Love is his way: understanding Good Friday

On Good Friday, on that wretched cross, Jesus sacrificed himself not out of a sense of duty or fear, but out of love, because it was the will of the Father.

Growing up in my Akan culture in the western part of Ghana, death was a topic that elderly people discouraged us from discussing. Though my people are always curious about the cause of someone’s death, such news rarely becomes common knowledge.

When I began seminary training in 2016 with formation in philosophy, we learnt that the whole exercise originated in people questioning reality – and from their curiosity, they began asking some fundamental questions that cultural myths had once served to answer. By asking “what”, “why”, “when” and “how” about God, Man and Things, the ancient Greeks started philosophising. We too found ourselves asking difficult questions about God and Death that our society preferred to avoid.

One of the hot arguments back then brought the two together: why did Jesus Christ die on a cross to save humanity? If God is omnipotent, why didn’t he use another method to save us without shedding the blood of his beloved Son?

The Akan are not so reticent about discussing the death of Jesus. Theologians, historians and scripture scholars have shown how Easter overcomes the thing we fear, restoring us to the divine life that we lost due to the Original Sin: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). In the death of Jesus, we see God conquering humanity’s greatest fear, death as the consequence of sin and that original rupture in the relationship between the Creator and the created. We can talk about this almost comfortably.

But there is no simple equation for salvation. Jesus’ death is not a stand-alone event but part of the ongoing “Paschal Mystery” – by his death Christ liberates us from sin, and by his Resurrection he opens for us the way to a new life. In my studies I found myself wondering why this reconciliation had to be effected and signalled in this way. Why couldn’t the omnipotent and eternal God make a declaration from the skies to affirm that our sins are atoned for and that we now can share eternal life, so nobody would be in any doubt? Did the Paschal Mystery need to be so mysterious?

Such a sign could never be enough. My colleagues and I, along with philosophers, theologians, empiricists and scientists, would still be asking for proof that there is eternal life. No wonder the story didn’t end on Good Friday but continued to the glorification of Easter Sunday, and on to the Ascension. The simpler explanation we might choose would not in the end prove any more satisfying than those myths that the Greeks first interrogated.

Before we can come to grips with anything God does, we have first to acknowledge that His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts – they are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8). Deuteronomy 32:4 reminds us: “The Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God without deceit, just and upright is he.” His plan of salvation is perfect, just, and upright; no one could have come up with anything better. I have learnt to spend less time at Easter wondering why things happened and instead ponder what did happen. The humiliations, torture, betrayal, spittle of the soldiers, the wretched cross, the crown of thorns, and the scourging all have a lot to teach me about the cost of discipleship. But what strikes me most is that Jesus said “Yes” to all these out of obedience to the Father.

What God has always asked of humanity is “filial love”, our share in the covenantal relationship which we have struggled and failed to offer – and even to understand – since time immemorial. On Good Friday, on that wretched cross, Jesus sacrificed himself not out of a sense of duty or fear, but because it was the will of the Father.

God the Son demonstrated that filial love to God the Father on behalf of humanity and showed us how to respond to the covenant. We can learn not only that the price of discipleship may be heavy and unbearable, but also that the response to this price is the trust and love that allows us to say “Yes”.

Since Jesus was not only Man but also God, his death was a twofold expression of love – not only of Man for God, but also of God for Man. It is also God’s share in the covenant, a deep agape love for his creation. What we really contemplate on Good Friday is not death, but love. I think St John of the Cross put its best: “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”

Emmanuel Ofori Donkor is a Spiritan seminarian.