Good Friday: A Baptist Reflects on Holy Week

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5 NASB)

Why did God the Father send His only begotten Son to take on our humanity in the person of Jesus of Nazareth in order to die on the cross? This is the great question regarding the atonement, a question that demands an answer. Some eight centuries before the event of the cross itself, the Father sent His Word to whisper by His Spirit into a prophet's ear part of the answer. Why would Jesus come to die on the cross? 'For our transgressions...for our iniquities.'


As a seminary student, my best friend, now the pastor of a very large church, invited my wife and I to watch a showing of U2's 'Rattle and Hum'. It was supposed to be an interesting movie, since some of the members of that band had identified themselves as Christians. One song struck me as quite effective and affective. The old blues artist, B.B. King, accompanies U2 lead singer, Bono, to voice confession of personal wickedness, particularly when they forsook true love in favor of crass fornication. That piece reached its climax in some profound reflections. In 'When Love Comes to Town', King joined with U2 to belt out with conviction, 'I was there when they crucified my Lord, I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword, I threw the dice when they pierced his side'.

Leaving the theater, I wondered whether King understood the strong theological realism he had just affirmed. Did he really understand that we were the ones who had pierced the Son of God? Did he understand that sin is universal and that sin, even when committed against man, is committed ultimately and primarily against God? Did he understand that the cross was not only a temporal event, in a particular time and place in Roman Palestine, but also an eternal event that brings all of human time into heavenly focus?

Do we really understand that it was our sin that nailed him to the cross? Do we really understand that we were the Jews crying out, 'Crucify Him! Crucify Him!'? Do we really understand that we were the Roman soldier piercing His side to watch His blood flow out of a broken heart? Do we really understand that God crucified His own Son, not for the sin of His Son, but for our sin? Because of our embrace of pride in the garden, it is the most difficult thing for a human being to admit truthfully and with all of his or her heart, 'I am wrong. I have sinned. I have no excuse.'

When we look at the cross from 800 years beforehand, we must weep with Isaiah, the mouthpiece of God, in the deepest of woe, 'I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips!' When we look at the cross on that day, we must run away and cry with Peter, the weak one who is supposed to be the 'rock', knowing that we just denied our best friend, the one we confessed only shortly before, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God'. When we look at the cross two thousand years later, we must plaintively admit with all of our soul, along with B.B. King, 'I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword'. It is my sin that put Jesus on the cross, my sin, and I have no excuse!

However, neither Isaiah nor Peter in biblical days, nor King nor us in these days, are left without hope. Beyond the lying lips about God, beyond the traitorous denials of God, beyond the sins of the body committed against God, there is God Himself. And God Himself seeks our reconciliation. On the cross of Jesus Christ, the righteous wrath of a holy God against our utter depravity was met with the gracious mercy of a God who is love in essence. For Isaiah, the transformation from wicked sinner to victorious saint occurred when the angel flew with tongs holding a hot coal from the altar to cleanse those lying lips. For Peter, the transformation from wicked sinner to victorious saint occurred when the risen Lord once again looked directly at the one who had denied him and again committed the care of other souls to him. For King, the admission that he was at the cross participating in the slaughter of the Lord of creation was followed by the victorious proclamation, 'but I've seen love conquer the great divide'.

If there is hope for a lying prophet and if there is hope for a fallen apostle, then there is hope for a fallen music star and there is hope for you and me. Whatever your sin, know that God is reaching out to you externally through His proclaimed Word and internally through His convicting Spirit, calling you into a restored relationship with Him. In Jesus, God became a man in order to die on the cross, so that you might have your sins forgiven. Christ took the sins of all men of all time upon Himself at the cross and took our punishment for us. If you will believe, then those sins no longer need to be owned as yours. He has taken them upon Himself, and He has overcome them through His death and resurrection. Confess, repent, believe, come to life, leave the guilt behind, open your eyes in hope toward the God who forgives and invites you to a glorious eternity.

