{"id":168,"date":"2010-04-02T20:19:09","date_gmt":"2010-04-03T00:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=168"},"modified":"2010-04-02T20:20:08","modified_gmt":"2010-04-03T00:20:08","slug":"good-friday-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/good-friday-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Friday 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we celebrate<\/em> the death of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Yes, we celebrate<\/em> his death.\u00a0 We celebrate it because Jesus’ death pays the price for our sins and wins for us our redemption.\u00a0 It is also a sign for us of God’s limitless love for us.\u00a0 There is nothing God will not do for us.<\/p>\n

The Jews had been expecting a great political messiah who would defeat their enemies in battle.\u00a0 Jesus was not a political messiah.\u00a0 The enemy that Jesus defeats for us is sin and death.\u00a0 It is a battle won not with swords or guns but by sacrifice.\u00a0 And what greater sacrifice is there than to give up one’s life for a people?<\/p>\n

The Jews expected a political messiah who would be victorious in earthly battle.\u00a0 Our first reading for Good Friday (Isaiah 52:13-53:12)<\/a> does not speak of such a political messiah.\u00a0 Rather, Isaiah speaks of a suffering servant.\u00a0 There is debate about who the suffering servant is; is it an Old Testament figure; is it Isaiah himself; is it the Israelite people?\u00a0 In some ways it is all of them but it is Jesus who shows us what it truly means to be a suffering servant.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

The gospel on Good Friday<\/a> is always John’s Passion narrative (John 18:1-19:42).\u00a0 In John’s passion narrative Jesus is very much in control.\u00a0 He is not defeated by Pilate or anyone else.\u00a0 What happens is all according to God’s will.\u00a0 Jesus suffers because he chooses to suffer for our sake.<\/p>\n

When we suffer, we may feel abandoned by God.\u00a0 God does not want us to have to suffer.\u00a0 Some of our sufferings are our own fault.\u00a0 Some of our sufferings are because of choices made\u00a0by people around us.\u00a0 Some of our sufferings are not any one’s fault or caused by God.\u00a0 No matter why we suffer God is right there with us.\u00a0 God knows what it is like to suffer, even to death.<\/p>\n

At the end of the passion, Jesus lies dead in the tomb.\u00a0 There is more to come on Easter and what comes fills us with hope.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we celebrate the death of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Yes, we celebrate his death.\u00a0 We celebrate it because Jesus’ death pays the price for our sins and wins for us our redemption.\u00a0 It is also a sign for us of God’s limitless love for us.\u00a0 There is nothing God will not do for us. The Jews …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Good Friday 2010’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[26],"tags":[27,28],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-2I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}