Lent is ending and Good Friday is approaching.
For a person who got closer to the world of Christianity (and still attempting to get even closer) only years after baptism and rigorously memorizing Bible verses, I find that people somewhat glorified Christmas more than Good Friday, which was the very reason how Christianity existed. I received snide remarks regarding Christians as sadistic hypocrites who glorify a man's death. Little did they know that the death was birth of everything else in this world.
Allow me to explain, so please hold your guns. For non-believers, I always believe in freedom of will, so you can always choose to disagree.
Throughout the stories in Old Testament, we read stories about the vital characters, themselves and nothing but themselves and how much God gave them (wisdom, wealth, kingdom, power, life, miracles), only asking for His people to glorify Him in return. These were the typical stories of what God can give and how much can a person take but not give in return. How people sin and become greedier and greedier despite God giving everything they asked for. Human nature. In fact, all God have ever asked for in return was obedience.
Then enter Jesus. He was just like any other man out there. Born in a manger out of wedlock by a Mary who claimed to be virgin. A plausible story could be her stating that to avoid being stoned/ostracized as she was engaged to Joseph, as she was possibly raped and at that time, the society was a full-fledged misogyny to the core so regardless of whether she was raped or not, no one there was to save her. It could be God's way of creating such way to give birth to Jesus. Then again, we cannot deny that God is capable of creating miracles (Sarah giving birth to Isaac at the age of 90) so she really could be conceived as a virgin from a holy seed planted in her womb.
Then the story started to sound different from here. Suddenly, the story focuses on how Jesus gave everyone else without asking for anything in return. He performed miracles out of the blue like walking on the water. He fed five thousand people with a few small fishes and several loaves of bread. He healed a blind man by simply spitting on the soil and rubbed it into the man's eyes. He taught people the proper God's teachings on how to become a better person instead of embroiling themselves deeper into a pit of greed and all other deadly sins because I lazy want to list them all here. He healed a man with leprosy while others avoided him like a plague. And the list goes on. Long story short, the story of a man named Jesus focused on how much He gave the people instead of how much God gave Him.
While He was alive, He taught us unconditional love. He taught us on values to become a better person and to be closer to God. He healed the sick and fed the hungry. He defended a woman who was accused of adultery when everyone else condemned her for it, by reminding us that all of us are sinners and we are no less better than her. He washed His disciples' feet and fed them with bread and wine, when it was usually the other way round.
Yet, people still sin. People still stray away from God.
So, Jesus ultimately gave us His final gift because all us humans were stubborn creatures. He gave us His own life. He gave us His own life in a most degrading manner possible, which was to die as a criminal. Jesus was wrongfully framed by the Pharisees for a crime He did not commit and was sentenced to death unjustly. I know, at one part he cried out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?". This was from someone who gave and gave and did nothing but giving everything yet God allowed Him to die.
Jesus died because of a crime He did not commit. It was how He died without committing a single sin. Jesus was born as a perfect man without sin. All He did was to give. Yet God did not perform miracles on Him when he was unjustly sentenced to death, by crucifixion. Why God gave everything to those characters in Old Testament when all they did was to take, but did nothing to save Jesus?
Because Jesus had to die. He had to go through a life as a perfect man, only to be killed for a crime he never commit. Ladies and gentlemen, this was how Jesus died shouldering all our sins even though he never commit a single sin throughout his life. It was a painful decision for God to make. To ultimately create a man in a most perfect form. Since men are created based on mirror image of God, then Jesus must be created based on mirror image of perfect God. Therefore, whatever He did was whatever exactly God himself would do should he be a human instead of a god. That was how a human being, although looking like all of us, was capable of giving and giving, be it miracles or valuable teachings, without asking anything else in return. Jesus was God Himself in the form of a man.
Alas, men being men, were too self-absorbed to see all these. They were so focused on themselves that they could not see that God was with them all the time, or more specifically, God's son, since that said son was born out of a normal human being's womb. God, not knowing anymore what to do, had Jesus carrying out His final mission, which was to sacrifice himself. By letting Himself being unjustly sentenced by the Pontius Pilate, who was afraid of the people out there, God was essentially letting us see how human beings were so afraid of losing their own side of humanity - sin that they abandoned God. Pontius Pilate's action was what most of the people did, which was to abandon God so that they can remain humanly and full of sins. Jesus, a perfect man, who had zero sin in him, had to bear trillions of sins so that the rest of the human beings are free of sins. That way, they can only find their way back to God.
The part where Jesus cried about being forsaken by His father showed us the consequences of sin. By allowing ourselves to be filled with sins, we are getting further away from God. Because Jesus had never sin before, He have always been connected to God. However, right before He died, God left him because of all the trillion sins He was bearing.
Needless to say, Jesus died. I do not know why He died on a Friday. Based on my own theory though (can always disagree with me!), since God created the world in six days, I assume that man and woman was created on the sixth day. So Jesus died on the fifth day, the day before man was created. Jesus had to die on the day before man was created so that a new, sinless man can be created and reborn again. And this is baptism, to die as a sinful person and reborn as a sinless person who accepted Christ as his/her saviour. I am not sure on the auspicious date for baptism though, as I am not entirely knowledgeable regarding the timeline and all.
I believe as a Christian, Jesus has already created the bridge between us and God. And that is when us Christians can feel God's presence around us. As a Christian, it is important for us to recognize the sins and avoid it however possible because sin is what drives us away from God. Never let Jesus' sacrifice be in vain, so that is why Good Friday is so significant to every Christians.
Of course, there are times when we question our faith, with myself included. We are after all, just ordinary human beings who wants to receive. Like how in relationships where a man and a woman need to voice out each other's insecurity, we should voice out our shaken faith to God and pray for Him to guide us back to Him.
Throughout this essay, the one vital drive that brings Good Friday is none other than love. Quote 1 Corinthians 13:13, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." Jesus was an embodiment with these three things; love overpowers the other two though. Jesus had faith that human beings will someday turn back to God, which was why he never stopped giving and teaching. Jesus often hoped that people will acknowledge Him as God because clearly He was made in the image of God and performing miracles as a God. But most of all, Jesus loved us all that He had to die for us so that we finally notice Him and go back to Him.
Because nothing speaks louder than love when someone keeps giving and being taken advantage of, yet continues giving without getting anything back in return.
And this is Godly love.
Amen.
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