God is Dead

Today is Good Friday: the commemoration of the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ at Calvary.

Behold the wood of the cross, on which has hung our salvation: come let us adore.

(Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion)

He was condemned by his own people, abandoned by his friends, sentenced to death by the Roman Prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate.

He was scourged, mocked, crowned with thorns, and ultimately suffered the most brutal death that the genius of Imperial Rome had devised.

And why? I have written elsewhere on the Atonement, but the Catechism simply says this:

Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. (CCC 1992)

This is based on the words of Saint Paul: “[Believers] are justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as an expiation, through faith, by his blood…” (Romans 3:24-25)

He died for us. We killed him, and he died for us.

All over the world, Good Friday services begin at 3:00PM local time, the hour of Christ’s death. From that moment until the Resurrection on Easter morning, in some true sense, God was dead.