Stop Focusing So Much on Easter

During Holy Week, it's nearly always Easter Sunday that gets the focus. Already by Tuesday this week, churches were advertising Easter services, looking ahead to the big event. And I understand (sort of)...churches need to do it. But I noticed also that by comparison, Good Friday services get far less press. 

I fear we're missing the point, that we're unintentionally communicating that it is Easter that is the "main event." 

When one considers the actual stories of the gospels, one encounters a curious difference in perspective. They spend much less time on the resurrection than they do on the crucifixion. It makes me wonder if we have put the emphasis on the wrong syllable. I mean, if we want to get the story right, shouldn't we follow the script a little more closely?

Combined, the gospels spend a total of eight chapters on the trial and crucifixion accounts, and less than half of that amount on the resurrection (Mark gets a mere eight verses). And the focus on the crucifixion is not limited to the stories of Jesus' trial and death. Leading up to his death, Jesus speaks directly of his death several times, and the stories allude to it indirectly even more. The crucifixion is front-and-center.

The resurrection gets far less press, and the scenes themselves are not jump around, happy-clappy party celebrations. There's no singing, praising God, or announcing to the world. They are called to be "witnesses" in Luke, but witnesses to the crucified Lord, and in Matthew they are called to make disciples, who carry the cross and follow Jesus. 

In other words, the resurrection scenes cast light back on the crucifixion. They are accounts of the disciples making sense of the fact that their "normal" just got blown up. The celebrating we do encounter is not so much celebrating resurrection as it is celebrating the way of the cross.

This imbalanced focus on the crucifixion and death of Jesus is in the rest of the New Testament writers, too. 

For the Apostle Paul, it was the crucifixion, not the resurrection, that was the turning point in history. Just read Galatians. Or Philippians. Or First Corinthians. Or Ephesians. Or...well, shoot. It's in all of his letters.

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It's not as though I think that one is more important than the other. Easter is a big deal. A BIG DEAL. Let me make that clear. But, from the actual stories of the gospels and the rest of the New Testament, the resurrection shines light on the crucifixion. From all accounts in the New Testament, the resurrection revolves around the orbit of the crucifixion. It seems we've got it backward in most of our churches. Especially when we're advertising Resurrection Sunday on social media on Tuesday of Holy Week.

To borrow a phrase from one church: the crucifixion is the main event. 

Now, of course, taken together they are a "main event" two-punch. I'm not disputing this. But without the crucifixion, there would be no resurrection. And, yes, without the resurrection the crucifixion would be just a sad, tragic death. But, given this relationship, for all New Testament writers, the resurrection points back to the crucifixion. The default thinking that "it might be Friday, but Sunday's coming" goes the wrong direction. 

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I'd like to suggest a different angle. Instead of "it's Friday, but Sunday's coming," the witness of the gospels and the rest of the New Testament reads more like: "Sunday makes Friday the best day in history." The cross doesn't look forward to the resurrection. The resurrection looks backward to the cross. The resurrection confirms the cross as God's true revelation in Christ, and because Jesus conquered death, the resurrection gives us hope and vision so that we might live the cross-shaped life, not the "resurrection life." 

Jesus' death is the high point of God's love for humanity. It is forgiveness displayed in action for all people. It is serious and it is solemn. But more than this, it is ground zero for everything about Jesus. In particular there are two main things the New Testament says about the cross as the centerpoint of everything.

The crucifixion is the enthronement of God's king. The Gospel of John makes this point in John 12:31-33: 

"'Now is the judgment of the world; now the ruler of the world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.' Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die." 

In this passage, Jesus is using kingly and political ruler enthronement language that many people would recognize: ruler, overthrow, lifted up, drawing all to him. Later in Jesus' encounter with Pilate, they debate over king stuff: Are you a king, Jesus? The response is not a "no." It is a yes. 

But there is something very different: "My kingdom is not of this world," says Jesus. It's not that Jesus' kingdom is far and away in outer space. Jesus is saying that his kingdom is not of the same cloth as kingdoms of this world. So, yes, Jesus says, "I am a king." And his throne and ceremony of crowning is the crucifixion. Jesus still doesn't play according to our American "winning" mentality. Too many of us, I fear, still want Jesus to be king in the Roman way.

In lifting up and enthroning Jesus as king, Jesus' death has a very public significance. Jesus is not talking about being the "ruler of our hearts" here. According to Jesus' words, in his death a great event is taking place: the public enthronement of one "ruler" and the dethronement of another. It is the public inauguration of Jesus as God's king! It is in the crucifixion, NOT the resurrection that the ruler of this world is "driven out" (John 12:31) and a new king is crowned. 

The Crucifixion sets the pattern for new life. As I mentioned on Palm Sunday, rulers and kings became living law--they set the rules and direction for life in the kingdom, not only in the things they decreed, but in how they lived. This is the Apostle Paul's line of thought in Philippians 2, where Jesus sets the pattern for living:

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

    to the glory of God the Father.

The people of a kingdom were to shape their lives to the outlooks and ways of the king on the throne. People pledged allegiance to the ruler's authority and creed. The king set the pattern for life.   

Like raising up one's national flag draws to mind something about what that nation stands for, so raising up Jesus on the cross defines what God's kingdom is all about. If we are people who call Jesus "Lord," then the cross is our flag, and everything it stands for defines how we think and live on this earth.

Enthronement by crucifixion makes it the center for everything, and thereby defines humility, suffering, and death as the way of Jesus' kingdom, in the midst of a world that hungers for power, triumph, self-glory, and superiority.

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As we reflect on Good Friday this season, consider celebrating the crucifixion as the "greatest day in history." Don't go running to the empty tomb too quickly. We live on the other side of the resurrection. Scripture's witness tells the story in a way that gives us the vision to look back. With that vision, Scripture calls us to embrace the crucifixion as the thing that the resurrection validates, and the thing that identifies who you are as someone brought into Jesus' kingdom. 

It's Good Friday. Celebrate crucifixion today!!!! Celebrate and claim the foolish, non-entitlement, humiliating way of the cross as the center of your everything. Crucifixion is not a way to life, a pit stop to the resurrection. Crucifixion is life. And it is the only life worth living. Celebrate life. Celebrate Good Friday.