Why We Are Silent

 Two days ago, I went to my first Good Friday service. Growing up I had never attended one, but John had. There was a choir, special music, and a Good Friday sermon. At the end of the service, the pastor asked that we respectfully leave in silence. I thought this was just something for our church, but J told me that most churches end their Good Friday in that manner.

We leave in silence not because we are sad that Jesus died. Yes, that is part of it, but when Jesus died, He had already secured His victory. He said, “It is finished.” Although Jesus’ death was awful, and we should grieve for what He went through, the silence of Good Friday isn’t meant to contemplate our sadness for Jesus, but our grief for why He had to die.

Saying, “We are sad because of what Jesus went through” is fine, but it takes the blame off of us. The sadness of Jesus’ death is not only what He went through, but why He went through it. It is because of our grievous sin. Christians don’t like to think about our sins and our unworthiness. We’d rather think about how we are loved, how God cares for us, and how we are God’s child – those things are much more comfortable and acceptable.

We love to tout Easter as a symbol of God’s love for us – and God does love us… but Easter is not about us. We’d much rather celebrate the fact that we are loved than the fact that we are sinners undeserving of this love.

Saying simply, “God loves us” is just another feel-good statement to add to the world’s bulletin board, along with other self-affirming phrases like, “You are perfect just the way you are.” I’m not saying that we shouldn’t talk about God’s love, because the Bible has a lot to say about it! But in our culture, focusing solely on God’s love isn’t enough. Many people would be perfectly happy to be loved by God – it’s an abstract, happy concept. But realizing that we are loved by God despite the fact we are unworthy, that our sins warrant such a terrible death, that Easter is not about us – those facts are not as popular.

Yes, God does love us.

But let us not stop there.

Friday: Why we are silent.

Sunday: Why we rejoice.