· We’ve heard this
story of the Passion of Jesus Christ so many times, we could probably recite it
from memory. I think it is worth hearing on a Good Friday, not just because
it’s “tradition”, but because the story is so vital, so important, so very
frightening and yet grace-filled, that it NEEDS
to be heard. Any number of people fine a solace in the story of a God who
suffers with them.
· Another related idea
came to my attention in my preparations for the services of Holy Week. Jesus
was crucified at Golgotha, the “Skull” or “the Place of the Skull.” It’s
also called Calvary, which comes from the Latin word for skull. So the
hill may have been skull-shaped. Or maybe there were the skulls of those
executed still there. We cannot be sure.
· There is still
another interpretation. The tradition of the time held a different idea and many
teachers in the early church held to this tradition. They said that Jesus was
crucified at the site of Adam’s grave, where Adam’s remains were buried. The
icons of the Eastern Churches show the cross of Jesus standing over a skull and
bones.
· “So what?” we might say. Yet the symbolism is
great. Jesus, the obedient second Adam, is executed over the grave of the first
Adam, who brought death into the world by his disobedience. Out of death comes
life, and we receive more in Jesus than was lost in Adam.
· The blood of Christ,
spilled on the cross, enlivens us all for we are all dead and buried in Adam.
Now however we are dead and buried with Christ in our baptism… and we all know
what comes after Jesus’ death and burial.
· Jesus Christ is the
first of a new creation, which like the seeds at this time of year, comes forth
from the shadows and grows without our help and often without our knowledge.
· To see the cross
then, reminds us that the circle has been made complete; God’s desire for
creation is again in place, for the father of all the living – and all of us,
the living – has been redeemed by the Life of the World. As Paul wrote:
for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. (1 Corinthians
15:22)
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