Lockdown Day 15: GOOD FRIDAY PEOPLE

Today, for the first time in our generation, the global Church will meet in homes and not in church buildings. Today, denominational Christianity will be non-existent and from the sacredness of family gatherings, the heavenly Church will emerge. How glorious that we are forced to imitate the early church in such a unique and special way. No generation has been more gloriously prepared to receive the message of a Saviour than ours. COVID-19 came like a “John the Baptist” and prepared the way for the Father of compassion to penetrate the hearts of anguish, deliver lives of fear and restore souls in captivity. How great is our God. Halleluiah

But .. what we BECOME as believers because of the cross is far more important than what we GET from the cross. For the world the Lord offers salvation, for believers He seeks transformation. There is an indispensable need for Christians to become visible GOOD FRIDAY people – crucified, sacrificial, forgiving and Christ-like.

A vivid picture of Christ calling His disciples to a lifestyle of sacrifice is found in John 20:19-21. It is the evening after the resurrection of Christ and the disciples are together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews. Suddenly Jesus comes and stands among them. But Jesus does not ‘introduce’ Himself verbally by saying “Look, it’s Me, do you recognize Me?” or “Do you recognize My voice?” No, He simply shows them His hands and His side, the marks of the cross, and immediately the disciples recognize Jesus and they are glad. The ‘cross marks’ of Christ become the ‘trademark’ of the Church. This is the ‘ID document’ of every Christian.

But Jesus does not stop there. He brings a word of peace to them and after He blesses them, he instructs them: “As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you.” This incident created a benchmark for the Church. You will always recognize the resurrected Lord by His wounds, and you will always recognize a true believer and a true Church by their sacrifices. A true Church is, therefore, a sacrificial Church.

Take this tip to heart. We will only prove the existence of our crucified Lord through our crucified lives, never by our abundance.

As we sat down in front of Pastor Joseph, we were amazed at the humility and tranquillity of this man of God. He shared the traumatic events of a few months ago when he was attacked on the streets of his village in Egypt. “I was on my way to visit some of my church members when a group attacked me in the street. I have been attacked many times in the past but this was the most severe attack. They started beating me with iron pipes and eventually only stopped because they thought I was dead. They left me in the street in a pool of blood. I suffered a fractured skull and my ribs punctured my liver. It was only by the grace of God that I survived.

Then Pastor Joseph pulled up the sleeves of his blazer and showed us the scars on his arms where he was beaten. His words deeply touched our hearts and impacted our lives: “The scars on my body are for me the honour of serving Jesus.

We are indeed called to be a Good Friday people, bearing the scars of Christ, and not only an Easter Sunday people. The idea of the sacrificial, wounded Saviour is central to Christian theology. The testimony of freedom lies not in the fact that we are free to choose, but in the fact that we are free to become imitators of a crucified Christ, in word and in deed.