7 April 2023 Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12;  Psalm 22;  Hebrews 10:16-25;  John 18:1-19:42

Father, forgive them; they know not what they are doing.

But we know – do we?

Do we ‘blame’ God for sending Jesus ‘to die’.  Because, in our minds, God ‘required’ Jesus to die to ‘tally the books’, ‘pay the toll’.

Father, forgive them; they know not what they are doing.

But we know – do we?

But what if we change those thoughts around.  What if we see God as free to love and forgive us, without having to punish us or someone else in our place.  What if we see God as the father in the parable who ran out to meet his errant son, to embrace him without any thought of punishment.  What if we see God as one who wants to love, restore, create and renew, and Jesus embodies that love and shows it be being willing to endure even to the end.  What if we see God, not as the killer, but the killed.

Father, forgive them; they know not what they are doing.

But we know – do we?

Why do we need to see God as needing ‘someone’  to pay up for our misdeeds.  What if we change that and start to see God as challenging us with love and hope, who keeps looking into our eyes, and accompanying us in our frailty and failures.  What if the real gift is not paradise but God.  What if salvation is simply an ongoing relationship of love and hope.

Father, forgive them; they know not what they are doing.

But we know – do we?

Can we see on this cross a revelation at a moment of time of the love which is eternally in the heart of God, and is lived out in the long trek of Jesus.  Jesus died for us, against us, within us, before us – in a moment frozen in time for all time, and perhaps now, we can begin to know.

Father, forgive them; they know not what they are doing.

But we know – do we?