What If There Was No Good Friday?

This evening I read a chapter from the book The Collected What If? Eminent Historians Imagining What Might Have Been by Robert Cowley titled "Pontius Pilate Spares Jesus: Christianity without the Crucifixion" by Carlos M. N. Eire. It was interesting to hear one man's thoughts on what the effects of this omission might have been.

Of course, from a Christian's perspective, this omission would be the most significant omission possible in all creation, but the simple telling of what earth may have looked like had Jesus died of old age sounds deceptively innocent. In the account Eire gives, the world moves on, societies progress and grow, and religion continues. Jesus is mistaken for a mere prophet. And the world thanks him for teaching submission and nonviolence and love and that Gentiles are welcomed to worship the God of Israel, too. And it all sounds rather okay and normal.

But what is mankind without the cross? What is the story of creation without Jesus' sacrifice? Without His suffering and wounding, and His silence in the face of false accusations? It is so easy for us to live our lives as though the cross never happened because we are blind to reality. We do not really understand that none of our history or our future makes any sense without the crucifixion--that there is a larger story being told, a story of redemption. And without the cross, the story is lost.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to say with this post and so I am not saying it very well, heh. But I am glad for a day--a Good Friday--to remember that there was a cross, that Pontius Pilate did not spare Jesus because it was not God's will, and that the story of redemption continues because the Lamb of God was sacrificed for the sins of the world. And now all may become citizens of the coming Kingdom of Heaven because of what the Son of God did and not because of anything we do. This is indeed gospel--good news.

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!
- John the Baptist (John 1:29)