Life Despite Dying
In the Good News of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the resurrection is the greatest news. It is the most exciting piece in the Gospels. In our church calendar Easter occupies a special place and we live towards it and from it. At Easter the church sings: the Lord has risen! At Easter the church confesses: where, o death, is your victory? Where, o death, is your sting? We sing this on Sunday morning even while the hammer blows of Friday are still ringing in our heads. We stand on the stone that was rolled away, as it were, and we call triumphantly towards Golgotha: Jesus Christ is risen today, alleluia!
On Maundy Thursday everything is folded in darkness; Easter Sunday is all gleaming white. That contrast gives me gooseflesh. It is a great pity that our Reformed tradition, at least in South Africa, denies our people so much. In our reaction to what Calvin called ‘Popish’ we are not even aware of Maundy Thursday. We miss those sacred moments in the upper room when the disciples must have realized for the first time that the cross was not to be avoided. We hardly feel any bond with the mystery of the last supper. In our iconoclastic enthusiasm we are more ‘Calvinistic’ than Biblical, so we celebrate the Last Supper on Good Friday morning, a sorry correction that is thoroughly wrong. And we don’t even mention the fact that Calvin never meant is that way.
On this point too, and on this day, we so often are not informed by Scripture but are deformed by pietism. On Good Friday we called to linger at the foot of the cross. We must give ourselves the time for silence and meditation. We must allow the mystery of the cross to inform and mould our thoughts. Why is there in some of our churches such an indecent haste to move from Good Friday to Easter Sunday? Through Scripture reading, song, and sermonizing we are hurried along the via dolorosa with scarcely time to feel the slow heart beat of the Passion.
On Good Friday we are at the cross, and it is not the place to shout ‘Hallelujah!’ There we make time for the wonder, the mystery, for humble gratitude without sentimentality and sensation.
We must take time to hear the words from the cross. Have you noticed how they seem to echo in Psalm 22? And not only verse 2. We know about “My God, my God, what have you forsaken me?”, but there is much more.
“I have thirst”, echoes Psalm 22:16. (My mouth is dried up lie a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws…”) “Today you will be in Paradise with me”, refers to verse 27. “Woman, there is your son”, is found in verse 10, and “Father, in your hands I commit my spirit” in verse 11. “It is finished” is an echo of verses 29 and 30. There is only one which we do not find directly in Psalm 22: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus goes one word further, and he gives us grace to do likewise.
We must learn the to appreciate the indivisibility of the Word of God, we New Testament Christians so often neglect the Old Testament. We must learn how Jesus himself lives from the Scriptures, even in his Passion. In this way, too, he is the fulfillment of the Law and the prophets. Jesus goes one step further, not away from the Psalms, but towards Easter. It cannot be held back.
