A defining moment: Good Friday

"Here we have Christianity reduced to 12 hours, the least interesting 12 hours of Jesus's life, religiously speaking." That's how William Schweiker, University of Chicago theological ethics professor, described Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ.

The suffering and death of Jesus may be "the least interesting" to Prof. Schweiker, but the church closest to Jesus did not share that judgement. "Christ died for our sins"is part of the essential tradition Paul passed on to his students "as of first importance." It is clearly an important plank in the gospel on which "we stand and by which we are saved."

For many today, Jesus was a wandering folk pastor, dispensing inspiration and challenge in clever parables and memorable sayings. The core of his teaching was a call to reject religious formalism and embrace love for each other. The death of Jesus, in this view, was the sad end of a hopeful life cut tragically short. And in this view, a movie like The Parables of the Christ would be more interesting, religiously speaking.

The early church did not share that evaluation. They embraced the cross as a central image of what Jesus meant. They celebrated Jesus as the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world. Far from being the "least interesting" part of his earthly ministry, these final hours were the culmination, the fulfillment, the climax of that earthly ministry.

Consider some other famous assassinations of wise teachers of recent memory. Mohandas K. Gandhi on Friday, January 30, 1948. John F. Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr., on Thursday, April 3, 1968. People don't celebrate these deaths as Good Thursdays or Good Fridays. These are days of tragedy, not celebration. They were days of loss, days of premature, violent ends of wise, inspiring leaders.

Good Friday was violent, far more so than those other days. But the church soon realized it was not just a day of loss. It was a day when something important was gained. For Jesus did not simply die, "Christ died for our sins." As Peter put it, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." 1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)

Other deaths are simply times of loss, but the death of Jesus was more than that. Somehow his death "for our sins" gave us a powerful spiritual benefit. And so, the early church found something worth celebrating in that. Celebrating with sadness, to be sure, but still celebrating.

If Jesus were simply an itinerant teacher offering insights into ancient wisdom, then his death would have been profoundly uninteresting. But he was more than simply a teacher. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Those hours of his suffering and death, far from being "least interesting," are really the beginning of what makes his earthly ministry unique, special, and valuable.