A Deeper Good Friday
"My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," he said to them. "Stay here and keep watch." Mark 14:34 Good Friday is complex. It brings up a mixed bag of emotions for most. The sheer horror of the torture, crucifixion, abandonment and shame are so overwhelming that even when visualized, like in Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ, its almost surreal. The act of love that was being displayed by Jesus, willingly giving his life is equally overwhelming. Who can put their arms around a love that suffers for that which is hostile against itself. It is so tempting to frame Good Friday in neat theological terms. We use words like atonement, appeasement, and propitiation to talk about sacrifice that the Son of God made for humanity. We do our best to take the rough edges off of the gruesomeness and the horrific violence by making the event spiritual, even otherworldly. It sanitizes, domesticates if you will, the experience of ...