Good Friday: God is Dead

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

Ecce lignum Crucis, in quo salus mundi pepéndit. Veníte adorémus.

Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world. Come let us adore.

(Missale Romanum: Friday of the Passion of the Lord)

He was condemned by his own people, abandoned by his friends, and 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:

1992 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.

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 3:00 PM local time, the hour of Christ’s death. Some churches will begin the Good Friday Liturgy then, and some will begin the Way of the Cross and hold the Good Friday Liturgy later in the evening.

Either way, from that moment until the Resurrection on Easter morning, in some true sense, God was dead.

Today, God Himself was laid into the tomb.