NOTE: When I was a pastor, I recognized that Baptist churches, especially those on the old American frontier, often did not make much of the Christian calendar, the exceptions being the particular days of Christmas and Easter themselves. In my free church context, the Christian calendar was and is often crowded out by primarily secular concerns: American Independence Day, Veteran's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, even the Super Bowl. Such secular holidays have their place, but might it be of some value if we Baptists were to make more of the specifically Christian holidays, literally treating our 'holidays' as 'holy days'?

Mind you, I am not arguing for a return to the saints' days of the old Christian calendars, though a broad appreciation for Christian history could have a memorial value to inspire us to walk with the faith of such exemplary saints as Polycarp of Smyrna, Monica of Hippo, Michael Sattler, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Rather, what would it be like if we in the free churches were to focus on the biblical side of the Christian calendar? What if we were to seek to integrate the biblical events more intentionally into our daily lives in order to foster a greater appreciation for the impact of the calendar on the rhythm that establishes our lives?

In that train of thought, I once encouraged my congregation to replace our annual 'revival' with a focus on the events of what is traditionally known as 'Holy Week'. Rather than starting the evangelical week of revival on a Sunday and ending on a Wednesday, we started on a Wednesday and ended on a Sunday. On Wednesday, we began with the washing of the disciples' feet. Weren't the deacons surprised when I called them up on stage and removed their shoes to wash their feet, some of them fresh from the farm! The chairman of deacons even unconsciously pulled a Peter on me and tried to forbid me from washing his feet, since he should wash mine.

On Thursday, we celebrated the Lord's Supper and reflected on the fact that God intentionally sent His only and eternally begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins. And Christ Jesus, knowing what would come next, intentionally left us the practice of the Lord's Supper for continual memorial celebration between the Last Supper and the Lamb's Supper, when the universal church first gathers with Him. On Friday, two of our hefty, young deacons brought in several large pieces of wood during the middle of my sermon and nailed together a grisly cross. The shock of deacons interrupting the pastor's sermon was one thing. The visible representation that we human beings were the ones who put Him on the cross was quite another.

On an overcast Saturday, we gathered in a somber mood to remember that on this day, Jesus' body was in the tomb as He conquered hell. But then, oh, yes, we arose early to watch the sun rise together on Sunday, resurrection Sunday, the day when history was transformed by eternity, when death was defeated, when the grave became not an end but a beginning! And our final service was on Sunday at the normal time.

The transformation of the people (and the pastor) in our attitude toward what Christ had performed during that week some two millennia ago, about which some half of the gospel literature was devoted, was palpable. And the effect on the unwritten Baptist liturgy was nothing short of revolutionary. (Yes, even the low churches have a high regard for their liturgy. We just do not typically write them down and call them liturgies.) Alongside this call for a return to integrating the biblical calendar into our free church calendar, I offer a few thoughts today, tomorrow, and Sunday, on the meaning of Easter.

Christian Realism regarding Christian Unity in Paris

Late last month, I was in Paris, France, to deliver a lecture for La Société d'Histoire et de Documentation Baptistes de France (SHDBF), co-sponsored by the Centre Mennonite de Paris. The subject provided by my hosts was "Baptists: Are We Calvinists or Non-Calvinists?" That lecture will be published in their journal, so I have refrained from disseminating it. Nonetheless, I would like to discuss one critical subject that arose in that paper and that came into sharper focus for me during my short sojourn in France: Christian unity.

I have been involved in a number of ecumenical conversations over the years, somewhat formally between world Baptists and Anglicans and between American evangelicals and Roman Catholics, as well as many informal conversations at Duke and Oxford universities and elsewhere. Ecumenical conversations have proven beneficial for my own theological development because they allow one to hear from other Christian traditions and to reflect upon one's own tradition, from within and from without. When engaged from a realistic viewpoint, ecumenical conversations clarify both convergences and divergences between the various Christian traditions, helping to shed light on the glories and inadequacies of each.

