Lenten blog | April 7, 2023

The 1,993rd Anniversary

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for April 7th:  Psalm 22; Isaiah 52:13—53:12; Hebrews 10:16-25; and John 18:1—19:42.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, death and burial.  This is a day to be treated with exceptional reverence.  The church will be open from 12 – 3:00pm this afternoon for private meditation and prayer.  Please be mindful of the silence of these hours.  Today’s biblical readings are the longest of Lent.  They are intended to help us spend more time in conversation with the still-speaking Word of God.  The Gospel passage tells the harrowing account from John’s perspective of Jesus’ Passion.  It begins with Jesus’ arrest and ends with His burial.

John’s chronology is different than that of the other three Gospels.  Mark tells us that Jesus had been crucified at 9AM and that the skies grew dark at noon. (15:25, 33)  John tells us in today’s Gospel that at noon Jesus was paraded before the crowds by Pilate and that the crowds shouted, “‘Crucify him!’” (19:14-15) 

The oldest Gospel, Mark’s, informs the reader that Jesus dies at 3PM. (15:33)  John offers no specific time of Jesus’ death, but he does share that the bodies of all the crucified needed to be removed from their crosses before sunset “because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity.” (19:31)  This would equate roughly with Mark’s mid-afternoon.

These are the reasons why on this most solemn day the hours between noon and 3PM are especially sacred.  This is why the church building will be open for the faithful. 

As we can see, the details of Jesus’ crucifixion may vary, but they do not effect the principal message that we gather on Good Friday to honour our crucified God.  Again, the details are just that – details.  However, one detail that I find interesting, especially this year, is the scholarly hypothesis that the actual, historical date when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under orders of the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, under the titulus “Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews,” (In Latin this charge is often rendered and seen on crosses as the initials INRI.  There is no “J” in Latin, thus the “I.” The “N” is for Nazareth and “R” is for rex, which is king.), which is a charge of insurrection against the Roman Empire, is today. 

The well-respected biblical scholar John P. Meier writes in “A Marginal Jew:  Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1” that Jesus “died on Friday, April 7, 30.” (p. 406)  This means that today is the actual 1,993rd anniversary of Jesus’ crucifixion.  This is only a calendar detail.  It is insignificant in comparison to the teaching of the crucified God.  However, if this calendar coincidence helps you to feel more powerfully the impact of Good Friday, then that is not a bad thing.

We began this journey on February 22nd, Ash Wednesday.  We have now reached the event that is the reason for Lent’s preparation.  The public shaming and tortured death of Jesus, whom we recognize as our Saviour, is a sacred scandal.  Jesus is Isaiah’s Suffering Servant.  Jesus is God’s perfect revelation that there is a divine love for us that is greater than God’s love for God’s own self.  How can we not treat this event, this day, with the utmost respect? 

When Jesus’ body is removed from the cross and placed in the tomb, Lent has reached its completion.  We have mentioned that Advent prepares for Christmas.  Lent, however, prepares for the death and burial of Jesus.  It needs to be this way because the empty tomb must be always recognized as a surprise.  To do otherwise is to devalue that completeness of Jesus’ sacrifice as one of us.  Not only must the pain of the cross be real, the fact of death must be just as real, if Jesus’ crucifixion is as one of us for all of us.  Let us, therefore, not rush past Good Friday in unnecessary haste to get to Easter.  We have prepared too long for the cross to not spend some time in its shadow. 

Again, the church is open from noon until 3PM today.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.