Good Friday Silence
March 29, 2013
“Silence is golden,” so they say, but I say, “Silence is often misunderstood.” When I was in elementary school, my neighborhood friends and I would observe three hours of silence, from noon -3 p.m., as a means of reflecting on Jesus’ crucifixion. If memory serves me well, the hours felt more like punishment than pondering the meaning of the cross. Our hours of silence felt like an eternity and were riddled with distractions of hunger pangs (“Can we at least eat silently?”), clock watching (“Is it over yet?”), and superior thoughts (“Wow! We’re a bunch of holy kids giving up play time for prayer time.”). Suffice it to say, we completely misunderstood the point of our silence as way to survey the wondrous cross.
If you have been reading Keller’s, “King’s Cross” along with us, then you now know the book is divided into two parts-the identity of Jesus as the true and perfect King, and the purpose of Jesus’ life to die an agonizing death in order to pay the penalty for our sins. Tim Keller powerfully portrayed Jesus’ suffering on the cross.
As a child I focused on the “wrong” aspects of the crucifixion by dwelling on the curious angles of Christ’s suffering without realizing the agony and abandonment Jesus suffered, and the significance of God’s love for a sinful people. Thankfully, years out from childhood, I have come to know Jesus on a personal level! So on this Good Friday , as I silently observe the wondrous cross, I do so with clear understanding that Jesus died the death that I should have died and in so doing restored me to God. He not only died the death I should have died, He lived the life I should be living but am unable to live. He lived a life of perfect obedience to God.
Silence is golden and so are the streets I will one day walk in Heaven because Jesus lived, died, and rose again for the sins of mankind. (sv)
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25-26
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross