Today is Good Friday. 

I think the biggest irony is that it’s called Good Friday.  After all, this marks the anniversary of the death of my Lord and Savior, Jesus the Messiah, on a roman cross.

How can we look at what occurred that day and call it “good”.  It’s hard to do.  We call this past week “Holy Week”, when you look back at the events how can you call what occurred “holy”?  It’s hard to do.

However, when you pier behind the veil at what was really going on it makes a lot of sense.  From Jesus entering Jerusalem to the resurrection, there was something more going on than the obvious.

When Jesus was before Pilot, Pilot initially found him not guilty.  He could have subverted the plan of God by releasing Jesus right then and there (not that it would have taken God off the plan, but it would have happened later.)  However, to save his neck and to put the release of Jesus on the people, and to wash his hands of the whole thing, he invoked the tradition of releasing one prisoner with a full pardon for the Passover.

He took Jesus and Barabbas (believe it or not, Flavius Josephus, the great Hebrew historian, says that Barabbas’ first name was also Jesus.) and brought them to the people.  He expected the people would select Jesus, the Christ to let go, considering that Barabbas was a murderer.  However, the people, the mob decided to release Barabbas.

Jesus took a merciless beating at the hands of the guards.  He had the crown of thorns pressed on his head, he was whipped with the scourge.  The scourge was known as a “Cat o’ Nine Tails” for a reason.  It was a pole, 3’ or so long with 9 leather straps attached to it.  Within the leather straps were placed fragmented bone and rock every couple of inches apart.  The straps where longer than the pole that they were attached.  He took 39 lashes.  you take those 39 strikes and he was hit 351 times.  Each one the bone and stone would sink into the flesh like a hook and tear away skin, muscle and sinew.

After the beating Jesus hardly looked human.  He had been punched and kicked in the face, so he was swollen and bleeding.  His back had been scourged and looked more like hamburger than flesh and bone.  They then took his cross and placed it on his shoulders, those same shoulders that had just been whipped by the scourge.

The greatest show of love, ever, happened a short time later when he arrived at Golgotha, the hill of the skull.  As he hung there on the cross, he said, “Forgive them Father, they know not what they do."  He forgave everyone involved for killing him.

Upon Jesus’ death the veil in the temple, that separated the Most Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was torn from top to bottom.  This wasn’t a curtain that was easily rent, it was several inches thick and very big.  The earth shook and the sun was blotted out. 

Three days later the pinnacle of history took place, Jesus was resurrected from the dead.  Why can we call today “Good Friday” and this week “Holy Week”?  It’s because Jesus rose from the dead and remained for the next 40 days and was seen by many, many people.  He then ascended into heaven.

Jesus died for my sins, to take my place on that cross.  He rose so that he could take His place in the heavens and so that we could gain the opportunity to gain intimacy with our creator.

Today, the laws of Sin and Death have been defeated and cast down for those who gain relationship with Christ.  I encourage you, to seek out a ministry this weekend and get to know the one who died for you.  He was a king and he laid his life down for you.

One of my pet peeves is the fact that Christians, and people in general, put labels on everything.

It can’t be music performed by a Christian, it’s Christian Music.

It can’t be radio, with a Christian commentator or MC, it’s Christian Radio.

It can’t be a book written by a Christian, it’s a Christian Book, sold at a Christian Bookstore.

Don’t get me wrong, I love music performed by Christians.  I love me some books written by Christian (shout out to Ted Dekker!).

What I’ve noticed happens when you start to label things as “Christian” is a state of sterilization.  The artist can longer write a gritty song that would reach the heart of the lost, they have to sterilize it to be palatable to the market, lest they be labeled a heretic and pushed out of the church.

Even my favorite author, though Ted is much grittier than most Christian authors, pulls back on what he could have written so that it will sit well enough with the church.  He pushes the envelope, which is why I love his work, but if he pushed it a little more, could he gain the wider audience of the lost?

If the boundaries are pushed, could we break through the barrier that holds the church back and actually bring revival to the land? 

Truthfully, I believe the labels are a symptom of the greater problem that afflicts the church.  The problem I see is pride.  Pride has snuck in at some point and causes the church to erect a barrier of labels that separate us from the very people we are to be ministering too.

As a musician, I don’t want to be known as a Christian Singer or Christian Bassist, I want to be known as a singer who loves Christ and wants to use the talents that God has blessed him with to bring praise, honor and glory to the giver of the gift.

If I write a book someday, and I might.  I don’t want it to be labeled a Christian Book.  I want it to be known as a good book written by a man that loves God.

Ultimately, I want to be known as a man of God who uses the artistic and aural gifts that God gave him to created works that were accessible to the believer and the non-believer alike.  I want to be one that breaks down the barrier that man has erected between God and those who need him.

I don’t want to be known as a person in pristine condition than was never soiled by the alien, fatherless or the widow.  I don’t want to be so proud of “my accomplishments” that I lose the true originator of the task. 

I do not want to be a part of any group that shuns a person because they were labeled a sinner.  I cannot be that much of a hypocrite, since I was once one myself.  Yet someone took a chance on me.  They ministered to me while I was still filthy in my sin.  They didn’t care that I stunk.  They didn’t care that I was diseased. They saw someone who needed the Great Physician’s touch to be healed from the unrighteousness that consumed my soul like maggots on week old meat sitting in the burning sun.

Remember, Christ didn’t come for the well, but for the sick.  The healthy don’t need the doctor, but the sick do.  Why do we focus so much on the well when there are a lot of people out there that are lost and are being hounded by the evil one.  Can we regain our compassion for the lost?  Can we forget about ourselves, for once?  Can we focus on the hurting, dying people of this world instead of our own “holiness”.

I believe that our definition of holiness and God’s are completely different.  After all, 1 Samuel 16:7 says (emphasis added): 

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

I tweet.  I like twitter for it's simplicity.  I like that you are forced to be pithy with your comments, you have 140 characters to make your point.  If you'd like to follow me on twitter, click here

You also have the opportunity to run into some entertaining characters that say, well, some interesting things.  Today I read someones tweet that asked the question, "Where would Jesus go to church?"  Now, looking at this persons other tweets it wasn't hard to figure out what point of view he was coming from.  This is a person who dislikes organized religion in any form and specifically doesn't like that Christians gather in a specific building for services.

First, I'm not going to judge this persons spiritual condition, it's not my job.  Really, I'm going to ignore them.  However, I think the question posed, paying no regard to their opinion on the matter, is an interesting question that I do have an opinion on.

If Jesus were to come down to the earth today, walk into your, or my, town, what church would he go to?  Well, none.  He wouldn't go to the church.  He didn't come for the well, afterall, he came for the sick.  That's why he hung out with tax collectors and sinners.

The early New Testement church didn't meet in church buildings, they met in houses.  In Acts 20:7-12 it talks about Paul teaching at a house until midnight and a young man falling asleep, falling from the second floor window, dying and being raised from the dead.  I'm sure Paul would have went into a church building if they were available, but in that day and age you couldn't just decide to build a huge building, so they taught were there was availability.

In the modern age, what is the purpose of the church building?  I'm talking about what it is intended to by, not what it has largely become.

Today the building is meant to be a training ground.  It is a place to learn, to be refreshed and a place for the faithful to come together for fellowship.  However, it has become a social club in many areas and like the old farmer said, "Us four and no more." becomes the attitude in the church.

We need to treat Sunday services as a corporate celebration of the greatness of Christ, a place to rejoice in the battles of the past week and a place to prepare for the battles of the next week.  A place where brothers and sisters in Christ hone each other like iron sharpens iron.

I believe that most churches get the first point above.  However, too many have no battles to celebrate and no battles for which to be prepared.  There is more back-biting than sharpening and people trying to build their internal political power.  There are to many people trying to advance their personal little fiefdom inside of the local church instead of advancing the kingdom of God in the world.

Jesus wouldn't come to the church today, not because we are so far off the mark, but because he would be out serving the lost.  He'd be serving the lost hoping that we, the church, would join him.  We can have our church services, but we can't have that be our spiritual life.  Those services are not to be the rule of your life, they are meant to be the culmination of your life's work, spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.

We, as the church, need to remember that being the church has nothing to do with a building, a name on a sign or a person who stands up behind the pulpit and speaks.  It has everything to do with bringing the good news to the broken hearted, bringing healing to the sick, bringing prosperity to the poor, bringing food to the hungry and visiting the fatherless and the widow.  If we do all of those things, when we enter the building on a Sunday morning or Wednesday evening we can go in to be armed, to be healed and to be restored ourselves, so we can go into the world and do what God has called us to do, to be what he called us to be.

Rom 7:4-25

I think, sometimes, to be a Christian is to be schizophrenic.  As Romans 7 says:

Rom 7:15-17
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
NIV

We try so hard to do what is good, but we always go back to what is evil.  Our mind warring against our body for our souls, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts.  It’s the dichotomy of being a Christian.  We do the things we don’t want to do, but for the simple fact that we don’t want to do them it proves that the law is good.  That is just odd.  I like it, but it’s odd.

It makes you understand, though, that God doesn’t really put the importance on your actions as a Christian, but on the condition of your heart.  For instance, if you were entrapped in sin, and it is something that you want to do, it doesn’t prove anything but that your heart is evil.  However, if you are in sin, but it isn’t something that you want to do, but you stumble, it proves the law is a good thing.

The way I always tell the youth group at FFCC is this; the law was not created by God to limit your freedoms, the law was created to show you the things that will cause you pain.  In God’s attempt to keep His children safe He basically said, don’t stick anything into the light socket or don’t touch that pot of boiling water.

Ultimately, we need to continue to try to do good.  In all things we should try to abstain from the very appearance of evil.  However, when those times come and we do fall, and we will, don’t be too hard on yourself, pick yourself up, dust off your backside and continue pressing forward for the prize.  Falling isn’t failing, quitting is failing.  If you keep fighting for the prize eventually you will get it.

Our faith is not a sprint, it is a marathon.  In a sprint you have 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.  In a marathon, everyone, whether you are first or last, is a winner, as long as you cross the finish line.  It’s up to you in what condition you cross.  Do you want to be the beat up wounded warrior or the victorious king returning home, the choice is yours.  Even the king loses some battles, it’s how he responds that makes him the conquering hero.