by Bror Erickson

GUEST COLUMNIST

It is a strange name given to the Friday before Easter -- Good Friday. Many people today have no idea why it should be called "Good" Friday and few have any knowledge of its religious significance. The only good thing about it seems to be that at least a few people still get the day off of work. Gone are the days when the town would shut down and go to church that afternoon to celebrate the death of God, and hear the last seven words He uttered from the cross. Yes, Good Friday is good for the Christian, because that is the day God died.

We celebrate that day, which is a somber celebration, but a celebration nonetheless. Without it, Easter is nothing. As Paul says in Romans 4:25, "He was delivered up for our trespasses, and raised for our justification." Good Friday and Easter work together. A celebration of Easter with no concept of what happened on Good Friday is empty and meaningless. Good Friday is what makes the Christian faith the Christian faith, and distinguishes it from all other faiths. It is in remembrance of Good Friday that churches raise crosses on their buildings, and hang crosses in their sanctuaries. For it was on a cross on Good Friday that God died to make atonement for our sins. It is from the innocent blood that poured forth from that cross, from the man Jesus Christ, that the world finds forgiveness.

The death of Jesus was more than the death of an innocent man, though it was. It was also the death of God. Jesus is, was, always has been and always will be God. But he wasn't always a man. God, the son, the second person of the triune God, became man when He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary. And this He did so that one day he could die and pay the price for the sins of the world. It had to be so, for there was no other way for God to salvage His beloved creation, for God to save you and me. He created us, gave us life, gave us His image of holy innocence and a rational will. But all was lost when Adam sinned. When the crown of God's creation used His once free will to sin, all was lost, man's image of God, and all creation plunged into death. Man was helpless to save himself.

Some people don't think that is true. Some believe that we can work our way to heaven, and that Jesus didn't come to die for our sins and save us in that manner, but to give us an example to live by -- a new set of rules through which we can save ourselves. Yet Jesus didn't give any "new rules." He only reiterated old ones. And for those of us who are honest to ourselves, we realize that's an impossible standard. You don't have to be Christian to realize it is impossible to be good. I just finished reading one of the most fascinating books I've read in a long time, Jacob Needleman's "Why Can't We Be Good?"

I don't know that he ever answers the question of why, but he illustrates very honestly that we are, in fact, incapable of being good on our own. We fail to do what we know is right, and often do what is right incompletely and for all the wrong reasons. He fails, though, to leave us with any hope of ever being good. And he too misinterprets Jesus. He sees him only as an inspiration for us to be good, in a mystical sort of way. But Jesus didn't come to merely be an inspiration for us to be good, but he came to forgive us, to make us good despite our sin, and to restore us to the image of God -- holy and innocent. He did this with His death on the cross.

No other blood but the blood of a man could pay for the sins of a man. Our own efforts at being good always fail because they are tainted with our sin. In fact, our own desire to be saved by our good works, to climb to another level of heaven or add jewels in our crown, all betray our selfish motives in good works. If they aren't done out of pure love for our neighbor then they aren't good. If we do them because we think we'll be rewarded in this life or the next, they aren't good. We are just using our neighbors' plight for our own selfish gain. It is for this reason God decries our good works as nothing more than filthy rags. But neither could the blood of one innocent man pay for the sins of all the world. At best, it could pay for one other person. But if that man was God, then that blood has infinite potential and value. So it was, God had to become man to die for the sins of the world, that we might all be freed from our sin and given new life in Christ, even eternal life. It was not mere man that died on the cross, but God himself -- the author of life (Acts 3:15).

And so on Good Friday we celebrate the death of God, because in his death we have life; life in his blood that washes away all our sin. And no longer do we have to ask "Why can't we be good?" For now the reality is, despite all the bad and temptation we fall into, we are good and good in Christ. No longer do we have to try and save ourselves with feeble attempts at being good. But now that we are good, we can do good; good that flows from a clean heart and a good conscience and the clean heart and good conscience of Jesus Christ, who died that we may life. Now that is worth celebrating.

Bror Erickson is pastor of the First Lutheran Church in Tooele. He is a graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Ind.