The Easter weekend is a very significant weekend in the calendar of the church. It commemorates the divinely orchestrated events that displayed the unfailing love of God towards humanity and revealed the plan of salvation – the way of reconciliation back to the bosom of God our Father.
In today’s Good Friday service, Pastor Chris emphasizes the need for us to situate ourselves in the narrative of the crucifixion. The passage of time and the changing world have reduced the significance of the crucifixion and the resurrection to just another commercialized holiday. The emphasis of today’s sermon was for us to get back to the true meaning of the crucifixion, and to move beyond the historicity, or even the religiosity associated with the event, but rather to associate how humanity was being reconciled to God through the death of His begotten son on behalf of all humanity.
I attempt to situate ourselves in the narrative, we must first identify that the scriptures present us with four hangings that occurred on the day. According to the Gospel of Matthew, the first hanging was that of Judas, who after being convicted of his sin went out and hung himself of a tree. This was a hanging of guilt, shame, rejection, isolation from God, etc. and Judas hung himself. Pastor Chris shows how this type of death is not what we want to associate with. He then goes on to describe and interpret another two hangings on crosses on Good Friday, those of the two thieves who were crucified on the left and right of Jesus. These two hangings are also not something that we should situate ourselves in. One will need to listen to the entire message to grasp how the two thieves represent, to a large extent, two mindsets that exist on the earth today with regards to how Christ is viewed.
The only death that we must situate ourselves in is that of Jesus, for according to Galatians 2:20 and other portions of scriptures we were crucified with Christ. The second reason for situating ourselves in the death of Christ is that we can then know and experience what resurrection power is.