The Christian faith is suppose to be a love affair. A Love affair between us and Jesus. Many try to boil it down to creeds, councils, and systematic theology. All of these are good things and true, however, in the center of it all is a relationship. I love what one author shared about The Reformer Martin Luther, "Luther’s theology was not a doctrine; it was a love affair. Consuming love for God has been part of Christian experience since the beginning, but Luther’s passion had a reckless extravagance that set it apart, and which has echoed down Protestantism’s history. He pursued his love for God with blithe disregard for the bounds set by church and tradition. It was an intense, desolating, intoxicating passion, sparked by his life-upending glimpse of God’s incomprehensible, terrible, beautiful love for him. Like any lover, he found it incredible that his beloved should love him, unworthy as he was. And yet he discovered over the long years of prayer and study that God loved him wildly, irresponsibly, and beyond all reason. God, in Christ, had laid down his life for him. This was not, as the medievals’ subtle theology had taught, a transaction, or a process by which believers had to do whatever was in their power to pursue holiness. It was a sheer gift. All that mattered was accepting it.” (The Protestants, Alec Ryrie, First Edition). For Martin it was not simply a matter of following the Scriptures more accurately, it was a love affair with God, a passionate connection with Christ that we as Christians are suppose to have. And yet how often does it slip away? Do we like the song say, "I got a little older, and times got hard, and we grew apart.. I wanna go back to Jesus loves me the Bible says that.." (David Dunn). Indeed, Luther had this discovery, the love affair has to be kindled, it cannot just be doctrines and church attendance, it has to be like the passion of lovers.
I think this is a appropriate place to spend our time this Good Friday. Why is it so good? Because our sins are paid for by Jesus and His blood? Yes. Because we shall not burn in hell fire and will inherit eternal life. Yes. But what is crux of why we want those things in the first place? Certainly fire insurance is a motive for some, indeed, that is very Edwardian (Jonathan Edwards). The real reason should be we love God because He loves us. That this love affair that has been going on from Genesis to Revelation yet to be fulfilled is at the center of our being. Notice that in the Scriptures Jesus often says to know Him, "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness," (Matthew 7:21-23), and "And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth." (John 17:3). The know (Ginosko, Epignosko) there is the same word used in Adam knew his wife (Genesis 4:1), in intimacy and even sex, now I am not saying we have sex with God, no! But the love between lovers is suppose to be our experience. Jesus even laments in the Apocalypse, "But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Look
how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at
first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from
its place among the churches." (Revelation 2:4-5). Jesus even tells us we will be known by our love, "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." (John 13:34-35).
This love Affair is meant to permeate the Christian Life, and the Proof of how great of love that God has fore us is seen on that cross, that Jesus gave Himself as a sacrificial offering once for all time to wipe away the separation (sin) so that we can be reconciled to God, not so we become slaves, but lovers, in a love affair with The Holy Trinity! Even in the Apocalypse the framework is that We are Bride and Jesus is the Bridegroom, "Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready, And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints," (Revelation 19:7-8) and " You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ,' but, 'I have been sent before Him. ' He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice." (John 3:28-19). Luther understood this so intutively, and this Good Friday rather than being shocked by the gore of Calvary, or signing dirges, let us see the love affair, let us rekindle it if it has indeed gone cold (Revelation 2:4-5). Let's make good on our end and make a date with our Bridegroom, to love Him who loved us so much that He took our place, and made propitiation so that we never may be separated from him again. Good Friday is the Bridegroom rescuing his Bride! Like Hosea who saved his Prostitute Wife from the slave market, God saved us from the market of Satan that leads to a lost life!
Good Friday is Jesus The Husband doing what good husbands do, laying down His life for Her, which Apostle Paul even says, "For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her" (Ephesians 5:25). Instead of only looking at Good Friday as some cosmic transaction, let us see it as a Wedding Day, when God was stripped in His Flesh, beaten, and crucified so that we may be close to God and enter the holiest place, "And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus." (Hebrews 10:19). And why do we wanna be in that holy place? In Heaven even? Because of a love affair! That we in deep passionate love affair with God! Let that be how you see Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday! Not as only a rescue of a Creator to his Creation, but a Lover rescuing a Lover, A Bridegroom Saving His Bride! That is how we are intended to see it! Amen.
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