There’s a hill near where my parents live that stands up out of the plain.  It’s probably an old volcanic cone.  An old family trust owns it and from time out of mind there have been three crosses on the top and the local Catholics hike up there on Good Friday.  This year my father and a few of his cronies in the ward are going to join them.

Like this

Good Friday as the traditional name for the day of the Savior’s death is a bit ironically  named given the traditions surrounding the day.  In medieval Christendom, all Fridays were considered to be dark and unlucky because of Good Friday.  They didn’t eat meat on Fridays, as a form of mourning fast.    In their church services the candles were snuffed out.  The processions were woeful.

Which was and is entirely appropriate.  The rhythm of mourning on Friday and rejoicing on Sunday is right and natural.  We are joining the early apostles and saints in their sense of defeat after defeat on Friday, with the wholly unexpected shattering victory on Sunday.  Even with our knowledge that Christ’s agony and cross were essential to his work, you can’t easily think of death and torture as good.

But there is an important sense in which today’s Friday is  Good Friday.  There is an extremely important sense in which on this day Christ won victory after victory and Sunday is not an  unexpected reversal but the climax win of a Man who has won and won and won again.

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The sun rises, the rainbow appears, the good times come again better than before, you are back home, the winter is over, singing breaks the silence, your friend and master defeats the grave.

Anderson

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Christ raised up on  a tree.

The lamb slain at the paschal feast.

We will be fasting all tomorrow if anyone wants to join us.

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The last supper.  Gethsemane.  Betrayed by  his friends and apostles.

Last year’s post.  Really excellent links on why an angel appeared in the garden and why Christ had to atone twice.

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Maundy Thursday

 The last supper — This is my body, this is my blood — Gethsemane (meaning oil press, symbolically meaningful) — The betrayal.

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The second coming – signs of the times – parables of judgment – the marvelous teaching about the sheep and the goats – inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren , ye have done it unto me (more…)

Matthew 21-23:  Presently the fig tree withered away — Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness — upon you come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar — For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

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God is love, Christ violently drove the wicked from the temple.  Turn the cheek, wield the whip.  Lion and lamb.

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Royal triumph entering Jerusalem — In the mouth of babes and little children —

— If these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out.

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Here are a selection of JG posts on the Atonement. Feel free to add more in the comments, or links to elsewhere. Also feel free to discuss any of the posts for which comments are now closed.

The Strange Doctrine of the Double Atonement (in other words, why both Gethsemane and the Cross?)

Unexpected Lessons in Theology from Dead Economists

the Royal Largesse Theory of the Atonement

The Meaningful Choice Theory of the Atonement

On the sweetness of Mormon life.

Easter Morning. You take family pictures under the Bradford Pear. Then you take more pictures after you remember to remove the hanging mosquito trap.

You go to church. You take the sacrament. A girl receives the gift of the Holy Ghost.

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