And that viewpoint--let us call it 'Christian realism'--provides for difficult though beneficial conversations. On the one hand, there is the hope that Christian divisions may be overcome; on the other hand, there is the constant reminder that significant differences remain. The divisions between the various Christian traditions persist due to apparently irreconcilable historical, theological and ecclesiological foundations. The doctrine of papal primacy is not a mere inconvenience keeping Christians from learning to worship together--it is a sublime Spirit-given truth to the one and a gross human imposition to the other. The doctrine of infant baptism is not a secondary or tertiary roadblock on the highway to Zion--it is a necessary theological building block to the one and a tyrannical violation of human conscience to the other. The doctrine of biblical inerrancy is not a mere historical footnote--it is a fundamental aspect of biblical inspiration to the one and a puzzling theological claim to the other. No matter what our personal or ecclesial desires, the theological facts on the ground remain: although we may each claim the name of Christ, Christians from the various traditions possess fundamental reasons to retain our divisions.

And yet, because this 'Christian realism' is 'Christian', it is replete with the expectation that these divisions will be overcome by and in Jesus Christ, the one Lord that Christians commonly proclaim. The lack of unity among Christians is not a cause for celebration but for mourning. This reality was brought home to me palpably during this lecture delivered in a Baptist church building at 123 Avenue du Maine in the Fourteenth Arrondissement of Paris. In the audience that evening were Baptist, Mennonite and Reformed Christians, laity and clergy, from across Europe, Africa and the Americas. I had historically and systematically laid open both the convergences and divergences between all three Christian groups, and the divergences seem to be so intractable. Towards the end of my lecture, while reminding us of the divergences, I fell back upon Scripture for hope:

The unresolved nature of this dispute--over what is and what is not 'necessary', 'essential' or 'fundamental'--lies at the root of the continuing division between the churches of the Reformed and the churches of the baptizing tradition. Until that is resolved, it is doubtful there will be a reunion. Ultimately, however, there must be reunion, for Christ is our Lord and He has prayed for our unity (John 17). Surely, there will be no divisions at the great supper of the Lamb as the universal church gathers to worship Him who died for the atonement of our sins, who arose from the dead for the redemption of our bodies, and who will one day return for our glorification (Rev 19).

Christian realism regarding Christian unity. The 'reality' is that the divisions between Christians cannot be quickly papered over or glibly bypassed with some temporary emotional sentiment accompanying a facile theological equation. The divisions between the Roman Catholics, the Reformed, and the baptizing churches are deep and, more importantly, they are fundamental. This is the reality we must face. However, our realism is also 'Christian'. And Christ calls His disciples to display their unity in love. He promised such unity would lead the world to see Him in us (John 13:34-35). The Christian hope is that our divisions will be overcome, and they will be at the least eschatologically, but we must do whatever we possibly can to overcome them now, with integrity, on the basis of His will and for the sake of evangelism.

These ideas continued ringing through my head and heart the next day as I visited the Faculté Libre de Théologie Évangélique in Vaux-sur-Seine, which serves theological students in the evangelical free church traditions from both France and Switzerland. Professor Alain Nisus, their primary systematic theologian, invited me to deliver lectures and take questions on free church ecclesiology, and it was a pleasure to get to know this rising theologian, from whom I hope we will hear more. I also enjoyed my conversations with Professor Neal Blough, whose work on Pilgram Marpeck I have long greatly admired. As I sat through worship and a meal with Professors Nisus and Blough, and their academic dean, Professor Jacques Buchhold, I was reminded of those fundamental truths that hold the evangelical free churches together. (The Paris seminary, whose leading scholar is the highly respected Calvinist theologian, Henri Blocher, has an evangelical confession. You may consider her history here and her confession here.) And yet, even among the free churches, we must admit that we maintain ecclesiastical divisions. I pray these, too, will be overcome, for the sake of our witness to the gospel.