Good Friday is All About Jesus and Attitude

[HKHaugan]

Good Friday is All About Jesus and Attitude 

Attitudes are strongholds our hearts develop apart from God, forged consciously and unconsciously, hiding deep within (2Cor.10:5). Think they don’t exist? Read on.

 First, they are the judgments we make about others. There is a heap of ‘judging-by-appearance’ attitudes. You know, ---fat, skinny, snobbish, strange, jerk, lousy dresser, stereotypic remarks that end up assuming ‘they’re all like that,’ etc. Take those non-verbal eye-to-eye nods we give one another when something questionable is said by someone.

 Second, they are the self-inflicted attitudes like the ‘I-could-kick-myself’ kind, others like ‘No-matter-what-I-do-I-can’t-win’ kind, then the no-one-ever-takes-me-seriously,’ ‘no-matter-what-I-do-nothing-ever-comes-out-right.” Then to top them off there’s always the “I’m offended” which shuts everyone out. Attitudes apart from God are the onset of relational as well as social paranoia which can even develop into pathological behavior. Any kind of terrorism, rioting and emotionally hostile public demonstrations are evidence of self-centered hearts having no other perspective than personal assumption.

Third, attitudes come in all flavors and sizes. They serve to predetermine what another person or situation is like before we know anything about them. If you really analyze their source, you’ll find they are the heart’s attempt at self-protection. Now here’s the rub on the heart. It is desperately hungry for relationships but at the same time afraid of trying what it takes to get them. Attitude apart from God is the heart’s strategic maneuver to avoid rejection which produces relational isolation which produces depression which produces aloneness and the attitudes developed to compensate. An attitude built around past pain or pleasure is a stronghold that becomes an idol with neither truth nor substance.

 Now what has all this got to do with Jesus and Good Friday? It was attitudes apart from God that put Jesus on the Cross. All you have to do is read the Gospel accounts from the time Jesus was baptized up to His Crucifixion. In them you will see the reactions of everyone from the religious authorities to the Roman governor, the local populace and even the disciples, that were arrayed against Him. Fear produced conspiracy, personality destruction, insults and threats. Every known relational weapon met Him wherever He went. He was totally and completely rejected by every single person. Not even His mother and John, the only disciple there with Him at the Cross, were exempt. They were trapped in the emotional bonds of a cultural mindset and only the despair of the moment was their reality. It would take the Resurrection and Pentecost to break through the lostness of the daily moment-to-moment atmosphere of resigned desperation all people endured and died within. He embraced it all, took them on His shoulders, felt their pain and isolation from God, the aloneness we all know and fear, shed His blood and let His life slip into death in our place, taking on Himself the penalty for the sin that caused it all.

Today, Good Friday, is our turn to put ourselves alongside Jesus and do as He said, “Take up you cross and follow me.” Paul gives us the best solution for today when he writes to the Philippians and offers one attitude to replace all others:

 “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of as servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in Heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (2:5-11).”