my illusion for very long.

Good Friday, with it's gruesome twists and turns, calls me to the stark-reality of my situation and His. And what this does for me in my every day life is free me from having to pretend that I'm no longer in need of a savior. All my secret thoughts, all my shameful pride, all my darkest fears about myself and what might be wrong about me are all confirmed at the cross. I am, indeed, a mess.

As I learned in a Sonship Bible study many years ago: cheer up, you are worse off than you think. When I can bring myself by faith to embrace this fact, it relieves me from the posturing and performing that mark so much of my interactions with other people and with God.

And the corollary to this is that the cross is even more powerful and effectual than I could ever imagine.

Indeed, so wonderfully powerful is Jesus work on the cross and his subsequent resurrection that while it confirms the darkest fears that we have about ourselves (that we're not completely put-together, nice, basically good people who happen to do a few wrong things now and then), it also radically re-makes us once we have embraced the reality of Christ's work in our own lives.

The New Testament has lots to say about us being sinners before we meet Christ. But not once does the New Testament refer to us as sinners after we have been found by him. In other words, our fundamental identity once we are in Christ shifts from sinner to sons and daughters.

This does not mean that we do not sin, but rather that our worst and darkest fears about ourselves are exposed on Good Friday and dealt with in the mystery of His work betwwen Good Friday and Easter Sunday. There is an exchange: our identity as sinners for His identity as the Son. We share in His Sonship now, no longer primarily identified as sinners and therefore recklessly free to admit all the worst about ourselves--and all the best about the new identity and hope we have in Christ.

Happy Easter, my friends. He is risen! Hallelujah!